Biophysical reviews最新文献

Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) has emerged as an attractive platform for biotechnology and synthetic biology due to its numerous advantages to cell-based technologies for specific applications. CFPS can be faster, less sensitive to metabolite toxicity, and amenable to systems that are not easily genetically manipulated. Due to these advantages, a promising application of CFPS is to characterize biosynthetic gene clusters, particularly those harbored within the genomes of microorganisms that generate secondary metabolites, otherwise known as natural products. In the postgenomic era, genome sequencing has revealed an incredible wealth of metabolic diversity. However, far more of these pathways are termed "cryptic," i.e., unable to be produced under standard laboratory conditions than have been characterized. A major barrier to characterizing these cryptic natural products using CFPS is that many of these pathways require utilization of complex cofactors, many of which to date are not recycled efficiently or in an economically viable fashion. In this perspective, we outline strategies to regenerate cofactors relevant to secondary metabolite production in CFPS. This includes adenosine 5'-triphosphate, coenzyme A, redox cofactors (iron-sulfur clusters, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, flavin adenine dinucleotide), all of which play a crucial role in important biosynthetic enzymes. Such advances in cofactor recycling enable continuous production of complex metabolites in CFPS and expand the utility of this emergent platform.

The sun generates light and heat for life on Earth to flourish. However, during the late Hadean-early Archean epoch on Earth, the "faint young sun" (FYS) was less luminous, influencing prebiotic chemistry and, by extension, the origins of life (OoL). However, higher levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the FYS, especially UV-C, due to the lack of an ozone layer, would likely have impacted the assembly, stability, persistence, and functions of prebiotic cellular precursors, i.e., protocells. Consequently, it is essential to study how such UV-C radiation would have affected the synthesis and stability of prebiotically relevant molecules and protocells to better understand the plausibility of the OoL during the FYS period. In this letter, we introduce unanswered questions surrounding the structure and stability of protocells under UV-C radiation. Such a perspective may be vital to exoplanetary systems orbiting other stars, enhancing our understanding of life's potential beyond our solar system.

Recent advancements in microscopic techniques have significantly progressed, with improvements in fundamental parameters such as resolution, as well as the emergence of novel imaging techniques for measuring cellular information. In this session, six invited speakers introduced recent advancements in super-resolution and advanced microscopy imaging, covering both the development of novel microscopy techniques and their biological applications.

This Commentary outlines recent advances of Biophysics and Physicobiology (BPPB), the official international peer-reviewed journal published by the Biophysical Society of Japan (BSJ), a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB). In June 2024, BSJ hosted the 21st IUPAB Congress in Kyoto, which was attended by over 1900 participants from 52 countries and regions. The role of BPPB as an open-access (OA) journal within the framework of the future Japanese governmental OA policy is also discussed.

By delving into the applications, methodologies, and case studies of multi-dimensional crystallography, whereby time and temperature are varied in the context of allostery, this review aims to elucidate the intricate interplay between structure, dynamics, and function in allosteric proteins. As the field of structural biology continues to advance, integrating multi-dimensional approaches promises to unlock new frontiers in our quest to decipher the molecular mechanisms governing life.

The session "Data Science for Integrated Dynamic Structural Biology" was a notable success at the joint congress of the 21st IUPAB and the 62nd BSJ (Biophysics Society of Japan). This session included four invited talks and one contributed talk, which together delved into recent advancements in computational methods integrating physics, experimental data, and bioinformatics to study the structure and dynamic properties of molecular assemblies and their interactions.

Synthetic lipids have been studied as components in membrane models and drug delivery systems. Polymerizable phospholipids, especially photosensitive ones, can form new bilayer bonds when UV light irradiates. These phospholipids have been known since the 1980s, but in the last few years, new applications have been highlighted. Its use in drug delivery systems is interesting since the photopolymerization reaction produces highly stable vesicles. Additionally, the rearrangement of the acyl chains during the photopolymerization process can be applied in the generation of pores, resulting in systems that serve for drug-controlled release. In this article, our goal was to envision earlier photopolymers' publications towards the implications of these versatile phospholipids that led to proposed systems for drug delivery and controlled release of drugs at specific sites. This review offers a broad background towards a simple, reliable, and robust platform to make its application available.

Soon after Biophysical Reviews was established as a Journal with Springer Verlag in 2009, I was asked to join the editorial board. I have juggled various editorial board responsibilities for several Journals over more than three decades, viewing this as a service to the ever-growing biophysics community. How I got to be involved with biophysics is a long story, but here are a few relevant explanations, with much omitted. Anthony Watts.

The cytoskeleton is the major mechanical unit of the cell and is essential for cellular processes such as motility, division, and contraction. It consists of three types of biopolymers-actin filaments, microtubules, and intermediate filaments-along with passive cross-linkers and active motor proteins. This composite biological material determines the enormous viscoelastic adaptability of cells to varying mechanical demands. In the session entitled "Cell Motility, Cytoskeleton, and Motor Proteins" at the IUPAB 2024 Congress in Kyoto, Japan, we elucidated specific examples of cell mechanics and dynamics from a physical point of view, including different length scales from molecular to cellular, as well as in vitro reconstituted systems and cellular systems.

This editorial for Volume 16, Issue 4 of Biophysical Reviews highlights recent contributions to biophysics from many parts of the world. Biophysical Reviews is the official journal of the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB 2024). The international scope of the articles in the issue exemplifies the goals of IUPAB to organize worldwide advancements, co-operation, communication, and education in biophysics. The articles in the Issue are illustrative of the wide array of topics and quantitative approaches used by scientists from many fields to explore and understand how biology-indeed, all life-works.