News & Views

Recent advancements in mercury bioremediation highlight the potential of engineered organisms to transform toxic mercury into less harmful forms. Two pioneering studies demonstrate the ability of genetically modified animals and bacteria to mitigate mercury toxicity. However, these approaches face challenges, including intracellular toxicity and limited bioconversion efficiency.

Recent research provides evidence of potential altruistic social behavior in mice. Laboratory mice appear to attempt to rescue an unconscious cage mate by investigating its mouth and pulling out its tongue. The finding indicates the difficulty of anthropomorphic interpretation of such impressive prosocial ability in mice.

A recent study introduces a new method to quantify amyloid-β plaques in whole brains of mice to elucidate the variability in expressivity of a transgene widely used in Alzheimer’s disease research. The findings uncover a previously unrecognised imprinted pattern of transgene expression. This work highlights the importance of using in situ measurements that capture whole organs to reduce sampling errors and underscores the essential role of systematic documentation of genetics and breeding patterns for ensuring reproducibility.

The functional characterization of proteins during temporally constrained periods of mammalian development and disease is largely limited by the inability to rapidly and reversibly perturb their function. A new study addresses this challenge by directly comparing two targeted protein degradation systems in mice. These systems enable precise temporal degradation of proteins, offering unprecedented opportunities to study dynamic biological processes. Several technical components remain to be optimized, but these technologies promise to provide novel insights in vivo.

A new study reveals that metformin, a widely prescribed diabetes medication, can significantly improve health parameters in aged male cynomolgus monkeys — possibly by slowing the aging process. The findings represent an important step toward understanding how pharmaceutical interventions might, in the future, extend the healthspan and delay age-related diseases in humans.

Optical tissue clearing allows high-resolution microscopy imaging of biological samples while retaining critical three-dimensional and structural information for research and diagnosis. Most methods can only be performed ex vivo on fixed tissues, but a new study claims to have found a technique that can render live tissue transparent.

A highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus is spreading in U.S. dairy cattle and has been transmitted to other species, including humans, probably through contaminated milk. Understanding how the virus spreads among cattle and its potential for mammalian adaptation and airborne transmission is crucial for effective outbreak control and public health safety.

Understanding the inherent complexity of organogenesis and addressing the persistent shortage of organ donors remain paramount scientific challenges. Recent advances in chimeric blastocyst technology offer promising solutions. Two new pioneering studies have successfully generated functional rat–mouse brain chimeras, providing novel insights into brain development and potential regenerative therapies. However, several technical and ethical hurdles persist.

Omne vivum ex ovo — Every living thing comes from an egg. However, keeping eggs healthy and competent to form viable embryos is not an easy task for every organism. A recent paper describes an elegant mechanism utilised by mammalian eggs to manage possibly toxic protein aggregates.

Recent genome editing techniques have substantially simplified the generation of genetically modified mice. A new study combines adeno-associated viruses (AAV) and electroporation to generate a robust pipeline to deliver CRISPR-Cas reagents into mouse embryos.

No, we are not talking about a new dish for dinner, but a study representing an emerging research field. Psilocybin research is gaining momentum, and zebrafish behavioral neuroscience research has been exponentially expanding. At the intersection of these two research fields is a recent paper that utilized high-tech video-tracking to detect behavioral changes induced by this psychoactive drug in larval zebrafish.

Unlocking the secrets of the brain requires high precision tools to record neuronal activity. Neuroscientists have tools to capture neuronal activity with unprecedented speed, precision and fidelity. Thanks to a ground-breaking redesign of the linker peptide of GCaMP proteins, a domain seldomly considered for optimization, a new sensor bridges the gap between calcium imaging and electrophysiology.

A recent study performed directed C5-cytosine methylation of CpG islands to demonstrate that acquired methylation at critical loci could be reestablished for multiple generations in mice. This work provides a manipulatable system to examine how non-genetic information is transmitted across generations to regulate complex phenotypes.

New research using high-dimensional behavioural analyses has further undermined the “females are the more variable sex” trope that often accompanies all-male studies. But when we consider the benefits to the inclusion of females in research, their lesser variability is only the icing on the cake. It’s just good science, really.

Despite centuries of effort from philosophers, physicians and biologists, the answer to the seemingly simple question “what is aging?” remains elusive. Some even posit that aging represents a phenomenon too expansive to ever be succinctly defined. A new study tackles this question by profiling hundreds of phenotypes across age in mice and examining how the trajectories of these phenotypes are altered by geroprotective genetic and dietary interventions.

A challenge in translational research is comparing behaviors across species. A new study combines a novel behavioral paradigm in rats and humans with reinforcement learning to infer shared computations for goal-directed navigation.

The application of genome-editing tools to generate point mutations in animal models is of particular value for precise disease modeling, but the PAM requirement of Cas enzymes is a critical limiting factor. Two new studies demonstrate that SpRY variant displays efficient genome editing in a nearly PAM-less manner in zebrafish, expanding the targeting scope of base editors in this model.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the FKBP5 gene influence the risk of developing stress-related disorders, but the underlying processes are not fully understood. Animal models offer a possibility to investigate the influence of FKBP5 gene variants on the stress response system.

New insights into gut-brain axis and cognition function show that accumulation of Caudovirales bacteriophages in the gut microbiota is associated with improved executive function and memory.

Rodent grooming is an important behaviour that is commonly used to characterize preclinical models of human brain disorders. A new paper has leveraged deep learning to develop a precise, high throughput and automated grooming classifier to facilitate mechanistic neuroscience research on grooming.