Tal Levin, Hector Garcia-Seisdedos, Arseniy Lobov, Matthias Wojtynek, Alexander Alexandrov, Ghil Jona, Dikla Levi, Ohad Medalia, Emmanuel D Levy
{"title":"Mutation-induced filaments of folded proteins are inert and non-toxic in a cellular system.","authors":"Tal Levin, Hector Garcia-Seisdedos, Arseniy Lobov, Matthias Wojtynek, Alexander Alexandrov, Ghil Jona, Dikla Levi, Ohad Medalia, Emmanuel D Levy","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00144-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44320-025-00144-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Filamentous protein assemblies are essential for cellular functions but can also form aberrantly through mutations that induce self-interactions between folded protein subunits. These assemblies, which we refer to as agglomerates, differ from aggregates and amyloids that arise from protein misfolding. While cells have quality control mechanisms to identify, buffer, and eliminate aggregates, it is unknown whether similar mechanisms exist for agglomerates. Here, we define and characterize this distinct class of assemblies formed by the polymerization of folded proteins. To systematically assess their cellular impact, we developed a simple in-cell assay that distinguishes agglomerates from aggregates based on co-assembly with wild-type subunits. Unlike misfolded aggregates, we show that agglomerates retain their folded state, do not colocalize with the proteostasis machinery, and are not ubiquitinated. Moreover, agglomerates cause no detectable growth defects. Quantitative proteomics also revealed minor changes in protein abundance in cells expressing agglomerates. These results position agglomerates as a structurally and functionally distinct class of protein assemblies that are largely inert in cells, highlighting their potential as building blocks for intracellular engineering and synthetic biology.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1306-1324"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12494878/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145069574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Protein aggregate or agglomerate: similar punctate structure with distinct biological profiles.","authors":"Rui Sun, Yu Liu","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00143-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44320-025-00143-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1287-1289"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12494750/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145069746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gábor Holló, Jung Hun Park, Emanuele Boni, Yolanda Schaerli
{"title":"A tool for modeling gene regulatory networks (GRN_modeler) and its applications to synthetic biology.","authors":"Gábor Holló, Jung Hun Park, Emanuele Boni, Yolanda Schaerli","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00148-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00148-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Modeling and simulating gene regulatory networks (GRNs) is crucial for understanding biological processes, predicting system behavior, interpreting experimental data and guiding the design of synthetic systems. In synthetic biology, GRNs are fundamental to enable the design and control of complex functions. However, GRN simulations can be time-consuming and often require specialized expertise. To address this challenge, we developed GRN_modeler - a user-friendly tool with a graphical user interface that enables users without programming experience to create phenomenological models, while also offering command-line support for advanced users. GRN_modeler supports the analysis of both dynamical behaviors and spatial pattern formation. We demonstrate its versatility through several examples in synthetic biology, including the design of novel oscillator families capable of robust oscillation with an even number of nodes, complementing the classical repressilator family, which requires odd-numbered nodes. Furthermore, we showcase how GRN_modeler allowed us to develop a light-detecting biosensor in Escherichia coli that tracks light intensity over several days and leaves a record in the form of ring patterns in bacterial colonies.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145192050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Phosphoproteomics of osimertinib-tolerant persister cells reveals targetable kinase-substrate signatures.","authors":"Hsiang-En Hsu, Matthew J Martin, Shao-Hsing Weng, Reta Birhanu Kitata, Srikar Nagelli, Chiung-Yun Chang, Sonja Hess, Yu-Ju Chen","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00141-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00141-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Osimertinib is the first-line therapy for EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer, but acquired resistance emerges in most patients and remains a major barrier for complete cure. This phenomenon is most likely associated with the drug-tolerant persister (DTP) cell phenotype, a reversible state that enables survival under treatment and leads to irreversible drug resistance. To uncover the molecular mechanism driving this distinct phenotype, we applied data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) to establish the dynamic proteomic and phosphoproteomic landscape in the osimertinib DTPs. While osimertinib initially blocks EGFR signaling, ribosome synthesis and protein translation related pathways arise in DTP phase, and resistance developed through the reactivation of EGFR downstream pathways and anti-apoptotic mechanisms such as YAP1 and mTOR-BAD hyperphosphorylation, as validated by growth combination assays. Kinase enrichment revealed elevated phosphorylation of multiple CDK1 substrates in DTP phase and pharmacological or genetic inhibition of CDK1-mediated SAMHD1 activation significantly impair DTP growth and survival. This study illuminates the dynamic landscape underlying the DTPs biology and identifies biomarker and new targets to potentially prevent or delay the onset of resistance.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145192034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Deelen, Zoe H Mitchell, Martina Demurtas, Andria Koulle, Beatriz Garcia Del Valle, Marco Trizzino
{"title":"Hominoid-specific transposable elements reshaped neural crest migration in craniofacial development.","authors":"Laura Deelen, Zoe H Mitchell, Martina Demurtas, Andria Koulle, Beatriz Garcia Del Valle, Marco Trizzino","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00151-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00151-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Craniofacial development is evolutionarily conserved, yet subtle changes in its regulatory network drive species-specific traits. Transposable elements (TEs) contribute to genome evolution, but their role in cranial neural crest cells (CNCCs) remains unclear. Here, we investigate the domestication of hominoid-specific TEs (LTR5Hs and SVAs) as enhancers during human CNCC specification, a process critical for vertebrate craniofacial development. Using human iPSC-derived CNCCs, we identified ~515 hominoid-specific TEs functioning as enhancers, including ~250 human-specific, predominantly LTR5Hs. These elements are enriched for CNCC coordinator motifs, are bound by the CNCC signature factor TWIST1, and their enhancer activity appears largely CNCC-specific. CRISPR-interference targeting ~75% of these active TEs led to widespread transcriptional dysregulation of genes involved in neural crest migration, and two orthogonal functional assays confirmed that CNCC migration is impaired upon TE repression. Finally, genes near human-specific TEs showed higher expression in human CNCCs compared to chimpanzee CNCCs, but TE repression restored gene expression to chimpanzee levels. These findings highlight how young TEs were domesticated to fine-tune CNCC regulatory networks, potentially contributing to lineage-specific craniofacial evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145125259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jean-Baptiste Richard, Anna Hoyle, Molly Bower, Shihong Wu, Leia Worthington, Sarah Davidson, Zofia Varyova, Caroline Morrell, Mathilde Pohin, Barbora Schonfeldova, Zhi Yi Wong, Lucy MacDonald, Mariola Kurowska-Stolarska, Stephanie G Dakin, Irina Udalova, Calliope A Dendrou, Anja Schwenzer, Christopher D Buckley, Kim S Midwood
{"title":"Synovial matrix turnover controls immune cell spatial patterning in inflammation resolution.","authors":"Jean-Baptiste Richard, Anna Hoyle, Molly Bower, Shihong Wu, Leia Worthington, Sarah Davidson, Zofia Varyova, Caroline Morrell, Mathilde Pohin, Barbora Schonfeldova, Zhi Yi Wong, Lucy MacDonald, Mariola Kurowska-Stolarska, Stephanie G Dakin, Irina Udalova, Calliope A Dendrou, Anja Schwenzer, Christopher D Buckley, Kim S Midwood","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00149-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00149-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases remain plagued by poor treatment responses and lack curative therapies. Convergent findings suggest a role for the stromal compartment and extracellular matrix composition dysregulation. Using rheumatoid arthritis as a model, we define an analytical pipeline combining transcriptomic, proteomic and degradomic analysis to characterise disease activity-specific matrix perturbations. This revealed synergistic contributions from fibroblasts and myeloid cells to matrix composition, with fibroblast subsets defining distinct subsynovial niches through distinct matrix expression profiles. Transcriptional dysregulation of collagen VI was found to be a feature of RA activity, with collagen VI protein accumulation linked to remission-associated states. Spatial analysis and in vitro migration showed collagen VI inhibits immune ingress, confining infiltrating cells to perivascular pockets termed \"COL6 dark\" zones. Matrix degradation-associated monocytes were found at the leading edge of these zones, expanding immune-permissive niches, and releasing RA-associated collagen VI fragments. Our work reveals how dynamic matrix remodelling can in turn limit, and enable, cell immigration in RA, identifying a new mechanism controlling tissue-level disease activity.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145125183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ulad Litvin, Spyros Lytras, Alexander Jack, David L Robertson, Joseph Hughes, Joe Grove
{"title":"Viro3D: a comprehensive database of virus protein structure predictions.","authors":"Ulad Litvin, Spyros Lytras, Alexander Jack, David L Robertson, Joseph Hughes, Joe Grove","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00147-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00147-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Viruses are genetic parasites of cellular life. Tolerance to genetic change, high mutation rates, adaptations to hosts, and immune escape have driven extensive sequence divergence of viral genes, hampering phylogenetic inference and functional annotation. Protein structure, however, is more conserved, allowing searches for distant homologs and revealing otherwise obscured evolutionary histories. Viruses are underrepresented in current protein structure databases, but this can be addressed by recent advances in machine learning. Using AlphaFold2-ColabFold and ESMFold, we predicted structures for >85,000 proteins from >4400 viruses, expanding viral coverage 30 times compared to experimental structures. Using this data, we map form and function across the human and animal virosphere and examine the evolutionary history of viral class-I fusion glycoproteins, revealing the potential origins of coronavirus spike glycoprotein. Our database, Viro3D ( https://viro3d.cvr.gla.ac.uk/ ), will allow the virology community to fully benefit from the structure prediction revolution, facilitating fundamental molecular virology and structure-informed design of therapies and vaccines.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145075824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AI-guided Cas9 engineering provides an effective strategy to enhance base editing.","authors":"Dongyi Wei, Peng Cheng, Ziguo Song, Yixin Liu, Xiaoran Xu, Xingxu Huang, Xiaolong Wang, Yu Zhang, Wenjie Shu, Yongchang Wei","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00142-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00142-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Precise genome editing is crucial for functional studies and therapies. Base editors, while powerful, require optimization for efficiency. Meanwhile, emerging protein design methods and protein language models have driven efficient and intelligent protein engineering. In this study, we employed the Protein Mutational Effect Predictor (ProMEP) to predict the effects of single-site saturated mutations in Cas9 protein, using AncBE4max as the prototype to construct and test 18 candidate point mutations. Based on this, we further predicted combinations of multiple mutations and successfully developed a high-performance variant AncBE4max-AI-8.3, achieving a 2-3-fold increase in average editing efficiency. Introducing the engineered Cas9 into CGBE, YEE-BE4max, ABE-max, and ABE-8e improved their editing performance. The same strategy also substantially improves the efficiencies of HF-BEs. Stable enhancement in editing efficiency was also observed across seven cancer cell lines and human embryonic stem cells. In conclusion, we validated that AI models can serve as more effective protein engineering tools, providing a universal improvement strategy for a series of gene editing tools.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145069086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chad S Weldy, Soumya Kundu, João Monteiro, Wenduo Gu, Albert J Pedroza, Alex R Dalal, Matthew D Worssam, Daniel Li, Brian Palmisano, Quanyi Zhao, Disha Sharma, Trieu Nguyen, Ramendra Kundu, Michael P Fischbein, Jesse Engreitz, Anshul B Kundaje, Paul P Cheng, Thomas Quertermous
{"title":"Epigenomic landscape of single vascular cells reflects developmental origin and disease risk loci.","authors":"Chad S Weldy, Soumya Kundu, João Monteiro, Wenduo Gu, Albert J Pedroza, Alex R Dalal, Matthew D Worssam, Daniel Li, Brian Palmisano, Quanyi Zhao, Disha Sharma, Trieu Nguyen, Ramendra Kundu, Michael P Fischbein, Jesse Engreitz, Anshul B Kundaje, Paul P Cheng, Thomas Quertermous","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00140-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44320-025-00140-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Vascular sites have distinct susceptibility to atherosclerosis and aneurysm, yet the epigenomic and transcriptomic underpinning of vascular site-specific disease risk is largely unknown. Here, we performed single-cell chromatin accessibility (scATACseq) and gene expression profiling (scRNAseq) of mouse vascular tissue from three vascular sites. Through interrogation of epigenomic enhancers and gene regulatory networks, we discovered key regulatory enhancers to not only be cell type, but vascular site-specific. We identified epigenetic markers of embryonic origin including developmental transcription factors such as Tbx20, Hand2, Gata4, and Hoxb family members and discovered transcription factor motif accessibility to be vascular site-specific for smooth muscle, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells. We further integrated genome-wide association data for aortic dimension, and using a deep learning model to predict variant effect on chromatin accessibility, ChromBPNet, we predicted variant effects across cell type and vascular site of origin, revealing genomic regions enriched for specific TF motif footprints-including MEF2A, SMAD3, and HAND2. This work supports a paradigm that cell type and vascular site-specific enhancers govern complex genetic drivers of disease risk.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145033631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jianbo Fu, Nienke van Unen, Andrei Sarlea, Nhan Nguyen, Martin Jaeger, Javier Botey Bataller, Valerie A C M Koeken, L Charlotte de Bree, Vera P Mourits, Simone J C F M Moorlag, Godfrey Temba, Vesla I Kullaya, Quirijn de Mast, Leo A B Joosten, Cheng-Jian Xu, Mihai G Netea, Yang Li
{"title":"Deciphering cross-cohort metabolic signatures of immune responses and their implications for disease pathogenesis.","authors":"Jianbo Fu, Nienke van Unen, Andrei Sarlea, Nhan Nguyen, Martin Jaeger, Javier Botey Bataller, Valerie A C M Koeken, L Charlotte de Bree, Vera P Mourits, Simone J C F M Moorlag, Godfrey Temba, Vesla I Kullaya, Quirijn de Mast, Leo A B Joosten, Cheng-Jian Xu, Mihai G Netea, Yang Li","doi":"10.1038/s44320-025-00146-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44320-025-00146-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The complex interplay between circulating metabolites and immune responses, which is pivotal to disease pathophysiology, remains poorly understood and understudied in systematic research. Here, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the immune response and circulating metabolome in two Western European cohorts (534 and 324 healthy individuals) and one from sub-Saharan Africa (323 healthy donors). At the metabolic level, our analysis revealed sex-specific differences in the correlation between phosphatidylcholine and cytokine responses following ex vivo stimulation. Notably, sphingomyelin exhibited a significant negative correlation with monocyte-derived cytokine production in response to Staphylococcus aureus stimulation, a finding that was validated through functional experiments. Subsequently, using Mendelian randomization analysis, we established a link between sphingomyelin and COVID-19 severity, providing compelling evidence for its modulatory role in immune responses during human infection. Collectively, our results represent a unique resource ( https://lab-li.ciim-hannover.de/apps/imetabomap/ ) for exploring metabolic signatures associated with immune function in different populations, highlighting sphingomyelin metabolism as a potential target in treating inflammatory and infectious diseases.</p>","PeriodicalId":18906,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Systems Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145033634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}