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One-carbon metabolism

Friend or foe-maldehyde

Chemically reactive metabolites such as formaldehyde are often toxic and are proposed to react promiscuously with biomolecules. New work shows that some reactive sites on proteins are uniquely sensitive to formaldehyde, leading to functionally important regulation of protein and cell functions.

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Fig. 1: HCHO reacts with a subset of protein cysteines to induce functional changes.

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Correspondence to Richard J. Hopkinson.

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Emms, V.L., Chothia, S.Y. & Hopkinson, R.J. Friend or foe-maldehyde. Nat Chem Biol 20, 268–270 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-024-01558-9

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