Global profiling of co- and post-translationally N-myristoylated proteomes in human cells

Protein N-myristoylation is a ubiquitous co- and post-translational modification that has been implicated in the development and progression of a range of human diseases. Here, we report the global N-myristoylated proteome in human cells determined using quantitative chemical proteomics combined with potent and specific human N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) inhibition. Global quantification of N-myristoylation during normal growth or apoptosis allowed the identification of >100 N-myristoylated proteins, >95% of which are identified for the first time at endogenous levels. Furthermore, quantitative dose response for inhibition of N-myristoylation is determined for >70 substrates simultaneously across the proteome. Small-molecule inhibition through a conserved substrate-binding pocket is also demonstrated by solving the crystal structures of inhibitor-bound NMT1 and NMT2. The presented data substantially expand the known repertoire of co- and post-translational N-myristoylation in addition to validating tools for the pharmacological inhibition of NMT in living cells

Advances in heterometallic ring-opening (co)polymerisation catalysis

Truly sustainable plastics require renewable feedstocks coupled with efficient production and end-of-life degradation/recycling processes. Some of the most useful degradable materials are aliphatic polyesters, polycarbonates and polyamides, which are often prepared via ring-opening (co)polymerisation (RO(CO)P) using an organometallic catalyst. While there has been extensive research into ligand development, heterometallic cooperativity offers an equally promising yet underexplored strategy to improve catalyst performance, as heterometallic catalysts often exhibit significant activity and selectivity enhancements compared to their homometallic counterparts. This review describes advances in heterometallic RO(CO)P catalyst design, highlighting the overarching structure-activity trends and reactivity patterns to inform future catalyst design

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe