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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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 🇯🇵 😃

Remember to look up

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/...

🎓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

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

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

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 🧪

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

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

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....

Hello! 👋 We've joined the Bluesky community to connect again with all those interested in #mitochondria. 😎🥼🔬👩‍🔬👨‍🔬🧪

A beaut of a #FoxOfTheDay today , thank you @davidhateley !

The Hourglass Nebula seen by Hubble

Using 33 pathogenic variants of citrin we identify crucial elements of the carrier domain required for transport and show that the N-terminal domain is not involved in calcium regulation of transport, but causes a mitochondrial import defect, when mutated. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pluto's moon, Charon, at highest resolution so far captured by NASA

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

Our new paper is out! #mitochondria #transporters #adeninetranslocase #SLC25 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...