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The authors develop a method for combining information across datasets to find genes that are reproducibly differentially expressed in many datasets. They apply this to neurodegenerative diseases and COVID-19 to reveal underlying molecular pathways.

Five years on from the initial report in Nature that cell therapy showed potential therapeutic benefit for cardiac disease, Eric Adler and Thomas Maddox present their Viewpoint on the first three randomized, clinical trials of bone marrow cell therapy in patients with myocardial infarction.

Bacteria can swim upstream by reorienting with respect to fluid flows. Here, the authors observe an oscillatory motion and describe the mechanisms behind these reorientation dynamics, which could help designing strategies for bacterial contamination prevention.

Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited. A series of standardized nutrient addition experiments, carried out on grasslands on five continents, suggests aboveground grassland productivity is commonly limited by multiple nutrients, including potassium and micronutrients.

A common but untested expectation is that nutrient enrichment causes biotic homogenization. However, a globally standardized nutrient addition experiment in grasslands shows proportionally similar species loss across scales and no biotic homogenization after up to 14 years of treatment.

Hypertrophic cardiomyoapthy is a condition in which the left ventricle of the heart becomes thickened. In this Primer, Argirò and colleagues discuss the epidemiology, pathogenetic mechanisms, diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyoapthy and describe how the disease can affect patient quality of life.

By combining modelling and simulated data with empirical data from 76 grassland sites across 6 continents, the authors show that the relative abundance of dominant species predicts species richness, while their absolute abundance predicts community biomass.

The authors demonstrate a graphene/CrSBr heterostructure exhibiting anisotropic surface plasmon polariton (SPP) propagation in the mid-infrared and terahertz range. Charge transfer at the interface directs SPPs along the quasi-1D chains that compose each CrSBr layer, with propagation lengths varying by an order of magnitude between the two in-plane crystallographic axes.

The CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib holds promise in cancer therapy but how cell cycle inhibitory drugs affect the anti-tumor immune response remains a question. Here authors show that poor response of early-stage estrogen receptor positive breast cancers to ribociclib is caused by changes in the immune cell composition and cancer-cell-immune-cell communication in the tumors rather than intrinsic cancer cell resistance to cell cycle inhibition.

This study supports neurofilament light chain protein (NfL) in both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood as an early marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease but suggests that NfL in CSF may be better suited than blood for monitoring clinical trial outcomes in symptomatic patients.

A NutNet global grassland study finds that leaf N, P and K consistently respond to soil nutrient additions, but leaf morphological traits, such as specific leaf area, are inconsistent indicators of anthropogenic perturbations.

It remains unclear whether exotic and native species are functionally different. Using a global grassland experiment, Seabloomet al. show that native and exotic species respond differently to two globally pervasive environmental changes, addition of mineral nutrients and alteration of herbivore density.

Here, via applying metagenomics and metabolomics analyses, the authors show that fecal microbiota composition and microbiota-derived metabolites predict the trajectory of respiratory function and death in patients with severe SARS-Cov-2 infection, suggesting the gut-lung axis to play an important role in the recovery from COVID-19.

In cancer, interactions between treatment-sensitive and resistant cells can influence the effectiveness of therapies. Here, the authors use experimental and mathematical models to explore interactions between ER+ breast cancer cell lineages that are sensitive or resistant to CDK4/6 inhibition, revealing the role of facilitative growth.

John Grunsfeld, repairman for the Hubble Space Telescope, is set to become associate administrator for the science mission directorate. 

Analysis of 65 grasslands worldwide from the Nutrient Network experiment reveals that plant communities with higher α- and β-diversity have higher levels of ecosystem multifunctionality, and that this effect is amplified across scales.

Genome-wide and multitrait analyses identify novel loci associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and relevant left ventricular traits. Gene-level burden analyses show that rare truncating SVIL variants are associated with high risk of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

A multi-omics approach reveals that bifidobacteria metabolize the prebiotic lactulose to produce acetate and deconjugate bile acids, which is associated with reduced densities of drug-resistant pathogens and decreased incidences of infection in patients with liver disease.

Eutrophication has been shown to weaken diversity-stability relationships in grasslands, but it is unclear whether the effect depends on scale. Analysing a globally distributed network of grassland sites, the authors show a positive role of beta diversity and spatial asynchrony as drivers of stability but find that nitrogen enrichment weakens the diversity-stability relationships at different spatial scales.

A major obstacle in cardiac stem cell investigations is the ability to monitor cell engraftment and survival following implantation within the myocardium. In this Review, Dr. Lau and colleagues examine cardiac cellular imaging modalities, including the combinatorial use of several probes in multimodality imaging. Their discussion focuses on data from the past 5 years.

Mitochondrial quality control is critical for cellular homeostasis and survival. Here, the authors identify that defective mitochondria can be eliminated via secretion in large extracellular vesicles when internal lysosomal degradation is compromised.

Using the lifespan brain chart and two large-scale cross-cultural consortia (ABIDE and CABIC), we disentangle the heterogeneity of brain morphology in ASD into two structural impairment pathways that could disrupt sensory to association functions.

The cost and complexity of whole genome sequencing limits its use in identifying and validating sequences used for genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Here the authors present Prymetime, an integrated workflow to sequence engineered strains and identify engineering in metagenomes.

In this Case Study, Dukkipati et al. describe a patient who sustained acute kidney injury as a consequence of hemoglobinuria secondary to intravascular hemolysis caused by the use of a percutaneous thrombectomy device to treat bilateral pulmonary emboli. The patient recovered normal renal function after management including hemodialysis and continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration, but the authors conclude that patients should be warned of the risk of acute kidney injury before mechanical thrombectomy is carried out using this device.

Genome-edited human pluripotent stem cells and genome-edited mouse models reveal that combinatorial genetic interactions contribute to the complex genetic heritability of human cardiomyopathy.

Experimental data collected from 40 grasslands on 6 continents show that nutrients and herbivores can serve as counteracting forces to control local plant diversity; nutrient addition reduces local diversity through light limitation, and herbivory rescues diversity at sites where it alleviates light limitation.

Experimental eutrophication weakens the stabilizing effects of plant diversity on the productivity of natural grasslands.

In a global grassland dataset, large mammalian herbivores rescued forb cover and diversity from the negative effects of eutrophication.

Analysis of multi-year nutrient enrichment experiments carried out on 45 global grassland sites show that an addition of an increasing number of nutrients leads to a reduction in plant species diversity, and competition for multiple belowground resources promotes plant species diversity.

Data from grasslands across five continents show clear signals of numerous underlying mechanisms linking ecosystem productivity and species richness.

The Nutrient Network is a globally distributed, coordinated grassland ecology experiment. Here, the first decade of this network is reviewed, including insights into ecosystem productivity, stability and the effects of herbivores and invasive species.

The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with defined genetic disorders promises to help the basic understanding of complex diseases and the development of therapeutics. Here iPSCs have been generated from patients with LEOPARD syndrome, a developmental disorder with pleiomorphic effects on several tissues and organs. The iPSCs are characterized and the phenotype of cardiomyocytes derived from these cells is investigated.

Keller and colleagues report a method for differentiation and isolation of one of the earliest human cardiac progenitors from human ES cells. They show that these cardiac progenitors can form cardiac, endothelial and vascular smooth muscle in vivo and in vitro, and can form a population of contracting cardiomyocytes when plated in culture.