In order to fulfil their many functions, proteins must be folded into the correct shape. Researchers at the University of Basel have now discovered tiny “folding factories” in cells that enable efficient and accurate protein folding. A lack of these structures can lead to diseases such as diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders. 

Omega-3 fatty acids are known to be an essential part of a healthy diet. As humans cannot produce them, they have to be consumed in sufficient amounts. However, omega-6, -7, -9, and -10 fatty acids also play important roles in the metabolism of fats. These numbers indicate the position of the first double bond in a fatty acid chain. Deviations in the omega position can signal enzyme malfunctions or pathological metabolic processes, such as those occurring in cancer. Now, researchers at the University of Graz and the University of California, San Diego present in Nature Communications a novel, effective method to determine omega positions of lipids – the scientific term for fats – in complex biological samples including human tissues and blood.

To study growth-defence trade-offs in the context of metabolism in crops, scientists from the Universities of Potsdam and Erlangen, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, and the National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, have generated the genome-scale metabolic model potato-GEM. The first large-scale metabolic reconstruction of its kind presents a useful resource to breed plant varieties with improved stress tolerance and high yields in the future.