Congrats to Julia Spear on her recent paper published in Journal of Cell Science! In the paper (Spear and White, 2023), Julia used timelapse confocal microscopy to measure intracellular pH in single dividing cells. She found that pHi oscillates during cell cycle progression and pHi dynamics correlate with cell cycle transitions. Julia next asked whether these pHi changes are sufficient to regulate cell cycle. She manipulated pHi and found that high pHi promotes S/G2 and G2/M transitions. She also found that G1 duration is sensitive to pHi with low pHi shortening G1 and high pHi elongating G1. These results indicate that finely titrated pHi regulation might be necessary for normal cell cycle progression and suggests a role for the increased pHi of cancer in driving cell cycle dysregulation.
Julia’s paper was highlighed in the JCS issue and she was selected for a “First Person” author feature!
