ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025
Specialized molecular pathways drive the formation of light-scattering assemblies in leucophores.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Biosynthesis and Genetic Tuning of Guanine Crystals via Metabolic Engineering of Yeast.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Integrative mRNA and lncRNA Transcriptome Analysis of Skin Tissues with Different Coat Types in Cashmere Goats Across Stages of Hair Follicle Development.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Damselflies overcome color saturation barriers of photonic glasses via pigment loading and refractive index modulation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Control Strategies in Guanine Biocrystallization.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- Structural and mechanistic insights into the divergence of pterin deaminase and sepiapterin deaminase.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Review
- Lysosome-related organelles orchestrate guanine crystal formation in pigment cells.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Cell type diversification and phenotype convergence underlying white fin-ornamentation of cyprinid fishes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Harnessing microalgae for the biosynthesis of molecular crystals.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
- The Molecular Basis of Growth Control in Guanine Crystals.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- pH variations enable guanine crystal formation within iridosomes.Nature chemical biology · 2026Article
- Acid enables biogenic crystallization.Nature chemical biology · 2026Article
- Uric Acid Monohydrate Nanocrystals: An Adaptable Platform for Nitrogen and Salt Management in Reptiles.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- Specialized molecular pathways drive the formation of light-scattering assemblies in leucophores.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Pigmentation plays a vital role in the survival of organisms, supporting functions such as camouflage, communication, and mate attraction. In vertebrates, these functions are mediated by specialized pigment cells known as chromatophores of which, uric acid crystal-forming leucophores remain the least understood, with little known about their molecular mechanisms. A key question in pigment cell biology is whether different crystal chemistries require distinct molecular pathways, or whether similar cellular processes drive the formation of diverse crystals. This study was designed to unravel the uncharacterized process of uric acid crystallization in leucophores and compare them to guanine crystal formation in iridophores and pterin formation in xanthophores. The results of our transcriptomic, ultrastructural, and metabolomic analyses, demonstrate that leucophores share molecular pathways with iridophores, particularly those connected to organelle organization and purine metabolism, but express discrete genes involved in uric acid biosynthesis and storage. Additionally, leucophores share intracellular trafficking and pterin biosynthesis genes with xanthophores, suggesting universally conserved processes. Ultrastructural studies reveal star-like fibrous structures in leucosomes, which likely serve as scaffolds for unique one-dimensional uric acid assemblies that radiate from the core and act as efficient light scatterers. These findings provide insights into leucophore cell biology and the specialized mechanisms driving molecular crystalline assembly, and reveal that while some cellular processes are conserved, the specific chemistry of each crystal type drives the evolution of distinct molecular pathways.
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