Andrea Dallapè

💪 NEW VIDEO:
Flying over the A-band of an atomic-scale model of a vertebrate muscle sarcomere. Let's explore the molecular mechanics that make your muscles work.

Rendered using @bradyajohnston.bsky.social 's molecular nodes

Model based on the incredible work of the @raunser-lab.bsky.social lab

Excited to share this detailed biophysical study of #PhaseSeparation in the Pyrenoid, an algal microcompartment that fixes a third of the Earth's #CO2 🌏. We combine methods across scales, in vitro 🧪 and in vivo 🦠

Thanks for the very fun collaboration! 🤗
#PlantScience 🌾 #TeamTomo 🔬 #LivingPhysics 🧬🧶

🚀 CryoSPARC v5.0 BETA is here!

We’re excited to deploy another major #CryoSPARC release to help enable and accelerate #cryoEM data analysis. v5 has a redesigned underlying software system and many new features - highlights in thread!

Full changelog: cryosparc.com/updates/v5.0.0

Check out our new preprint! We uncover the full molecular mechanism of rotavirus membrane penetration and cytosolic escape using cryo-ET, live-cell imaging, and single-molecule assays. (1/3)

🔗 biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Muyuan Chen, Muchen Li, Renjie Liao: Point transformer for protein structural heterogeneity analysis using CryoEM https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18713 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.18713 https://arxiv.org/html/2601.18713

LLOMe has long been used to study lysosomal damage, yet how it works has remained a mystery.
Using cryo-electron tomography, we show it forms amyloid structures inside lysosomes that mechanically rupture membranes – revealing a new paradigm for lysosomal failure.

🔗 doi.org/10.64898/202...

#CryoET

Gradient based refinement of CryoET tilt series alignment improves tomogram contrast and structure resolution www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.16.699989v1 #cryoEM

"Use it or lose it." This is great advice for exercise, but when cells need to slow down or go dormant, they need to store ribosomes to recover growth in the future. They use hibernation factors to do this. Here is our latest story on how archaea hibernate ribosomes (1/7):
doi.org/10.64898/202...

1/10
In this thread we will explain you how we put together
#SPT #SMLM #cryoET #cryoCLEM + #modeling
to learn about the higher-order mechanism that controls exocytosis (constitutive exocytosis, the one😜)

(Illustrative animation made by the amazing Dylan Godfrey)

💡Solving decades-long mysteries with cryoEM. 💥Brilliant science + best tech = life-saving medical research. Shaping the future of health through bold new approaches.

#ParkinsonsDisease

We are thrilled to share our latest work uncovering the mechanistic basis of target-directed microRNA degradation (TDMD). This work was driven by @jakobfarnung.bsky.social and @elenaslo.bsky.social in a fantastic collaboration with Brenda Schulman's lab. tinyurl.com/E3TDMD (1/5)

We resolved the molecular architecture of a condensate—inside cells. 🤯 By combining in situ cryoET with multiscale simulations, we show how a single point mutation modifies molecular interactions, shifts the condensate’s material properties, and alters its biological function. Preprint 👇

Happy to finally share the amazing results of our long-term collaboration with Karin Reinisch’s lab on how bridge lipid-transfer proteins (BLTPs) cooperate with partner proteins to orchestrate lipid delivery. A quick thread (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Thrilled to share our latest work @luptoncj.bsky.social @drellisdon.bsky.social @drmlhalls.bsky.social.

Structure of the lysosomal KICSTOR-GATOR1-SAMTOR nutrient-sensing supercomplex.

🧪🔬#cryoEM
Now online @cellpress.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

❄️ With all the snow outside, I felt like sharing a cryo tomogram:

A neuronal synapse, captured by cryo-ET at the moment a neurotransmitter-filled vesicle fuses at the active zone.

Fusion was triggered optogenetically and arrested by plunge freezing.

More details: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In the absence of m¹G37, we directly visualize the formation of four, and even five, codon-anticodon base pairs on the ribosome, thereby capturing a long-standing hypothesis for +1 frameshifting.

I’ve been behind on highlighting a few recent papers—more posts coming soon.

Structural reorganization underlying stress-induced cytoplasmicsolidification in yeast https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.696049v1

Latest preprint from our lab reports that the distinct pH of anterograde (less acidic) and retrograde (more acidic) lysosomal vesicles in the axon depends on assembly of the V1 and V0 domains of the vacuolar H+ ATPase, mediated by the metazoan RAVE complex www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway.

And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.

Self-renewal of neuronal mitochondria through asymmetric division Mitochondrial ATP production is essential for life. Mitochondrial function depends on the spatio-temporal coordination of nuclear and mitochondrial genome expression, yet how this coordination occurs ...

⚡️Mitochondria make ATP, the energy that powers life. But in neurons, with axons up to a meter long, how do these tiny power plants stay functional in the right places? We went looking. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

very unusual - a tRNA regulated anion channel

Congratulations Jan 💪

Blender rendering of TLR4 in membrane and TIRAP fibrils at the plamsma membrane.

Blender rendering of TLR4 in membrane and TIRAP fibrils at the plamsma membrane. View from the cytosol.

In our new preprint, we show how fibril-dynamics of signaling component TIRAP supports sensitive & fast sensing of endotoxin LPS. Congrats to co-lead @arthurfelker.bsky.social. @piehlerlab.bsky.social @arnemoeller.bsky.social #TLR #cryoEM #blender doi.org/10.64898/202...

🔬 Just out in @NatureComms!
Using cryo-CLEM and cryo-ET, we reveal the unique ultrastructure of dopaminergic varicosities in the striatum.
Amazing collaboration with @davip-bdx.bsky.social and Etienne Herzog @iins-bordeaux.bsky.social
Congratulations to Paul and Robin for this fantastic work! 🎉

An RNA splicing system that excises DNA transposons from animal mRNAs - Nature A new type of mRNA splicing mechanism discovered in Caenorhabditis elegans that detects and removes inverted repeats also occurs in human cells, thereby providing another strategy to protect against t...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

IsoNet2 determines cellular structures at submolecular resolution without averaging https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.09.693325v1

#cryoEM 🧪⚛️ Lena’s paper on imaging thick biological sections with STEM is finally published! We started this work almost 10 years ago. After Lena passed in 2023, I spent much of my sabbatical working with Yue and Steve to wrap this up. Also learned a lot about TEM vs STEM dose efficiency

✨New preprint!

🧵1/4 Excited to share our work on AI-guided design of minimal RNA-guided nucleases. Amazing work by @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social et al!
Multi-lab collaboration @banfieldlab.bsky.social @jhdcate.bsky.social @jacobsenucla.bsky.social🧬

🔗👇

Method of the Year 2025: electron microscopy-based connectomics - Nature Methods A large network of interconnected neurons serves as the basis of brain function and of behavior. Methodological advances have enabled the reconstruction of large-scale and even whole-brain connectomes...

Our Method of the Year 2025 is...drumroll please...EM-based connectomics!!

Our Editorial introduces our choice and highlights six Comments and other related content in this special issue. Please join us in celebrating EM-based connectomics! 🎉🧠🔬

www.nature.com/articles/s41...