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Zinc is an essential micronutrient for plants, however its excess causes cellular damage. Here, the authors report that natural variation of Trichome Birefringence (TBR) gene confers zinc toxicity tolerance through modulating root cell wall pectin methylesterification in Arabidopsis.

In a randomized trial of patients with a previous myocardial infarction and with residual inflammation, a monoclonal antibody targeting the LOX-1 receptor, thought to contribute to atherosclerotic plaque progression and inflammation, reduced soluble LOX-1 and interleukin-6 levels but did not lead to a substantial reduction in coronary plaque volume.

Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve 6 to 12 months after infection in patients who have recovered from COVID-19, increasing in potency and breadth with time.

Prime editing is a CRISPR methodology whose efficiency declines with distance from the target sequence. Here the authors demonstrate prime editing with prolonged editing window, proPE, which extends the editing distance, enabling the use of prime editing for therapeutic interventions.

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Buchanan et al. show evidence confirming the phenomenon of semantic priming across speakers of 19 diverse languages.

Excessive oxidative stress is widely perceived as a key factor in cancer progression. Here, the authors reveal that oxidative stress induces transcription-dependent replication fork stalling that appears to be a major source of chromosomal rearrangements found in human cancers.

Here the authors demonstrate that the dsDNA binding function at the N-terminus of BRCA2 prevents nucleotide depletion-dependent replicative ssDNA gaps but not those induced by PARP inhibition. This function is impaired in breast-cancer variants affecting this region.

In this study, the authors use a maternal infection mouse model to show that Zika virus infection during pregnancy reshapes offspring immunity in a sex-specific manner, weakening neutrophil defenses and heightening vulnerability to infections and inflammation later in life.

A third dose of an mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 results in an expanded B cell repertoire that produces antibodies with increased potency and breadth.

Measuring relative frequencies of DNA double-strand breaks between loci does not provide the full physiological relevance of those breaks. Here Rowicka and colleagues present qDSB-Seq method which uses spike-in double-strand breaks induced by a restriction enzyme to accurately quantify DNA damage.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are well known breast cancer predisposition genes, however, many variants have not yet been classified for their pathogenicity. Here, the authors analyse a large combined cohort to provide evidence of variant pathogenicity.

The tumor suppressor RAD51C is mutated in ovarian cancers. Through variant analysis the authors identify a mutation cluster in the RAD51C Walker B region important for the repair of DNA double-strand breaks and replicative damage. By identifying Walker B separation-of-function alleles, they show that these activities can be uncoupled.

An organoid system comprising adult mouse hepatocytes, cholangiocytes and mesenchymal cells recapitulates liver morphology, biliary function and fibrotic pathology, providing a new model for studies of hepatic biology.

In membranous nephropathy autoantibodies target podocytes of the kidney filter resulting in injury. Here the authors show that the ensuing proteostatic disturbances and proteinuria relate to aberrant interactions of non-functional UCH-L1 enzyme with the proteasome, curtailing its capacity.

Protection of nascent DNA from degradation provides a mechanism that can promote synthetic viability and drug resistance in Brca-deficient cells without restoring homologous recombination at double-strand breaks.

Pseudovirus assays and surface plasmon resonance show that the Omicron receptor-binding domain binds to human ACE2 with increased affinity relative to the ancestral virus, and that most neutralizing antibodies are considerably less potent against Omicron.

An ultra-high-resolution chromatin organization map of E. coli, using Micro-C, reveals intricate chromatin structures involved in the silencing of horizontally transferred genes and those associated with active operons.

CDK12 is a therapeutic target and cancer gene required for genome integrity. Here, the Authors show that loss or inhibition of CDK12 leads to persistent transcription of damaged genes, and triggers transcription replication conflicts leading to selective cell death in Myc- driven tumors.

Individual memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination, whereas the overall neutralizing potency of plasma is greater following vaccination.

O’Neill and colleagues find that the Hippo kinase LATS1 is part of an ATR-dependent response to stalled replication forks and protects RAD51 nucleofilaments on single strand DNA.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Here the authors show that the patterning signals WNT, BMP, and FGF control chromosome segregation fidelity during early lineage specification and neurogenesis, which could provide a rationale for the spatio-temporal distribution of genomic mosaicism during human development.

The spike protein of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has a higher affinity for ACE2 than Delta, and a marked change in its antigenicity increases Omicron’s evasion of therapeutic and vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies.

The authors show that the type-1 cannabinoid receptor (CB₁) is present in mouse neuronal mitochondrial membranes. They show that mitochondrial CB₁ receptors regulate cellular respiration and energy production in the brain and may contribute to synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.

To better understand the etiology of frailty, the authors perform a large genetic study. They identified 45 additional variants and implicated MET, CHST9, ILRUN, APOE, CGREF1 and PPP6C as potential causal genes, linking frailty to immune regulation, metabolism and cellular signaling.

Human microglia transplanted in the mouse brain mount a multipronged response to amyloid-β pathology, displaying unique transcriptional states. Alzheimer’s disease risk genes are differentially regulated across cell states and profoundly alter microglial function.

Broad and potent neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 variants can be efficiently identified via accurate deep-mutational-scanning-based prediction of viral evolution and delivered to mice using mRNA–lipid nanoparticles.

A genomic study of 125 individuals from the Carpathian Basin (4800–3900 BCE) reveals different kinship systems in nearby Copper Age communities, and highlights both genetic continuity and contrasting patterns of social organization.

PARP inhibitor treatment triggers histone release from the chromatin in cancer cells; consequently, targeting the histone chaperone NASP renders cells vulnerable to PARP inhibition.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Analyses at single-cell resolution show that diverse subtypes of microglia exist during development and homeostasis of the central nervous system, and identify specific subsets of microglia associated with demyelination and neurodegenerative disease in mice and humans.

Here the authors describe a small antibody-like protein that can prevent infection by diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants in cell culture and in mice that were intranasally treated with this inhibitor before or shortly after being exposed to the virus.

A microfluidic-based system enables fast screening of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection through analysis of specific T-cell responses.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

The filamentous fungus expression system Thermothelomyces heterothallica (C1) is a protein expression system that may be useful for large scale antibody production. Here the authors characterise the production of a human monoclonal antibody that neutralises SARS-CoV-2 and compare functional properties in vitro and in animal models to antibodies produced using other methods.

Laurila et al. extend findings from rodents to humans by demonstrating, in a clinical trial, that the gut hormone secretin, which is secreted in response to a meal, induces thermogenesis and satiation in healthy males.

Myxococcus xanthus forages and moves collectively to prey and feed on other bacterial species. Here, the authors challenge the conventional idea that during Myxococcus xanthus predation, A- and S-motilities are limited to specific forager and swarm roles and reveal a synergistic interaction between these motilities to enhance predation efficiency.

Chromosome instability can be caused by replication stress, although the mechanism is unclear. Here, the authors show that inducing mild replication stress in cancerous and non-cancerous cell lines leads to centriole disengagement and the subsequent formation of lagging chromosomes and micronuclei.