Chaudhuri Lab

Local Mitochondrial Physiology Defined by mtDNA Quality Guides Purifying Selection The mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) encodes essential subunits of the electron transport chain and ATP synthase. Mutations in these genes impair oxidative phosphorylation, compromise mitochondrial ATP pr...

🚨 Preprint alert! 🚨
My first first-author manuscript is out on bioRxiv!
We developed a new method to monitor mtDNA quality control in yeast, and found that a functional respiratory chain is crucial for the process. @osman-lab.bsky.social
#mtDNA #mitochondria

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Meet the 2025 ASCB Award Winners—trailblazing scientists honored for research, mentoring, education, and innovation. Celebrate excellence across all career stages in cell biology. Read more: www.ascb.org/society-news...

Picture of Janet Iwasa, University of Utah Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education Given to an individual who has demonstrated innovative and sustained contributions to science education, prioritizing the national imact of the nominee’s activities.

Congrats to the amazing ‪@jiwasa.bsky.social‬, winner of @ascbiology.bsky.social' Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education. Watching her create an innovative career in molecular animation & the impact it has on science and education has been breathtaking.
www.ascb.org/society-news...

⏰⏰The issue of open access, publishers, and the new NIH rules of no embargo has led to this RFI from NIH. Read this carefully. It has lots of interesting scenarios and is seeking feedback. @briannosek.bsky.social @cos.io thoughts? grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

And none of this would have been possible without NIH funding.

None of it.

NIH funding was the engine behind this cure as well as just about every other biomedical therapy and cure in modern history.

Wes Sundquist is one of the good guys. He is a scientists scientist and has carefully, passionately, and consistently carried his science out with this goal in mind. A cure for AIDS that is available to all.

This is an amazing recognition for him and for the @utah.edu where he has done his work.

FASTKD5 processes mitochondrial pre-mRNAs at noncanonical cleavage sites Abstract. The first post-transcriptional step in mammalian mitochondrial gene expression, required for the synthesis of the 13 polypeptides encoded in mito

Our story about FASTKD5 is now published at @narjournal.bsky.social It was an amazing collaboration with @haukehillen.bsky.social and Toni Barrientos’ labs.

doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

FASTKD5 processes mitochondrial pre-mRNAs at non-canonical cleavage sites

ATTENTION MITO-CALCIUM ENTHUSIASTS: there's a new game in town! This piece highlights a new paper by the Elrod Lab interrogating TMEM65’s role in mitochondrial calcium efflux. The De Stefani and Glancy labs have recently reported similar findings. Congratulations on this important discovery!

Exciting new work by @yasesancak.bsky.social in Science Advancase showing how mitochondrial Ca2 fluxes control branched chain amino acid metabolism. Mitochondrial Ca2 is not just about the TCA cycle!

Mitochondria-organelle crosstalk in establishing compartmentalized metabolic homeostasis Mitochondria are metabolic hubs that communicate with other organelles via metabolite-, lipid-, and signaling-molecule exchange facilitated by membrane contact sites (MCSs). MCSs, regulated by tetheri...

Huge details are here about compartmentalized metabolic connection. Mitochondria-organelle crosstalk in establishing compartmentalized metabolic homeostasis: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Mitochondrial presequences harbor variable strengths to maintain organellar function Hundreds of mitochondrial-destined proteins rely on N-terminal presequences for organellar targeting and import. While generally described as positively charged amphipathic helices, presequences lack ...

Very excited to share our latest work, “Mitochondrial presequences harbor variable strengths to maintain organellar function,” led by the fantastically talented @washubbsb.bsky.social graduate student Youmian Yan. A 🧵

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

These are beautiful images! Congratulations!

I'm super happy that our story is now published!
📖 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
But what changed compared to the original preprint?

Also, I feel i should post Movie 1 🎥, that inspired the cover. Back when I did the original bluesky thread, movies were not available.

Jiasheng Li, Ye Tian et al. reveal that neuronal mitochondrial stress induces subtle, continuous Ca²⁺ oscillations in a TMBIM-2-dependent manner, enhancing neurotransmission and influencing intertissue mitochondrial stress communication. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#mitochondria

More Nikon NSPARC confocal testing at the @ncis-marseille.bsky.social: super-resolved live-cell imaging (1 frame every 10 seconds) of a COS-7 cell labeled for DNA (blue), endosomes (pink) and actin (gray) using probes from @spirochrome.com

🙌

New actin probe from @veselin-nasufovic.bsky.social et al! SiR-XActin and its variants are more photostable and less perturbative than SiR-actin or FastAct. And it's already available from @spirochrome.com! With some beautiful data from @chillinwithpfn1.bsky.social:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genome recombination on demand Large genome rearrangements in mammalian cells can be generated at scale

Lars Steinmetz and @seczmarta.bsky.social put together a wonderful perspective on these two studies. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Woah!

Randomizing the human genome by engineering recombination between repeat elements We lack tools to edit DNA sequences at scales necessary to study 99% of the human genome that is noncoding. To address this gap, we applied CRISPR prime editing to insert recombination handles into re...

We're delighted to share our work on scrambling the human genome using prime editing, repetitive elements, and recombinases in @science.org , led by @jonaskoeppel.bsky.social , @f-raphael.bsky.social , with @proftomellis.bsky.social and George Church.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Triacylglycerol mobilization underpins mitochondrial stress recovery - Nature Cell Biology Baker et al. show that mitochondrial stress recovery requires mobilization of lipid droplet triacylglycerol stores to facilitate cardiolipin biosynthesis and mitochondrial biogenesis.

New study from Dave Pagliarini’s lab

Triacylglycerol mobilization underpins mitochondrial stress recovery www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mitochondria- and ER-associated actin are required for mitochondrial fusion - Nature Communications The actin cytoskeleton is crucial for cell and organelle motility. Here, the authors show that actin acts upstream of the mitochondrial fusion machinery to bridge two fusing mitochondria.

Mitochondria- and ER-associated actin are required for mitochondrial fusion - Nature Communications

congrats @manorlaboratory.bsky.social & CO

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

Mitochondrial YME1L1 governs unoccupied protein translocase channels - Nature Cell Biology Hsu et al. show that mitochondrial import blockage stress activates the ATP-dependent protease YME1L1, which degrades mitochondrial presequence translocase TIM23 subunits to promote cell growth.

Mitochondrial YME1L1 governs unoccupied protein translocase channels

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

Predicting RNA-seq coverage from DNA sequence as a unifying model of gene regulation - Nature Genetics Borzoi adapts the Enformer sequence-to-expression model to directly predict RNA-seq coverage, enabling the in-silico analysis of variant effects across multiple layers of gene regulation.

Congrats to Johannes Linder, David Kelley et al. on the journal publication of Borzoi - a long context sequence models of RNA-seq coverage profiles with many nice applications for transcriptional & post-transcriptional regulation & variant effect prediction.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

Super excited to finally share PANCS-Binders: our group's decade-long quest to accelerate protein binder discovery.

TLDR: PANCS-binders is fast (2 days), cheap (pennies), has extremely high fidelity (low false positive and negatives), and high-throughput.

1/n

An inherited mtDNA mutation remodels inflammatory cytokine responses in macrophages and in vivo Impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics in macrophages can drive hyperinflammatory cytokine responses[1][1]–[6][2], but whether this may also be caused by inherited mtDNA mutations is unknown. Here, we a...

An inherited mtDNA mutation remodels inflammatory cytokine responses in macrophages and in vivo www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Mitochondrial YME1L1 governs unoccupied protein translocase channels - Nature Cell Biology Hsu et al. show that mitochondrial import blockage stress activates the ATP-dependent protease YME1L1, which degrades mitochondrial presequence translocase TIM23 subunits to promote cell growth.

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

Global organelle profiling reveals subcellular localization and remodeling at proteome scale Organelle proteomics defines the cellular landscape of protein localization and highlights the role of subcellular remodeling in driving responses to perturbations such as viral infections.

Really interesting spatial proteomics study of organelles now in @cellcellpress.bsky.social.

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Dbi1 is an oxidoreductase and an assembly chaperone for mitochondrial inner membrane proteins | EMBO reports imageimageThis study identifies a pathway for oxidation and assembly of mitochondrial inner membrane proteins. Dbi1 is a conserved mitochondrial inner membrane protein that interacts with the unassem...

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....