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Hepatitis C virus remains a health burden due to the lack of an effective vaccine, hindered by difficulties in replicating the native E1E2 antigen structure. Here, the authors engineer a stabilized E1E2 heterodimer using cryo-EM-guided modifications, enhancing immunogenicity and paving the way for future HCV vaccine development.

This Commission aims to resolve the current dialysis policy challenges in Thailand and generate lessons for the global kidney community by drawing on empirical evidence, systems thinking and multidisciplinary expertise to generate policy goals and recommendations.

Japonica subspecies has a lower nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) than that of indica rice. Here, the authors show that natural variations in the NIN-like protein 4 (OsNLP4) encoding gene are responsible for the divergence and introgression of the indica OsNLP4 allele into elite japonica cultivar can increase NUE and grain yield.

Radiation reaction (RR) on particles in strong fields is the subject of intense experimental research, but previous efforts lacked statistical significance due to the extreme regimes required. Here, the authors report a 5σ observation of RR and obtain strong, quantitative evidence favouring quantum models over classical, using an all-optical setup where electrons are accelerated by a laser in a gas jet before colliding with a second, intense pulse.

A 3D soft electronic mesh allows high-resolution electrical recording and stimulation across the full surface of neural organoids, enabling long-term studies, drug testing and optogenetic control without compromising their viability owing to its porous design.

ATF6α activation in human and preclinical models of hepatocellular carcinoma is significantly associated with an aggressive tumour phenotype characterized by reduced survival, glycolytic reprogramming and local immunosuppression.

Using two newly developed immunoassays tested in three clinical cohorts, this study highlights CSF DOPA decarboxylase as a promising biomarker for differentiating dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease from Alzheimer’s disease and controls.

Greenwald, Nederlof and colleagues developed a computational pipeline analyzing multiplex imaging data and established spatial patterns within breast cancer microenvironment that are predictive of immune checkpoint blockade response across treatment time course.

Tests of the predictions of the renormalization group in biological experiments have not yet been decisive. Now, a study on the collective dynamics of insect swarms provides a long-sought match between experiment and theory.

Vaziri et al. examined how humans detect changes in auditory pitch, revealing that listeners rely on correlations in sound intensity over frequency and time, processing that is reminiscent of visual motion detection.

Over the past 40 years, 42% of tropical and subtropical ecosystems have experienced an increase in plant reliance on past precipitation, consistent with greening during the late growing season in drylands and drying during the wet-to-dry period in non-drylands.

Population-level analyses and in vitro experiments show that a specific genetic variant of cyclin D3 inhibits the growth of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum in erythrocytes, and suggest that its high frequency in Sardinia was driven by past endemic malaria.

Carboxysomes are cyanobacterial CO₂-concentrating compartments with a proteinaceous shell. The elucidation of the role of the shell adaptor protein ApN in stepwise β-carboxysome assembly will aid the engineering of these structures in plants.

Crystalline materials for optical applications are synthesized in living dinoflagellates.

Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in van der Waals materials are promising for nanophotonic applications, but they are normally limited to the mid-infrared range. Here, the authors report the observation of long-lived and highly confined HPhPs in the deep THz range in layered PbI₂.

EuCo₂Al₉ is identified as a metallic spin supersolid with high thermal conductivity, exhibiting coexisting spin orders, strong quantum fluctuations and a giant magnetocaloric effect enabling efficient sub-Kelvin refrigeration.

Taniuchi and colleagues show that differential phosphorylation of the terminal Y residue in Runx proteins connect MHC restriction with the helper versus cytotoxic T cell lineage choice.

Self-DNA has been implicated in the activation of cGAS/STING/IFN-I responses in autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases. Here the authors show that macrophage uses a process termed ‘nucleocytosis’ to extract nuclear DNA from lysosome-impaired, dying target cells, thereby activating downstream cGAS-STING signaling and IFN-I production.

Here the authors compare genetic testing strategies in rare movement disorders, improve diagnostic yield with genome analysis, and establish CD99L2 as an X-linked spastic ataxia gene, showing that CD99L2–CAPN1 signaling disruption likely drives neurodegeneration.

In a phase 1 trial, personalized mRNA vaccines tailored to individual tumour mutations in triple-negative breast cancer induced robust, long-lasting T cell responses and improved prognosis.

A molecular-level understanding of structural evolution upon electrochemical doping in organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors is required. A pronounced reduction in mass and thickness is observed in an n-type ladder polymer upon doping with protic cations owing to water expulsion.

Here, the authors show that 2’-O-methylated RNA fragments from ribosomal RNA naturally block TLR7 and TLR8, helping to avoid avoid harmful self-RNA detection and autoimmunity.

Genome-wide analyses in the Norwegian HUNT study with replication in Swedish and Finnish cohorts identify host genetic variants associated with gut microbiome features and provide evidence of a causal effect of body mass index on gut microbiota composition.

A measurement strategy is described that is able to read out the parity of minimal two-site Kitaev chains in real time, by coupling two Majoranas and resolving their quantum capacitance.

Authors study links between amyloid secondary nucleation and growth defects, demonstrating these sites on Aβ40/Aβ42 fibrils are rare compared to the number of protein molecules. Re-analysis of published data suggests that defects may also drive secondary nucleation generally.

Chlorine electrosynthesis from seawater is limited by poor selectivity and stability under industrial-scale conditions. Here atomic-step-enriched ultrafine high-entropy alloy nanowires enable highly efficient chlorine evolution at 10 kA m⁻² for over 5,500 h through dynamic Pt–O active sites, reducing electricity consumption and feedstock costs for next-generation chlor-alkali processes.

Hepatic glycogenolysis is essential for protein glycosylation and rhythmic secretion by the liver. Disruptions to hepatic glycogenolysis, caused by congenital diseases or physiological factors such as obesity, caloric restriction and changes to meal timing, alter hepatic protein secretion.

This study of magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene moiré superconductors using scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy identifies two energy gaps that develop from many-body resonance in this highly tunable class of materials.

The study shows a micron-scale polariton structure where an artificial gauge field creates topological, non-reciprocal edge transport without strong magnetic fields, overcoming key limits for topological polariton lasers and devices.

Energy deposition inside silicon with ultrashort laser pulses is intrinsically restricted. Here, authors demonstrate that this filamentation-driven ceiling is universal in semiconductors. Extreme nonlinearities are quantified to predict and optimize involume laser-semiconductor interaction.

Protected areas (PAs) are central to China’s forest conservation strategy, yet their carbon storage effectiveness under different governance and management contexts remains uncertain. Here, authors show that stronger protection enables substantially greater forest carbon gains in China’s PAs, both now and in the future.

Conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1) can boost the precursor exhausted T cell population thought to be essential for efficacy of immune checkpoint therapy. Here the authors enhance this cellular network using Flt3L to expand cDC1s and then map the movement of T cells and DCs between tumors and lymph nodes.

A spin-wave ladder architecture based on single-crystal yttrium iron garnet requiring only one external magnetic bias for manufacturing tunable compact filters using modern micromachining fabrication methods is described, demonstrating applications in future communications systems.

High pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) may endanger not only domestic poultry but also wild birds. Here authors show that upon immunisation of king penguin chicks with a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine against a H5 HPAI clade 2.3.4.4b protein, the birds mount a lasting neutralising antibody response against avian influenza, with no natural infection occurring within the 250-day observation period.

Viral ribonucleoprotein–viral protein networks form pre-replication centres that nucleate viral factories and drive respiratory syncytial virus replication.

The electronic behaviour of complex oxides such as LaNiO₃ depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, making it challenging to identify microscopic mechanisms. Here the authors demonstrate the influence of oxygen vacancies on the thickness-dependent metal-insulator transition of LaNiO₃ films.

Saturation genome editing of a cancer mutation hotspot in CTNNB1, the gene encoding β-catenin, reveals a gradient of effects of missense mutations on Wnt signaling.

The lowest-frequency gravitational wave background may be shaped by supermassive black hole binaries that scatter nearby stars or dark matter. In this case, the NANOGrav 15-year dataset favours dense galactic centres with 10⁶ solar masses per cubic parsec.

How the brain supports speaking and listening during conversation of its natural form remains poorly understood. Here, by combining intracranial EEG recordings with Natural Language Processing, the authors show broadly distributed frontotemporal neural signals that encode context-dependent linguistic information during both speaking and listening..

Native state proteomics of PV interneurons revealed unique molecular features of high translational and metabolic activity, and enrichment of Alzheimer’s risk genes. Early amyloid pathology exerted unique effects on mitochondria, mTOR signaling and neurotransmission in PV neurons.

Non-equilibrium two-dimensional melting is less understood than its equilibrium counterpart. Now it is shown that topologically driven melting in a two-dimensional crystal of charged colloids is the same irrespective of the mechanisms that generate the defects

Mucosal administration of a multivalent, adjuvanted vaccine against Clostridioides difficile promoted bacterial clearance and protected against morbidity, mortality, tissue damage and recurrence in mice.

Bång-Rudenstam et al. report that the acidic tumour microenvironment facilitates the assembly of chondroitin sulfate-enriched glycocalyx to disrupt lipid scavenging and prevent ferroptosis, thereby providing an adaptive mechanism upon tumour acidosis.