Research Highlights in 2024

‘Candidatus Endonucleobacter’ infects the nuclei of deep-sea mussels but it was unknown how they can prevent apoptosis of the host. A new study by Porras and colleagues, published in Nature Microbiology, suggests that the bacterium upregulates host-derived apoptosis inhibitors and genes for digesting sugars, lipids and amino acids acquired through horizontal gene transfer from the mussels.

Light scattering, resulting from refractive index mismatch, is the primary factor limiting imaging depth in biological tissue. In a study recently published in Science¹, Ou et al. took an unconventional approach and employed highly absorbing molecules, such as food dye tartrazine, to increase the refractive index of water in the near-infrared wavelength range, which rendered tissue transparent in live mice.

Nanoparticle therapy continues to be an attractive avenue of targeted and personalised therapies. A molecular nano-conjugate developed by Zeng et al. effectively targets cancer cells and aids in their diagnosis, therapy, and also optimises innate immune responses.

Despite ample investigation on cis-regulatory alterations in evolution, the contribution of these effects to environmental adaptation is poorly understood. Ballinger and colleagues dissected the cis- and trans-regulatory impact on gene expression associated with the adaptation of house mice to temperate and tropical climates, highlighting potential mechanisms acting at a short evolutionary timescale.

The physical properties of the cells and proteins surrounding a tumor play a crucial role in determining the spread of the cancer. How they change cancer cells to suppress the immune response against them is an interesting question addressed in a recent study from Liu et al., which describes how increased stiffness of the tissue around the tumor decreases the amount of a protein—cyclic GMP-AMP synthase—in cancer cells, ultimately blocking the immune response to cancer.

As a monogamous species, the prairie vole is a common model for social neuroscience. Gustison and colleagues mapped a whole-brain histological atlas of the prairie vole and used this atlas to identify a neural network of pair-bonding behaviour. The study reveals coordinated neural networks in mated pairs and highlights the influence of social bonding on neural processing in the adult prairie vole brain.

Nanopores have the potential to revolutionize the field of protein sequencing, but due to the biochemical complexity of polypeptide sequences, they have remained mostly theoretical. In recent work, Sauciuc et al. engineer the protein nanopore CytK to produce an electroosmotic force capable of translocating unfolded polypeptides regardless of their charge distributions, an important step toward single-file protein nanopore sequencing.

Plant organs shift their directional growth in response to environmental stimuli through tropisms. Arabidopsis roots exhibit positive hydrotropism (towards water) and negative phototropism (away from light). In a recent study, Pang and colleagues demonstrated that root phototropism is regulated by the activity of two proteins in the elongation zone that also play essential roles in hydrotropism.