Nuclear organization articles from across Nature Portfolio

Viral proteins can achieve high multifunctionality, but mechanisms are poorly understood. This study shows structural flexibility of rabies virus P protein enables RNA binding and phase separation to expand functions by infiltrating host condensates.

Systematic discovery of proteins interacting with low-abundance RNAs is challenging. Here, the authors develop an enhanced HyPro technology to identify proteins associated with compact RNA compartments and single RNA molecules, revealing early defects in ALS-linked mutant C9orf72 transcripts.

Li et al. show that the inner nuclear membrane protein LEMD3 organizes 3D chromatin architecture by anchoring heterochromatin at the nuclear periphery to maintain vascular smooth muscle cell contractile identity.

How replication stress affects nuclear integrity is not fully understood. Here, the authors report that replication stress induces DNA damage and nuclear envelope reassembly defect during mitosis, which is suppressed by DNA polymerase theta mediated end joining.

Li, Burgos-Bravo and colleagues report that NDF phase separation regulates FACT condensation, which enhances transcription by generating a localized biochemical environment that promotes nucleosome disassembly while preserving chromatin integrity by retaining histones.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Okuda and Kessler (Müller-McNicoll and Heilemann labs) discuss how the combination of two novel methods enabled them to study the architecture and interaction of nuclear membraneless organelles.

Exile, discovery, and resilience have shaped my journey as a group leader in Mexico. From exploring chromatin architecture to building a lab and community, this is how science became my vocation and my home.

In this Comment, Wendy Bickmore discusses mechanistic models of how 3D genome organization facilitates communication between distant enhancers and their target promoters to regulate gene expression.

We developed an efficient transposon-based approach to create a panel of large genomic rearrangements between lamina associated domains (LADs) and inter-LAD sequences. This work demonstrates that LAD–nuclear lamina interactions involve multiple contacts of varying strength. Moreover, changes in nuclear lamina association are often accompanied by transcriptional repression and heterochromatin histone mark deposition.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) whitening is associated with ageing and obesity. A study by Kaul et al. now links mitochondrial stress in BAT with nuclear mechanics through metabolic signalling and epigenetic remodelling, which ultimately contributes to whitening.

Epigenetic states are formed by the coordinated activity of several chromatin factors. Dam&ChIC recovers both past and current epigenetic states in single cells, revealing the timing and order of chromatin reorganization. It enabled us to identify how spatial chromatin localization is inherited upon mitosis, and to dissect successive chromatin remodeling events during the initiation of X-chromosome inactivation.