Review

Authors: Asifa Akhtar, Elaine Fuchs, Tim Mitchison...

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology celebrated its 10-year anniversary during this past year with a series of specially commissioned articles. To complement this, here we have asked researchers from across the field for their insights into how molecular cell biology research has evolved during this past decade, the key concepts that have emerged and the most promising interfaces that have developed. Their comments highlight the broad impact that particular advances have had, some of the basic understanding that we still require, and the collaborative approaches that will be essential for driving the field forward.

Topics: Cell Biology; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Molecular Biology

PubMed: 21941276
DOI: 10.1038/nrm3187

Review

Authors: Jean Gayon

The origins of genetics are to be found in Gregor Mendel's memoir on plant hybridization (1865). However, the word 'genetics' was only coined in 1906, to designate the new science of heredity. Founded upon the Mendelian method for analyzing the products of crosses, this science is distinguished by its explicit purpose of being a general 'science of heredity', and by the introduction of totally new biological concepts (in particular those of gene, genotype, and phenotype). In the 1910s, Mendelian genetics fused with the chromosomal theory of inheritance, giving rise to what is still called 'classical genetics'. Within this framework, the gene is simultaneously a unit of function and transmission, a unit of recombination, and of mutation. Until the early 1950s, these concepts of the gene coincided. But when DNA was found to be the material basis of inheritance, this congruence dissolved. Then began the venture of molecular biology, which has never stopped revealing the complexity of the way in which hereditary material functions.

Topics: Animals; Epigenomics; Genes; Genetics; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Molecular Biology; Plants

PubMed: 27263362
DOI: 10.1016/j.crvi.2016.05.009

Review

Authors: Emmanuel N Kontomanolis, Antonios Koutras, Athanasios Syllaios...

Molecular biology of cancer cell is a domain of medical science that is rapidly growing in our days. Knowing the ways and paths that cancer cells follow is crucial to the prevention of cancer itself. Central role to these paths, concerning the cell cycle and the process of apoptosis, has the protein p53. The whole mechanism of the cell cycle is activated by the action of various mitogens, such as growth factors, hormones and cytokines. Carcinogenesis involves alterations of genes (proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes), which encode proteins of the signal transduction. Many of the damages that lead to carcinogenesis may be due to the lack of repressive signals for cell division, but also to the absence of the sensitivity of cells to repressive signals. The cell has mechanisms of receiving apoptotic-antitumor signals and mechanisms of execution of these instructions. A percentage of cancers (4-8%) are etiologically linked to germ (stem) cells mutations and occur at an increased frequency in families (hereditary cancers). Substantial progress in understanding the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, filtration and metastasis of cancer has highlighted the key role of specific genes, primarily oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes.

Topics: Humans; Molecular Biology; Neoplasms

PubMed: 34761575
DOI: No ID Found

Review

Authors: Eduard Kellenberger

Biology's various affairs with holism and reductionism, and their contribution to understanding life at the molecular level

Topics: History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Macromolecular Substances; Models, Biological; Molecular Biology; Probability

PubMed: 15170468
DOI: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400180

Authors: John Pham, Brian Plosky, Allyson Evans...

Topics: Humans; Molecular Biology; Research; Research Design

PubMed: 30075138
DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2018.07.021

Authors: Boas Pucker, Hanna Marie Schilbert, Sina Franziska Schumacher...

Combined awareness about the power and limitations of bioinformatics and molecular biology enables advanced research based on high-throughput data. Despite an increasing demand of scientists with a combined background in both fields, the education of dry and wet lab subjects are often still separated. This work describes an example of integrated education with a focus on genomics and transcriptomics. Participants learned computational and molecular biology methods in the same practical course. Peer-review was applied as a teaching method to foster cooperative learning of students with heterogeneous backgrounds. The positive evaluation results indicate that this approach was accepted by the participants and would likely be suitable for wider scale application.

Topics: Computational Biology; Female; Humans; Male; Molecular Biology

PubMed: 31145692
DOI: 10.1515/jib-2019-0005

Authors: Michael J E Sternberg, Marina I Ostankovitch

Topics: Computational Biology; Molecular Biology; Proteins; Software

PubMed: 26851073
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2016.02.001

Review

Authors: Ruth Nussinov

In 1978, for my PhD, I developed the efficient O(n) dynamic programming algorithm for the-then open problem of RNA secondary structure prediction. This algorithm, now dubbed the "Nussinov algorithm", "Nussinov plots", and "Nussinov diagrams", is still taught across Europe and the U.S. As sequences started coming out in the 1980s, I started seeking genome-encoded functional signals, later becoming a bioinformatics trend. In the early 1990s I transited to proteins, co-developing a powerful computer vision-based docking algorithm. In the late 1990s, I proposed the foundational role of conformational ensembles in molecular recognition and allostery. At the time, conformational ensembles and free energy landscapes were viewed as physical properties of proteins but were not associated with function. The classical view of molecular recognition and binding was based on only two conformations captured by crystallography: open and closed. I proposed that all conformational states preexist. Proteins always have not one folded form-nor two-but many folded forms. Thus, rather than inducing fit, binding can work by shifting the ensembles between states, and this shifting, or redistributing the ensembles to maintain equilibrium, is the origin of the allosteric effect and protein, thus cell, function. This transformative paradigm impacted community views in allosteric drug design, catalysis, and regulation. Dynamic conformational ensemble shifts are now acknowledged as the origin of recognition, allostery, and signaling, underscoring that conformational ensembles-not proteins-are the workhorses of the cell, pioneering the fundamental idea that dynamic ensembles are the driving force behind cellular processes. Nussinov was recognized as pioneer in molecular biology by JMB.

Topics: Molecular Biology; Allosteric Regulation; Proteins; Algorithms; Humans; History, 20th Century; Protein Conformation; Nucleic Acid Conformation; RNA; Protein Binding; Models, Molecular

PubMed: 40015370
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169044

Authors: Janet Olwyn Macaulay

Topics: Biochemistry; Humans; Interdisciplinary Studies; Molecular Biology

PubMed: 31246359
DOI: 10.1002/bmb.21283

Authors: Michel Morange

The founders of molecular biology shared views on the place of biology within science, as well as on the relations of molecular biology to Darwinism. Jacques Monod was no exception, but the study of his writings is particularly interesting because he expressed his point of view very clearly and pushed the implications of some of his choices further than most of his contemporaries. The spirit of molecular biology is no longer the same as in the 1960s but, interestingly, Monod anticipated some recent evolutions of this discipline.

Topics: Allosteric Regulation; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Molecular Biology

PubMed: 25890787
DOI: 10.1016/j.crvi.2015.03.005