This week’s articles highlight progress in predicting T cell receptor specificity; an evolutionarily ancient form of antiviral defense; a mechanism of chemotherapy-induced cell death; metabolic rewiring in cancer cells; and structural insights into activation of a GPCR and of a mechanosensitive ion channel.
IMMUNOLOGY
Predicting TCR specificity
Dash et al. and Glanville et al. developed methods for using the sequence of a T cell receptor to predict its antigen specificity (see also Reddy).
Ancient antiviral defense
Aguado et al. showed that RNase III nucleases from plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates suppress replication of RNA viruses by binding to viral RNA and inhibiting the viral RNA polymerase.
CANCER
Chemotherapy-induced pyroptosis
Wang et al. found that chemotherapy drugs that activate caspase-3 trigger pyroptosis through a mechanism that depends on gasdermin E.
Metabolic rewiring through mTOR
Zabala-Letona et al. showed that mTORC1 promotes tumorigenesis by stimulating the synthesis of polyamines.
STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
GPCR activation
Gregorio et al. showed how ligand binding to the β2-adrenergic receptor allosterically affects nucleotide binding to the downstream G protein.
Coupling force to channel opening
Jin et al. used cryo–electron microscopy to investigate how force causes the mechanosensitive channel NOMPC to open.