Search

Improved cytosine base editors are created by repurposing an adenine deaminase.

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.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness. Here, the authors identify rare deleterious variants in UBOX5 as risk factors and implicate BIP ubiquitination as a potential disease mechanism.

Genome editing of single bases is made more versatile and accurate with new fusions of mutated Cas9 and cytidine deaminase domains.

Polygenic risk scores can help identify individuals at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Here, the authors characterise a multi-ancestry score across nearly 900,000 people, showing that its predictive value depends on demographic and clinical context and extends to related traits and complications.

Three independent theoretical approaches are used to assess the efficiency of the electromagnetic wave mode radiation at the plasma frequency from beam-generated sources during type III solar radio bursts, with parameters close to realistic conditions.

Opposing forces generated by exopolysaccharide trail binding versus type IV pilus retraction generate a high cyclic diGMP–high cyclic AMP state in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that promotes social motility.

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.

Characterisation of the human antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 can help the design of serological tests and vaccines. Here, the authors identify two linear epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that elicit neutralising antibodies in several patients and could thus be useful for serology and vaccine development.

Responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in different populations are important to define efficacy. Here the authors show using a cohort in Singapore that two doses of mRNA vaccine is less effective in recipients over 60 years of age and that a further dose of vaccine can improve these antibody levels.

Here, the authors sample air and surfaces in hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients, detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in air samples of two of three tested airborne infection isolation rooms, and find surface contamination in 66.7% of tested rooms during the first week of illness and 20% beyond the first week of illness.

Body size and composition are complex traits that are challenging to characterize due to environmental and genetic influences. Here, Arehart et al. disentangle shared and distinct genetic signals underlying body size and composition.

Chaotic resonators constructed from planar silicon-on-insulator photonic crystals and deformed polystyrene microspheres are demonstrated to store up to six times more light energy than their classical, non-chaotic counterparts. This effect is attributed to the modification of the trajectories and lifetimes of photons in the cavity.

State-of-the-art simulations of disorder-induced trapping of light in inverted opals provides a basis for a definitive identification, and potential use, of the three-dimensional Anderson localization of light.

A thermal diode is the heat transfer analogue of an electrical diode: it favours the flow of energy carriers such as photons, phonons or electrons in one direction. Here, the authors demonstrate a photon thermal diode that uses pyramidal reflectors to asymmetrically scatter the photons.

The self-assembly of anisotropic nanoparticles into large-area superlattices remains challenging. Here the authors exploit surface chemistry to tune the wettability of silver nano-octahedra, and direct a continuous superlattice structural evolution, from close-packed to progressively open structures.

A region on chromosome 19p13 is associated with the risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. Here, the authors genotyped SNPs in this region in thousands of breast and ovarian cancer patients and identified SNPs associated with three genes, which were analysed with functional studies.

The immune response to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 has been relatively well studied, but less is known about other viral proteins. Here, the authors identify immunopeptides from seven structural and non-structural SARS-CoV-2 proteins presented to the immune system by HLA molecules and confirm T-cell responses against some of them in convalescent individuals.

Cryptococcus neoformans is the leading cause of death by fungal meningoencephalitis. Here, the authors study the roles played by 129 putative kinases in the growth and virulence of C. neoformans, identifying potential targets for development of anticryptococcal drugs.

Phosphatases are key components in cellular signalling networks. Here, the authors present a systematic functional analysis of phosphatases of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, revealing roles in virulence, stress responses, O-mannosylation, retromer function and other processes.

Screening combinatorial mutants is too massive for wet-lab experiment alone. Here the authors present a machine learning-coupled combinatorial mutagenesis approach to vastly reduce experimental burden for engineering Cas9 genome editing enzymes.

Motile and non-motile cilia have distinct functions and protein complexes associated with them. Here, the authors show the conserved protein CFAP20 is important for both motile and non-motile cilia and is distinct from other ciliopathy-associated domains or macromolecular complexes.

Spatially resolved transcriptomic profiling of primary tumours and metastases from patients with pancreatic cancer provides insight into the evolutionary progression to metastasis, and the variation in clonal architecture within and between individuals.

Some circulating avian influenza A viruses can infect humans, but the mechanism enabling species jump is poorly understood. Here, Huanget al. identify a nucleotide in NEP of avian H7N9 viruses that affects splicing efficiency of the NS segment and supports virus replication in avian and mammalian cells.

Genome-wide analyses identify variants associated with infertility and reproductive hormone levels but find limited polygenic overlap between reproductive hormone levels and infertility at the population level.

Determining whether somatosensory neurons are involved in internal or external sensing remains a challenge. Here, the authors show that analyzing connectivity is a powerful approach to identify putative neural functions of somatosensory neurons in the fly.

We discuss evidence to show that the generally accepted view of the Big Bang model for the origin of the Universe is unsatisfactory. We suggest an alternative model that satisfies the constraints better.

Polygenic risk scores for Alzheimer’s disease derived from individuals of European ancestry can show improved performance in multiancestry settings after incorporating genome-wide association summary statistics from diverse populations.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes (T2D) identifies more than 600 T2D-associated loci; integrating physiological trait and single-cell chromatin accessibility data at these loci sheds light on heterogeneity within the T2D phenotype.

The laser pulses that drive most laser wakefield accelerators have wavelengths near 1 micrometer and peak power > 100 terawatts. Here, the authors drive plasma wakes with 10 micrometer, 2-terawatt pulses, yielding relativistic electron beams with a collimated, narrow-energy-bandwidth component.