Top 10 Progress in China's Life Sciences in 2022 released

Zhang Hong and his team from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that during autophagy induction, calcium transients occur on the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum, triggering liquid-liquid separation of the FIP200 autophagy initiation complex, and the formed FIP200 condensate binds to the ER protein and is located in the endoplasmic reticulum, becoming the initiation site of the autophagy. This work has revealed that calcium transient on the surface of the ER is a key signal to initiate the formation of autophagosomes, greatly promoting the understanding of the molecular mechanism of autophagy, and has important significance for exploring the mechanism of autophagy abnormalities in neurodegenerative diseases caused by calcium disorders in the ER.

Calcium transients on the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum are a key signal for autophagosome formation

10. New mechanism of gene mining and regulation of high temperature resistance in rice

With the global warming, extreme hot weather occurs frequently, which greatly reduces crop production and aggravates food security problems. It is an urgent challenge to explore the gene resources of crop resistance to high temperature and elucidate the regulation mechanism of high temperature resistance so as to breed crop varieties resistant to high temperature.

The team led by Hongxuan Lin of the Center of Excellence in Molecular Plant Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Youshun Lin of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) has revealed a new mechanism of high temperature resistance in rice, unearthed a genetic module TT3 composed of TT3.1 and TT3.2, and discovered the first potential high temperature receptor (TT3.1) for the first time. It senses and transmits high temperature signals to the chloroplast protein TT3.2, which protects the chloroplast from heat damage.