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Here the authors show a role for long-distance ROS signaling in driving the recruitment and colonization of beneficial rhizobacteria by plants. This allows plants to establish acclimation in systemic tissues following local organic pollutant stress.

Here, in a longitudinal Japanese maternal-neonatal cohort, the authors characterize microbiome dynamics during pregnancy and the postpartum period, showing that early dominance of Lactobacillus crispatus in the vaginal microbiome is associated with favorable gestational outcomes.

A global research network monitoring the Amazon for 30 years reports in this study that tree size increased by 3% each decade.

Chen et al. reveal that plastisphere viral communities possess habitat-dependent potential for modulating global methane cycling. In aquatic environments, these viruses significantly promote methane emissions, emphasizing the significance of viruses in plastic pollution risk assessments.

Ammonia oxidizers contribute minimally to carbon fixation in the dark ocean despite their abundance at depth, according to enzyme inhibition experiments on water samples from two cruises.

Cis regulatory elements endow genomes with sequence-encoded logic to drive cellular differentiation. Here, the authors introduce a biophysically principled sequence model that characterises complex TF-DNA interactions with accuracy that rivals state-of-the-art blackbox sequence foundation models.

Humic substance boost lake denitrification and reduce N₂O emissions via extracellular electron transfer by stimulating bacterial outer membrane cytochrome and nosZII-type N₂O reducers, thereby aiding eutrophication and climate impact mitigation.

The soils of urban greenspaces are strikingly rich. This study finds that the variety of microbial life there is linked to acidic conditions and that this diversity is more homogenous than found in farmland soils.

Microbes adapting to broad and specialized ranges of environments (generalists and specialists) have distinct ecological roles and properties. Via meta-analysis of community sequencing datasets, Sriswasdi et al. show that generalists have higher speciation rates and persistence advantage over specialists.

An in-depth microbiological and metagenomic analysis of Colombian farm and fermentation facilities resulted in the design of a defined microbial community that can reproduce the flavour of fine chocolate.

Previous reports of microbial endemism have been restricted to sub-genus level taxa. Here, Power et al. present evidence supporting that a bacterial genus, Venenivibrio, is endemic to Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Anaerobic microbial degradation of lignin and derived monophenols enhances methane production in an anoxic peatland in China, according to soil microcosm experiments and metabolomic analyses.

In this study, the authors report and analyze four complete genomes of respiratory endosymbionts to show that they carry the potential to breathe both oxygen and nitrogen oxides providing energy to their hosts. These organisms likely represent a snapshot in the evolutionary transition from symbiont to organelle.

Here, via ITS2 gene profiling of rectal samples from 102 healthy Gambian infants, the authors show that intrapartum azithromycin has an overall mild effect on gut mycobiota development but associates with increased abundance of C. orthopsilosis in the wet season.

Here, the authors show that vancomycin-resistant enterococci grow in the antibiotic-treated gut microbiome by utilising enriched nutrients in the presence of reduced concentrations of inhibitory microbial metabolites.

Natural forest regeneration is key to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Here the authors present a high-resolution time-series map of the age of regenerating tropical moist forests and find that most are ≤5 years old, with forest characteristics and geography explaining patterns better than climate or human pressure.

In this study of ~7 million Brazilian births, the authors show that chikungunya, dengue, or Zika infection during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes, with the magnitude of these effects varying by trimester of exposure.

Soils from calcium-rich parent materials contained 33% higher organic carbon, 58% higher total nitrogen, and 55% higher total phosphorus than calcium-poor soils enhanced bacterial network complexity and soil functions, according to a large-scale field survey in Guangxi and Guizhou, China.

Here, the authors show that higher levels of the gut bacterial clade TANB77 associate with better response to cancer immunotherapy, and further demonstrate in mice that a conserved pilin from TANB77 plays a role in enhancing immunotherapy efficacy, suggesting a potential therapeutic avenue.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

Latitudinal ecosystem boundaries in the global upper ocean may be driven by many factors. Here the authors investigate pole-to-pole eukaryotic phytoplankton metatranscriptomes, gene co-expression networks, and beta diversity, finding that geographic patterns are best explained by temperature gradients.

Fan et al. show that cTAGE5 is essential for adipogenesis and adipose tissue development. Mechanistically, cTAGE5 promotes pro-insulin receptor processing, which mediates actin cytoskeleton remodeling and lipolysis during the adipocyte differentiation.

Accurate metabolite annotation remains a major challenge in untargeted metabolomics. Here, the authors present MetDNA3, a framework that integrates knowledge and data-driven two-layer networking to improve both the accuracy and coverage of known metabolite annotation, while also enabling the discovery of uncharacterized metabolites.

A strategy for protecting redox-active ortho-quinones, which show promise as anticancer agents but suffer from redox-cycling behaviour and systemic toxicity, has been developed. The ortho-quinones are derivatized to redox-inactive para-aminobenzyl ketols. Upon amine deprotection, an acid-promoted, self-immolative C–C bond-cleaving 1,6-elimination releases the redox-active hydroquinone. The strategy also enables conjugation to a carrier for targeted delivery of ortho-quinone species.

Here, using samples from 146 mother-infant pairs and multi-omics, the authors characterize the dynamics of the gut microbiome, metabolome, and antibiotic resistance gene profiles during the first year of life in association with prenatal exposure to trace elements.

The human placenta does not have a microbiota, suggesting that bacterial infection of the placenta is not a common cause of adverse pregnancy outcome, but group B Streptococcus is found in approximately 5% of placental samples.

Serological profiles from two observational cohort studies in The Gambia characterize surrogates of protection against Streptococcus pyogenes and reveal an antibody response against antigens that are currently in vaccine development.

Metal clusters are highly dynamic under catalytic conditions, which presents a challenge when it comes to recognizing active species. Now, the identification and categorization of metastable cluster states into ‘living libraries’ has been shown to clarify their crucial role in catalysis, pointing towards new design strategies for more efficient catalysts.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Using intensive eDNA sampling in space and time across five rivers in Europe and North America, this study shows that eDNA gives relevant information on freshwater diversity and ecology across broad taxonomic groups, and with limited downstream transport. The findings demonstrate that eDNA is vital for freshwater biodiversity monitoring in a time of anthropogenic change.

By synthesizing information on archaeological sites, palaeoclimate reconstructions and ancient DNA, Betti et al. show that the Neolithic expansion in Europe was not a continuous process of diffusion, but a series of climate-driven episodes of varying speeds.