Search

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

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

The MET receptor is frequently activated in cancer. Here, the authors show that in head and neck and lung squamous carcinoma, a polymorphic MET variant enhances binding to HER2, resulting in activation of HER2 signalling and progression of the cancers.

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.

Evan Eichler and colleagues present a detailed characterization of the chromosome 15q13.3 microdeletion region. They identify complex structural polymorphisms and find that the rearrangement breakpoints cluster in palindromic GOLGA8 core duplicons, providing evidence that this repeat and its palindromic architecture underlie the evolutionary and disease-related instability of this region.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Collagen-binding peptides identified via phage display can be used to enhance the homing of mesenchymal stem cells to osteoarthritic tissue, its lubrication by hyaluronic acid and its visualization via magnetic resonance imaging.

A genome-wide association study of critically ill patients with COVID-19 identifies genetic signals that relate to important host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage that may be targeted by repurposing drug treatments.

Ubhi et al. describe the contribution of APOBEC family members A3C and A3D in the gemcitabine resistance mechanism in the context of pancreatic cancer, which is mediated by facilitating the restart of treatment-induced stalled replication forks.

Non-human primates are important animal models for studying SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, Salguero et al. directly compare rhesus and cynomolgus macaques and show that both species represent COVID-19 disease of mild clinical cases, and provide a lung histopathology scoring system.

Large-scale Mendelian randomization and colocalization analyses using gene expression and soluble protein data for 1,263 actionable druggable genes, which encode protein targets for approved drugs or drugs in clinical development, identify IFNAR2 and ACE2 as the most promising therapeutic targets for early management of COVID-19.

Serological classification of influenza infection has classically been based on a four-fold or higher increase in antibody levels, but this approach may not be optimal. Here, the authors develop a Bayesian model to improve identification of infections in serological samples by accounting for individual antibody dynamics.

Similarities in cancers can be studied to interrogate their etiology. Here, the authors use genome-wide association study summary statistics from six cancer types based on 296,215 cases and 301,319 controls of European ancestry, showing that solid tumours arising from different tissues share a degree of common germline genetic basis.

The double-strand break sensor MRE11 is identified as a pivotal mediator of cGAS activation in response to multiple types of DNA damage.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Relevance of indirect protection of household members of vaccinees is unclear. Here, Tsang et al. quantify the direct and indirect protection of vaccination in a randomized controlled trial and show that benefits of individual vaccination remain important even when other household members are vaccinated.

SARS-CoV-2 induces mild infection in ferret model. Here, Ryan et al. characterise optimal infection dosage inducing upper respiratory tract (UTR) viral shedding, progression time of viral shedding, and pathology in ferrets and finally provide evidence for protection after re-challenge.

In a prespecified secondary analysis of the STEP-HFpEF trial, semagludtide treatment was associated with improvements in KCCQ-CSS and body weight, as well as trial secondary endpoints, across the spectrum of obesity classes, with the magnitude of beneficial effects being proportional to the extent of weight loss.

The palladium-catalysed cross-coupling of aryl- or alkenylboronates and aryl halides has proved phenomenally successful for the formation of Csp²–Csp² bonds. Now, an alternative non-transition-metal-mediated coupling using similar reactants has been reported for the stereo-controlled formation of Csp²–Csp³ bonds.

This Perspective centres on alterations in the fatty acid-ome as the critical feature of lipid aberration in α-synucleinopathies, specifically Parkinson disease. Here, the authors explain the biological and genetic basis for their hypothesis, with an emphasis on the transient binding of α-synuclein to fatty acids of various lipids.

Paul Pharoah, Joellen Schildkraut, Thomas Sellers and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for epithelial ovarian cancer and genotyping using the iCOGS array in 18,174 cases and 26,134 controls from 43 studies from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. They identify three new ovarian cancer susceptibility loci, including one specific to the serous subtype, and their integrated molecular analysis of genes and regulatory regions at these loci suggests disease mechanisms.

Stig Bojesen, Georgia Chenevix-Trench, Alison Dunning and colleagues report common variants at the TERT-CLPTM1L locus associated with mean telomere length measured in whole blood. They also identify associations at this locus to breast or ovarian cancer susceptibility and report functional studies in breast and ovarian cancer tissue and cell lines.

A new class of antibiotics that targets bacterial lipid biosynthesis is isolated from Streptomyces platensis, and demonstrates potent in vitro and in vivo activity against Gram-positive bacteria — including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus species.

In this genomic epidemiology study from Ghana, the authors sequence ~1,000 SARS-CoV-2 whole genomes from March 2020 to September 2021. They describe changes in the predominant circulating lineages over time and infer how variants of concern were likely introduced into the country.

The authors defined a roadmap for investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders. Their proof-of-concept study using the largest available common variant data sets for schizophrenia and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures did not find evidence of genetic overlap.

Association analysis identifies 65 new breast cancer risk loci, predicts target genes for known risk loci and demonstrates a strong overlap with somatic driver genes in breast tumours.