Plankton are tiny and highly diverse marine organisms that can act as indicators for the health and biodiversity of ecosystems in the face of factors such as climate change. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used a technique called ultrastructure expansion microscopy to extensively study the cellular structure of over 200 planktonic marine microbes. The study, recently published in the journal Cell, was part of a plug-in project for the EMBL-led Traversing European Coastlines (TREC) expedition, and takes the first steps towards a planetary atlas of plankton.

Land use is at the heart of the many emergencies facing our world today: climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice and food insecurity. These – exacerbated by unsustainable practices such as industrial agriculture – combine to create simultaneous and interconnected crises. To overcome these challenges, large parts of the Earth's surface must meet several demands at the same time – from species conservation and food production to human well-being. This is where multifunctional landscapes come in, because they can meet many ecological, social and economic goals at once. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel have evaluated how using land in such ways can support nature conservation and ecosystem restoration. Their review article shows ways to redesign land use and nature conservation using integrated approaches. This was published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity.

Here, a study from Jun Chen’s lab of Zhejiang university reveals that Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is accumulated only in the injury hearts of zebrafish and neonatal mice, but not of adult mice, which coincides with the upregulation of DHA synthesis genes in CMs, fibrobasts and macrophages near the injury areas.

This study determined cryo-EM structures of midnolin-proteasome complexes, providing mechanistic insights to midnolin-catalyzed substrate degradation. Based on structural and mechanistic understanding, authors have engineered the midnolin system for targeted degradation of desired substrates, and provide the first proof-of-principle for degrading a non-native therapeutically high-profile target that is otherwise undruggable.

Lipids are not just energy sources and structural components of cell membranes – they also act as molecules that transmit signals within and between cells. A new Koselleck Project at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research focuses on certain products derived from arachidonic acid. These products exhibit beneficial effects in cardiovascular diseases as well as in Alzheimer’s dementia and chronic pain.