Decoding the language of cellular messaging

Before the days of rote texting and email, if you wanted to communicate with a friend you might have written a physical letter. Similarly, the individual cells in our bodies communicate with each other by sending tailored “letters”—not with paper and pen, but in the form of proteins called ligands.

Researchers in the laboratory of Professor of Biology Angelike Stathopoulos, a TCCI®-affiliated researcher, who study how to decode the language of ligands to understand cellular communication have now discovered new insights into how cells use one particular ligand to coordinate embryonic development. A paper describing the study appears in the journal Current Biology on July 1.

Read more on Caltech’s website