This week’s articles highlight structural insights into peptide loading of MHC; the mechanism by which light opens a channel protein; and how regulation of a host metabolic enzyme affects viral replication.
IMMUNOLOGY
Two snapshots of the TAPBPR–MHC I complex
Thomas and Tampé used two different approaches to generate complementary structures of TAPBPR in complex with MHC I (see also Cresswell).
STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
The inner workings of an optogenetic tool
Volkov et al. found that channelrhodopsin has an intricate hydrogen-bonding network that is perturbed by light activation resulting in channel opening (see also Gerwert).
VIRAL IMMUNITY
Host RNA helps promote viral replication
Wang et al. showed that a virus-induced cytoplasmic lncRNA enhances viral replication by regulating a host cell metabolic enzyme (see also Kotzin et al.).