Cute molecules and the scientists who adore them: Veijo Salo
Veijo Salo, postdoc at EMBL Heidelberg, talks about seipin, the cell’s molecular ‘bubble blower’
Veijo Salo from EMBL Heidelberg describes his favourite protein, seipin (PDB SDS5), as a molecular bubble blower, tightly holding fat bubbles inside a cell.
Credit: Isabel Romero Calvo (illustration), Stuart Ingham (photography)/EMBL
The cute side of science
Behind every discovery lies a story. Often this story is of a scientist and their passion and awe for nature’s design.
We’ve asked some of our scientists, from across EMBL sites, to talk about the molecules that capture their imaginations and make them smile. These stories reveal the surprising beauty, humour, and charm in the molecular structures that power life itself. We invite you to explore them and fall in love with the molecules, like these scientists have.
“My favourite protein, called seipin, is the cell’s molecular bubble blower: it controls the production of fat bubbles, called lipid droplets, inside the cell. Scientists used to think that these bubbles were just randomly accumulated fat, but nowadays, we know that the cell uses them to store excess fat until they are needed either to generate energy, enable cell growth, or produce hormones in specialised cells. This storage is highly controlled, and my beloved protein, seipin, is the key player. However, we still don’t know how it works, which makes it very mysterious and fascinating.
“Seipin has a peculiar shape, similar to a spiky ring, which works like a soap bubble blower: it shapes fat into bubbles, controls their size and ensures they don’t break off. It looks somewhat like when you are blowing a bubble but it doesn’t get released from the loop. It’s remarkable how sturdy the seipin–fat bubble combo is. If you have ever tried to make bubbles bigger and bigger without releasing or popping them, you’ll know how difficult seipin’s task is!
“Each cell holdshundreds of seipin–fat bubble combos, which communicate with each other and create a network, similar to a plumbing system. This results in a chain of bubbles being released at once, just a moment before they all fly away.”
Veijo Salo (Finland), Postdoctoral Fellow, Mahamid Group, EMBL Heidelberg
