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Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated gut microbiome dysbiosis correlates with systemic immunodeficiency and opportunistic gut infections. Faecal microbiome transplantation from people living with HIV with high peripheral CD4⁺ T cell counts improved intestinal immunity and protection against Cryptosporidium parvum in mice.

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 58 independent risk loci for major anxiety disorders among individuals of European ancestry and implicates GABAergic signaling as a potential mechanism underlying genetic risk for these disorders.

How landscapes are arranged affects soil pathogenic fungi worldwide. The authors reveal the global pattern and pronounced scale-dependency of landscape complexity and land-cover quantity on soil pathogenic fungal diversity.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

Quantum metastability has been studied primarily in continuous-time systems. Here the authors observe it in the discrete-time evolution of a single nuclear spin in diamond via sequential Ramsey interferometry measurements of a nearby electron spin, enabling single-shot, high-fidelity nuclear spin readout.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

Adaptive wireless communication over an unprecedented frequency range spanning over 100 GHz can be achieved by a thin-film lithium niobate photonic wireless system, which can process a large flux of information at high speed.

Conditional cysteine restriction in mice causes substantial weight loss, exceeding that seen with essential amino acid restriction, by activating the integrated stress and oxidative stress responses, and by unexpectedly depleting coenzyme A, leading to metabolic inefficiency.

It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.

Medium- and branched-chain diols and amino alcohols are important industrial feedstocks, but they are biosynthetically challenging to produce. Here the authors introduce a modular polyketide synthase platform for the efficient production of these compounds.

Computationally designed genetically encoded proteins can be used to target surface proteins, thereby triggering endocytosis and subsequent intracellular degradation, activating signalling or increasing cellular uptake in specific tissues.

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.

A cross-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci, reveals putative causal genes, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as potential drug targets, and provides cross-ancestry integrative risk prediction.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Cognitive function is associated with health and important life outcomes. Here, the authors perform a genome-wide association study for general cognitive function in 300,486 individuals and identify genetic loci that implicate neural and cell developmental pathways in this trait.

Genome-wide association analyses of intracranial and nine subcortical brain volumes in 74,898 participants of European ancestry identify 254 independent loci and yield polygenic scores accounting for brain variation across ancestries.

The protective efficacy of a single dose of adenovirus serotype 26 (Ad26) vector-based vaccine expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in non-human primates is demonstrated.

Association analyses in over 1 million individuals identify 535 new loci influencing blood pressure traits. The results provide new insights into blood pressure regulation and highlight shared genetic architecture between blood pressure and lifestyle exposures.

Inbreeding depression has been observed in many different species, but in humans a systematic analysis has been difficult so far. Here, analysing more than 1.3 million individuals, the authors show that a genomic inbreeding coefficient (FROH) is associated with disadvantageous outcomes in 32 out of 100 traits tested.

Melinda Mills, Nicola Barban, Harold Snieder, Marcel den Hoed and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of data from over 300,000 individuals for age at first birth and number of children ever born. They identify 12 significant loci that associate with these traits, providing insights into the genetic basis of human reproductive behavior.

Here the authors apply machine learning approaches to Alzheimer’s genetics, confirm known associations and suggest novel risk loci. These methods demonstrate predictive power comparable to traditional approaches, while also offering potential new insights beyond standard genetic analyses.

Caroline Fox and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association meta-analysis and replication study for indices of renal function. Their work identifies 13 new loci associated with renal function and 7 loci associated with creatinine production and secretion.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

Control of cancer by gene therapy will require choosing the right genes (1052–1056).

The extent of antibody protection against SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Here, using a cohort of 120 seroconverted individuals, the authors longitudinally characterize neutralization, Fc-function, and SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell responses, which they show to be prominent only in those subjects that elicited receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific antibody titers above a certain threshold, suggesting that development of T cell responses to be related to anti-RBD Ab production.

Genome-wide analysis identifies variants associated with the volume of seven different subcortical brain regions defined by magnetic resonance imaging. Implicated genes are involved in neurodevelopmental and synaptic signaling pathways.

Many recent proteomics studies use either Olink or SomaScan platforms to quantify proteins in high-throughput, but the consistency between the two is unclear. Here, the authors measure proteins in the same samples using both platforms, finding only modest correlation, and compare associations with genetic variants and disease.

Lifespan can be affected by both physiological ageing and specific sets of pathologies associated with old age. Here the authors report a resource of large-scale cross-sectional phenotyping of aging male mice at different time points to analyse a large set of phenotypes and molecular markers, including during genetic and diet interventions affecting lifespan.

Cortex morphology varies with age, cognitive function, and in neurological and psychiatric diseases. Here the authors report 160 genome-wide significant associations with thickness, surface area and volume of the total cortex and 34 cortical regions from a GWAS meta-analysis in 22,824 adults.

The glycocalyx is a layer of proteoglycans and complex carbohydrates that lines the endothelial cell surface in blood vessels. Schmidt et al. show that in mouse models of sepsis, lung inflammation and injury depend on glycocalyx degradation, which increases neutrophil access to endothelial adhesion molecules. The authors also provide data indicating the potential relevance of this mechanism of lung injury to humans with sepsis.

Dark-pulse combs may be useful for coherent communications since they display high power conversion efficiency. Here, the authors report the first demonstration of coherent wavelength division multiplexing using dark pulse microresonator combs high signal-to-noise while maintaining a low on-chip pump power.

The goals, resources and design of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) programme are described, and analyses of rare variants detected in the first 53,831 samples provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

The hippocampus in mammalian brain varies in size across individuals. Here, Hibar and colleagues perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis to find six genetic loci with significant association to hippocampus volume.

Here the authors identify 128 regions of the genome associated with blood pressure traits in 100,000 Chinese adults. Blood pressure traits contributed differently to CVD risk, with only pulse pressure independently causally associated with carotid plaque.

The influence of X chromosome genetic variation on blood lipids and coronary heart disease (CHD) is not well understood. Here, the authors analyse X chromosome sequencing data across 65,322 multi-ancestry individuals, identifying associations of the Xq23 locus with lipid changes and reduced risk of CHD and diabetes mellitus.

Known genetic loci account for only a fraction of the genetic contribution to Alzheimer’s disease. Here, the authors have performed a large genome-wide meta-analysis comprising 409,435 individuals to discover 6 new loci and demonstrate the efficacy of an Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk score.

Analysis of 97,691 high-coverage human blood DNA-derived whole-genome sequences enabled simultaneous identification of germline and somatic mutations that predispose individuals to clonal expansion of haematopoietic stem cells, indicating that both inherited and acquired mutations are linked to age-related cancers and coronary heart disease.