News & Views in 2025

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.