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After the Â鶹´«Ã½É«ÇéƬ and Â鶹´«Ã½É«ÇéƬ Biology voted to name water the 2024 Molecule of the Year and members were invited to write essays on the topic, the publications staff decided to highlight water in research from the society’s journals.

ASBMB

In this special issue, check out a dozen gold open-access articles covering exciting research about the society’s 2024 Molecule of the year.

 ASBMB Publications Director Isabel Casas and Assistant Publications Director Chengmin Jiang assembled a that is now available and includes 12 gold open-access articles from the past three years covering exciting research in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Journal of Lipid Research and Â鶹´«Ã½É«ÇéƬ & Cellular Proteomics.

Studies on macromolecular structure are part of this issue, including a toxic RNA structure associated with disease and cryo-electron microscopy results that shed new light on water oxidation to produce oxygen by the photosynthesis enzyme photosystem II, or PSII. A group crystallized a pathogenic structure formed from trinucleotide repeats in RNA and observed a water bridge within a mismatched base pair, providing important information on this RNA duplex conformation associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1.

Additionally, two articles cover insights into PSII, in one case to understand architectural changes that allow water oxidation to occur at the lower energy limit in cyanobacteria acclimated to far-red light. In another study, scientists analyzed the PSII structure to determine that mutating a conserved residue disrupts key water channels.

Another set of studies highlights work on water influx into cells. Scientists found that a plant aquaporin, a protein key to solute transport across the membrane, not only shuttles water but also accepts sucrose and lactose as substrates. These results could have implications for plant growth and food production. Furthermore, knowledge of the aquaporin protein fold contributed to deciphering key components of a formate–nitrate transporter that has the same fold but with specific constriction sites important for formate movement.

Researchers also investigated water permeation into cells due to damage, such as lipid peroxidation. Aggregates of a dicarboxylic acid compound in the membrane led to the beginning stages of water pore formation, which could be relieved by adding flavonoids as antioxidants. Finally, scientists focused on water influx in T cells to determine that the cells start rapidly taking in extracellular water before cell division in a shift from the slower gain of water from glycolysis.

Finally, this collection highlights papers with water-related methods used to answer diverse questions in biochemistry and molecular biology. Water with deuterium, or heavy water, is a key research tool for mass spectrometry. One group tackled the complicated issue of measuring protein turnover rates in animals and provided a comparison of two methods using heavy water versus stable isotope–labeled amino acids. Another group used heavy water and stable isotope–labeled cholesterol to determine the biosynthetic origin of cholesterol in the retina and brain.

Scientists also have taken advantage of the phase separation properties of water with organic solvents to enhance current methods for extracting hormones such as estrogens, androgens and progestogens from serum. Furthermore, researchers measured learning and memory of mice with the Morris water maze test to assess whether a compound that increases activation of protein quality control genes could alleviate signs of neurodegenerative disease.

Lastly, a group measured trans-epidermal water loss through models of varying lipid compositions associated with inflammatory skin diseases to gain insight into barrier functionality.

Find out more about the extensive role of water in biochemistry and molecular biology research by checking out the new ASBMB Journals .