In some ways, cells are a lot like cities. Maps of a cell’s innards depict thoroughfares linking factories that build large molecules to post offices where those molecules are packaged up and shipped out, for example. The cell’s denizens — proteins and other molecules — shuttle around busy cellular byways like people on the street, meeting up, interacting and keeping the whole enterprise going.
But anyone who has ever been delayed on the way to an important meeting knows something about cities that biochemists are just beginning to learn about cells: Maps don’t capture a lot of details — traffic, closed roads, a downed tree — that can drastically slow a journey.
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