Deterministic early endosomal maturations emerge from a stochastic trigger-and-convert mechanism.

Endosomal maturation is critical for robust and timely cargo transport to specific cellular compartments. The most prominent model of early endosomal maturation involves a phosphoinositide-driven gain or loss of specific proteins on individual endosomes, emphasising an autonomous and stochastic description. However, limitations in fast, volumetric imaging long hindered direct whole cell-level measurements of absolute numbers of maturation events.

Geometric regulation of histone state directs melanoma reprogramming.

Malignant melanoma displays a high degree of cellular plasticity during disease progression. Signals in the tumor microenvironment are believed to influence melanoma plasticity through changes in the epigenetic state to guide dynamic differentiation and de-differentiation. Here we uncover a relationship between geometric features at perimeter regions of melanoma aggregates, and reprogramming to a stem cell-like state through histone marks H3K4Me2 and H3K9Ac.

Ultraprecise single-molecule localization microscopy enables in situ distance measurements in intact cells.

Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) has the potential to quantify the diversity in spatial arrangements of molecules in intact cells. However, this requires that the single-molecule emitters are localized with ultrahigh precision irrespective of the sample format and the length of the data acquisition. We advance SMLM to enable direct distance measurements between molecules in intact cells on the scale between 1 and 20 nm.

Essential role of endocytosis for interleukin-4-receptor-mediated JAK/STAT signalling.

Many important signalling cascades operate through specialized signalling endosomes, but a corresponding mechanism has as yet not been described for hematopoietic cytokine receptors. Based on live-cell affinity measurements, we recently proposed that ligand-induced interleukin-4 receptor (IL-4R) complex formation and thus JAK/STAT pathway activation requires a local subcellular increase in receptor density. Here, we show that this concentration step is provided by the internalization of IL-4R subunits through a constitutive, Rac1-, Pak- and actin-mediated endocytosis route that causes IL-4R subunits to become enriched by about two orders of magnitude within a population of cortical endosomes.