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RETICULATA1 is a plastid membrane transporter in Arabidopsis that enables basic amino acid exchange across the plastid inner envelope. Loss-of-function mutants reveal its essential role in amino acid homeostasis, plant development and seed production.

Trumpp and colleagues develop a method to obtain long-term circulating tumor cell-derived organoids from individuals with metastatic breast cancer and identify the neuregulin 1–HER3 axis as important for organoid growth and a promising therapeutic target.

Riboswitches are elements present in some mRNAs that form alternative folded structures depending on the presence or absence of a small molecule ligand. These alternative structures determine whether protein is made from the mRNA. Here, a new way by which riboswitches affect protein expression, by affecting alternative splicing, is described.

The formation of magnetic vortices such as skyrmions is hampered by the stochastic nature of thermal fluctuations. Here, the authors demonstrate that ultrafast dynamics in the initial stages of vortex formation can dominate the stochastic behaviour observed in the steady state.

Antiferroelectrics are important in emerging energy-storage technologies. Here, the authors present an approach to adjust their local structure and defect chemistry, in order to overcome the current limitations and make them suitable for environmentally-friendly dielectric energy storage.

A study by Kibe et al. of the translational landscape of HIV-1 reveals alternative translation events, including use of upstream and internal open reading frames, an RNA fold regulating gag-pol frameshifting and ribosome collisions, providing new targets for antivirals.

A technique that combines retrograde axon tracing with single-cell transcriptomics is used to characterize neurons innervating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and healthy pancreas, providing insight into the role of neural connections in cancer progression.

Structural analyses of the translating mitoribosome from Neurospora crassa reveal insights into the interactions with mRNA and tRNA, assembly of the large subunit, and evolution of the tunnel for nascent polypeptide.

Burying beetles feed their offspring on the carrion of vertebrate animals. Here, the authors study gene expression in the insect’s gut, as well as the composition of the microbiota in the gut and in carcasses, providing evidence for metabolic cooperation between host and specific microbes.

A device architecture based on indium arsenide–aluminium heterostructures with a gate-defined superconducting nanowire allows single-shot interferometric measurement of fermion parity and demonstrates an assignment error probability of 1%.

BNT162b1 and BNT162b2 are two candidate mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that elicit high virus-entry inhibition titres in mice, elicit high virus-neutralizing titres in rhesus macaques and protect macaques from SARS-CoV-2 challenge.

Despite being implicated in several neurological diseases, the gut-brain axis remains poorly understood. Here the authors describe a mechanism of communication between the brain and the gut in a Parkinson’s disease mouse model mediated by CD11c⁺ macrophages.

Producing nacre-like ceramics with a tough, non-polymeric matrix remains a challenge. Here, the authors use the reactive wetting of a zirconium-based bulk metallic glass to successfully infiltrate a porous alumina and create a composite with improved flexural strength and fracture toughness.

Fundamental understanding of the kinetics of phase transitions in phase-change materials has been hindered by challenges in the experimental quantification. Via an in situ laser reflectivity technique, Salinga et al.measure the crystal growth kinetics, revealing an extremely high fragility in the supercooled liquid.

A xenograft assay facilitates identification of metastasis-initiating cells in the blood of individuals with breast cancer.

Fine-mapping of causal variants and integration of epigenetic and chromatin conformation data identify likely target genes for 150 breast cancer risk regions.

Sensitive methods for antibody detection tend to be expensive and slow. Here, the authors report a magnetic particle spectroscopy method named COMPASS, as a rapid and low-cost technique which is comparable to ELISA in terms of sensitivity but with a measurement times of seconds.

Swarm Learning is a decentralized machine learning approach that outperforms classifiers developed at individual sites for COVID-19 and other diseases while preserving confidentiality and privacy.

The chemokine receptor CXCR3-A is expressed in high grade glioma. Here the authors show that CXCR3-A interacts with LPR1, a protein highly expressed in glioma, and this interaction regulates the trafficking of the receptor ultimately impacting on tumour cell migration.

The nature of liquid–liquid phase transitions remains inconclusive, because direct experimental evidence is limited by crystallization. Wei et al.observe it in a bulk metallic glass former, which is characterized by heat capacity maxima and sudden changes in both viscosity and local structures.

This proof-of-concept phase 1 trial shows that the size of circulating tumor cell clusters (which can promote metastatic spread) can be reduced by treatment with the Na⁺/K⁺ ATPase inhibitor digoxin in patients with metastatic breast cancer.

Ruth Loos and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association study for body mass index. They identify 18 new loci associated with this trait, some of which map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance.

The PI3K–PTEN signalling pathway is a central regulator of metabolic homeostasis. Brunner et al. find that cell-intrinsic PI3K signalling allows adipose tissue macrophages to buffer obesity-induced lipotoxicity by promoting lipid uptake and catabolism.

Resistance to first line treatment is a major hurdle in cancer treatment, that can be overcome with drug combinations. Here, the authors provide a large drug combination screen across cancer cell lines to benchmark crowdsourced methods and to computationally predict drug synergies.

Plasma extracellular vesicles contain quantifiable amounts of TDP-43 and full-length tau, allowing the accurate assessment of pathology in frontotemporal dementia, frontotemporal dementia spectrum disorders and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

It is unclear whether trait trade-offs and optimality principles observed at the individual level scale up to the ecosystem level. Here, the authors show that plant trait coordination principles also predict patterns between community-level traits and ecosystem-scale processes.

Expression of HNF1A and KRT81 stratifies pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tumors into different subtypes, and expression of cytochrome P450 3A5 mediates basal and/or drug-induced therapy resistance in each subtype.

Expression profiles of several hundred microRNAs in the blood of individuals with disease, including autoimmune disease, cancers, cardiovascular disease and chronic inflammatory disease are reported.

Multinucleated giant cells (MGCs) are important in the pathogenesis of various diseases. Here, the authors demonstrate that extracellular presence of the amino acid arginine is required for MGC formation and metabolism, suggesting a translational impact for strategies utilizing systemic arginine depletion in MGC-mediated diseases.

Prostate cancer (PrCa) involves a large heritable genetic component. Here, the authors perform multivariate fine-mapping of known PrCa GWAS loci, identifying variants enriched for biological function, explaining more familial relative risk, and with potential application in clinical risk profiling.

Chromatin effector proteins often employ multivalent interactions with histone post-translational modifications. Here by using chemically defined nucleosome array and single-molecule microscopy, the authors show that effector multivalency prolongs chromatin retention and accelerates the association rate.

Although termites are major human pests, they have an important role in maintaining ecosystem function and biodiversity. Here, the authors sequence the genome and transcriptomes of a dampwood termite and highlight genes that may be involved in the mechanisms underlying insect social behaviour.

How the histone variant H2A.Z controls cell fate remains unclear. Here, the authors reveal that the H2A.Z interacting partner HMG20A plays a key role in regulating transcription during early head and heart development.

By performing experiments under upper tropospheric conditions, nitric acid, sulfuric acid and ammonia can form particles synergistically, at rates orders of magnitude faster than any two of the three components.

Using the lifespan brain chart and two large-scale cross-cultural consortia (ABIDE and CABIC), we disentangle the heterogeneity of brain morphology in ASD into two structural impairment pathways that could disrupt sensory to association functions.

Viral gene therapy can be limited by the efficacy of virion sequestration, immune responses and the silencing of genetic payloads. Here the authors engineer an advenovirus protein coat which shields the virion from the immune system while targeting cancer cells.