MitoCarriers

Here, we critically review the structures of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) in apo and ligand-bound states, highlighting controversies with regard to the orientation in the inner membrane, interpretation of the transport states, and modelling of the inhibitors.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Recently, I saw a sun dog next to the cupola of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. It is a natural phenomena where hexagonal ice crystals in the sky deflect the sun light at a 22 degree angle. They function as a prism, like diamond dust, separating out the different wavelengths. Big shout out to Newton!

SLC25A45 is required for mitochondrial uptake of methylated amino acids and de novo carnitine biosynthesis Methylated amino acids accumulate upon the degradation of methylated proteins and are implicated in diverse metabolic and signaling pathways. Disturbe…

A brilliant new paper by @Marilia Meira Dias and @Thomas MacVicar and others is out! It has discovered that a mitochondrial carrier SLC25A45 is involved in the uptake of methylated lysine and arginine, a key step in carnitine biosynthesis!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A microscopic Tardigrade (water bear), walking across a glass slide. Extremely resilient, they can survive decades without food or water and can survive in direct exposure to space.

Extra-hard hexagonal diamonds can now be grown in a lab Hexagonal diamond up to 60 per cent stronger than normal diamonds could be used to create super-tough drilling and cutting tools for industrial applications

A harder form of diamond that has eluded scientists for decades can now be synthesised in the laboratory, and could be used to make extremely tough cutting and drilling tools.

Characterised members of the human SLC25 mitochondrial family. Members of the mitochondrial carriers are shown in rainbow (blue to red) cartoon and surface representations with their primary substrates shown in sphere representations to scale. Only one paralogue is shown.

Our review on the peculiar properties of mitochondrial carriers of the SLC25 family out: portlandpress.com/biochemj/art...

The Queen of the Night (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) blooms once a year at night.

Screenshot of article summary of: Toward Science-Led Publishing by Damian Pattinson, George Currie published as an opinion piece, in Learned Publishing Summary The current dynamic of scholarly publishing prioritises the wants of the publishing industry over the needs of the research community. This article explores this theme through the lens of ‘publisher-led science’ as a description of our current status quo, and through ‘science-led publishing’ as an improved future state. We argue that financial motivations central to most publishing distort how research is presented, how it is assessed and even what research is undertaken, leading to a system that hinders, rather than facilitates, scientific progress. We propose three elements of a science-led publishing approach that would accelerate research communication, incentivise collaboration between authors, editors and reviewers, and create a more transparent and equitable research landscape. We believe that research funding and research assessment are two of the primary levers for wider change in research and research culture and consider the future purpose of scholarly publishing in a world where these proposals have been widely adopted.

While academic publishing may not be broken, it isn’t built to serve science either. It runs on a chain of perverse incentives, but everything we need to rebuild it is already in our hands.

#OpenScience #AcademicSky
buff.ly/oSesI1s

Exclusive: NIH suspends dozens of pathogen studies over ‘gain-of-function’ concerns Trump executive order leads to pauses on U.S.-funded research into TB, influenza, COVID-19, and other diseases, dismaying some scientists

The White House has concerns about allegedly risky research on viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. In response, the National Institutes of Health is cracking down on dozens of studies it was funding. By @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social and @cohenjon.bsky.social. www.science.org/content/arti...

Japanese snow fairy bird 🇯🇵 😃

Thank you, Homa!

Remember to look up

Unwrapping the secrets of sugar metabolism - Trinity Hall Cambridge Ever wondered why eating something sugary gives you such an energy boost? It turns out that the secret lies within our cells, specifically in tiny structures called mitochondria, often dubbed the cell...

Trinity Hall covers our discovery
www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/news/unwrapp...

Molecular basis of pyruvate transport and inhibition of the human mitochondrial pyruvate carrier | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The UK’s academic recession is in full swing This university crisis is a grim scrabble for numbers

🎓Higher Education🎓
The UK’s universities are beleaguered and besieged. Redundancies continue to be announced. Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh, Kent, Queen’s Belfast, Sheffield; the list goes on and on. Perhaps 10,000 jobs will go in this academic year, and that’s just the beginning. #AcademicSky

The electron cryo-microscope adapted for use at liquid nitrogen temperatures within its custom-made black box.

A colder frontier in cryo-EM 🧪🔬

Chris Russo’s group, inc. Joshua Dickerson, adapted #cryoEM to work at liquid helium temperatures (13 kelvins), where every frame captured contains more information than the equivalent using liquid nitrogen (81 kelvins).

Read more: tinyurl.com/mwwcunkc

#LMBResearch

Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier: A Gateway to Future Metabolic Therapies Structural and mechanistic insights unveil MPC as a strategic target in cancer, liver disease, and mitochondrial medicine. World Mitochondria Society 2025 Copyright Fifty years after the mitochondrial...

Excellent summary of our paper and its implications for therapy.
wms-site.com/press-media/...

Proposed pH-dependent mechanism of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier. In the outward-open state, positively charged K49 and H86 bind pyruvate, initiating conformational changes to the inward-open state. The high matrix pH deprotonates H86, allowing pyruvate to leave.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧵
Here is Earth's rotation realized in an unusual way: using a camera scanning the landscape of Tivoli, Namibia, Bartosz Wojczyński focused on the sky.

He created a timelapse spanning 24 h that has a focal point in the sky rather than on the ground.

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap20070...

🔭 🧪 #galactic

Thank you! There was a terrible delay, but it is finally out!

Throwing a ‘spanner in the works’ of our cells’ machinery could help fight cancer, fatty liver disease… and hair loss | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

The Caribbean reef squid out on quite the show today. Wait for the dramatic 180 color change reverse off stage! 🦑🔄👻💨 #caribbeanreefsquid #reefsquid #squid #chromatophores #colorchange #poof #cephalopod #coral #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #bfi #noaa #aoml #coralcity

Albert Einstein died on this day, April 18, 1955.

It is incredible to hear Albert Einstein explain his famous formula, E=mc².

A leaked HHS proposal outlines an approximately 40% cut to the NIH budget and significant changes to its organization. That would spell destruction for U.S. science, Joshua Gordon told me.

My latest for @thetransmitter.bsky.social:

#neuroskyence 🧪

Thank you!

Molecular basis of pyruvate transport and inhibition of the human mitochondrial pyruvate carrier The mitochondrial pyruvate carrier transport mechanism is ΔpH driven and is inhibited competitively by distinct compound classes.

Our paper is finally out: Molecular basis of pyruvate transport and inhibition of the human mitochondrial pyruvate carrier | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#mitochondria #cryo-EM

Standing up for science in an age of political interference Science is under siege. Political forces are undermining expertise, dismantling research institutions, and replacing evidence based policymaking with ideology. This is a global crisis. The covid-19 pa...

Here’s the better link: www.bmj.com/content/388/...

The transport activity of reconstituted citrin is not regulated by calcium.

Our review on Current Understanding of Pathogenic Mechanisms and Disease Models of Citrin Deficiency is out! The disease is caused by the dysfunction or absence of the mitochondrial aspartate/glutamate carrier 2, also known as citrin doi.org/10.1002/jimd... #mitochondria

Thought that only purine nucleotides could inhibit mitochondrial thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue? Edmund Kunji and coworkers @mitocarriers.bsky.social @mrc-mbu.bsky.social show that pyrimidines bind and inhibit UCP1 in similar manner
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

It is believed that proton conductance by the mitochondrial uncoupling protein (UCP1) is inhibited specifically by purine nucleotides, but we show that pyrimidine nucleotides also inhibit UCP1 with similar affinities in a pH-dependent manner. #mitochondria
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....