Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

From the double membrane enclosing the cell nucleus to the deep infolds of the mitochondria, each organelle in our cells has a distinctive silhouette that makes it ideally suited to do its job. How these shapes arise, however, is largely a mystery.

Harvard Medical School cell biologists have now cracked the code for part of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a protein- and fat-making organelle that consists of stacked sheets in some parts and a complex network of tubules in others.

Producing the ER’s tubular network is “surprisingly simple,” requiring just three ingredients, principal investigator Tom Rapoport, professor of cell biology at HMS, and colleagues report Feb. 22 in Nature.