Search

DNA mutations induced by dysregulated APOBEC3 expression are associated with tumour-progression and therapeutic resistance, but also with the generation of neoepitopes. Here, the authors show that APOBEC3 function can be exploited in a vaccine setting to generate heteroclitic neoepitopes, enhancing sensitivity to immunotherapy.

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.

How traits specific to modern humans have evolved is difficult to study. Here, Gokhman et al. compare measured and reconstructed DNA methylation maps of present-day humans, archaic humans and chimpanzees and find that genes that affect vocal tract and facial anatomy show methylation changes between archaic and modern humans.

Schwannomas are regularly treated with radiotherapy, but the molecular effects on these tumours and their microenvironment remain unclear. Here, the authors show that radiotherapy can induce epigenetic reprogramming and immune infiltration in schwannomas, and develop the snARC-seq approach to analyse the epigenomic evolution at the single-cell level.

The use of CRISPRa in bacteria lacks predictive rules for identifying effective gRNA target sites. Here the authors define features of bacterial promoters that impose stringent requirements on effective sites.

KLHDC2 is a promising E3 ligase for targeted protein degradation (TPD). In this study, the authors demonstrate that heterobifunctional degraders induce cooperative ternary complexes with KLHDC2 and BRD3. They highlight exit vector, neo-substrate, E3 ligase selectivity, and prodrug choice can effectively leverage C-degron E3s for TPD.

The spatial organization of cells in solid tumors is considered to be important for immune response and response to therapy. Here the authors use multiomics including spatial transcriptomics of human lung tumors prior to patients being treated and show among other things an association of stem-immunity hubs rich in stem-like CD8⁺ T cells with positive response to anti-PD-1 therapy.

Tools for imaging and manipulating proteins in their native environments are critical to understand their function. Here, the authors develop antibody-based probes to visualize and manipulate AMPA-type glutamate receptors in neurons.

Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and infectious disease is important for predicting the effects of biodiversity loss. Here, the authors analyze 205 published biodiversity–disease relationships and show that these tend to be nonlinear and might depend on spatial scale.

A survey of T cell repertoire evolution in the tumors, healthy tissue and blood of patients with early-stage untreated lung cancer offers an opportunity to monitor and identify neoantigen-specific T cells for personalized immunotherapy.

In this paper, the authors revealed the distinct folding motifs for irreversible and reversible amyloids derived from a single protein, by combining multiple mesoscopic and molecular techniques including AFM, cryo-EM and solid-state NMR.

An exome-wide association study of six smoking phenotypes in up to 749,459 individuals identifies associations of rare coding variants in CHRNB2 that may reduce the likelihood of smoking.

Immune lymphocyte estimation from nucleotide sequencing (ImmuneLENS) infers B cell and T cell fractions from whole-genome sequencing data. Applied to the 100,000 Genomes Project datasets, circulating T cell fraction provides sex-dependent and prognostic insights in patients.

Sex differences occur in various aspects of neurodevelopment. Here the authors use manganese-enhanced MRI at nine different postnatal stages to detail the development of structural sex differences in the mouse brain.

Retinoic acid signaling is involved in patterning the embryonic antero-posterior axis, and also regulates hindbrain segmentation in jawed vertebrates. Here they show that retinoic acid signaling plays important roles in hindbrain segmentation in a jawless vertebrate, the lamprey, thus indicating this feature of hindbrain development is conserved in all vertebrates.

There is an urgent need for quantitative magnetic resonance approaches for assessing brain development, as well as for studying the effects of drugs on neural tissue inflammation. Aviv Mezer and colleagues have developed a neuroimaging method for the quantification of local tissue volume and tissue-surface interaction, producing reliable quantitative measurements across a range of scanners. They apply their method to both the healthy brain and individuals with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

A cell-based phenotypic screen identifying inhibitors of Notch signaling led to the discovery of NVS-ZP7-4, which blocks the activity of the zinc transporter SLC39a7 (ZIP7) and induces cell death through an ER stress mechanism.

A genetic study identifies hundreds of loci associated with risk tolerance and risky behaviors, finds evidence of substantial shared genetic influences across these phenotypes, and implicates genes involved in neurotransmission.

Composition of the gut microbiota is regulated by IgA antibodies which are produced under the control of MHCII-restricted B cells. Here the authors show that MHCII polymorphisms sculpt bacterial composition of the gut, which influences a host’s susceptibility to enteric Salmonellainfection.

Transposable element (TE) bursts shape genome evolution but their origin remains unclear. Here, the authors show that a burst is restricted to only a few domesticated rice accessions and is associated with the acquisition of two TE variants, Ping16A and Ping16A_Stow, not the loss of TE silencing.

Results from the phase 2/3 clinical trial of gantenerumab or solanezumab in dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s disease reveal no beneficial effects on cognitive measures despite a significant reduction in amyloid plaques and other key biomarkers in those treated with gantenerumab.

Andrew Morris, Mark McCarthy, Michael Boehnke and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes, including 26,488 cases and 83,964 controls from populations of European, east Asian, south Asian and Mexican and Mexican American ancestry. They identify seven loci newly associated with type 2 diabetes and examine the genetic architecture of disease across populations.

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.

Understanding the pathology in the lungs of patients with COVID-19 might provide clues as to the susceptibility of patients and how the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be fatal. Here the authors analyze cadaveric pulmonary tissue and show one group with high viral load, early death, inflammation and inflammatory damage, and another with low viral load, longer duration of disease, and more M2-like polarization and fibrotic lung damage.

Here, the authors discover over 15,000 eQTLs in human kidney samples by integrating single-nucleus open chromatin data, resulting in high resolution eQTLs, increased enrichment of GWAS heritability and colocalization, followed by downstream validation.

Methods to probe DNA methylation in the majority of non-human mammals are lacking. Here the authors developed a Mammalian Methylation Array that includes 36k well-conserved CpGs in mammals which will facilitate cross-species comparisons. They annotate the conserved CpGs in > 200 species. The array allows one to measure methylation in all mammalian species including unsequenced ones.

Michaelson et al. report that human SYNGAP1 variation alters touch-related sensory processing. Studies in Syngap1 mice revealed circuit-specific impairments in the somatosensory cortex that underlie reduced cortical activation in response to touch.

High-throughput sequencing of RNA fragments generated from a single-strand RNA-specific nuclease followed by novel computational analysis yields structural insights into noncoding RNA at the transcriptome level.

Strong genetic evidence points to a significant role for heterozygous mutations to general chromatin remodeling factors, such as CHD8, in autism. Gompers et al. combine genomic, neuroanatomical and behavioral approaches to present an initial integrative picture of transcriptional mechanisms and widespread impacts of Chd8 haploinsufficiency across brain development in mice.

A chemical genomics approach was used to identify regulators of drug sensitivity for pyrvinium, a cytotoxic agent with anti-cancer potential, revealing mitochondrial complex I sensitivities and a role for C1orf115 in regulating ABCB1 activity.

The effects of chaperones on the aggregation of different tau variants are examined in a large-scale study. Among other findings, the work reveals that DnaJA2 can inhibit tau aggregation, a role that is supported by analysis of samples from human brains.

The study of neuroanatomy using MRI enables key insights into how our brains function, are shaped by genes and environment, and how they change with development, aging and disease. The authors provide an overview of the methods for measuring the brain and also describe key artifacts and confounds

COVID-19, similarly to systemic autoimmune diseases, is characterised by the presence of autoantibodies. Authors show here that the abundance and network signature of autoantibodies targeting G protein-coupled receptors and RAS-related proteins are altered in COVID-19 patients, and the level of disruption marks clinical severity.

Binding-activated optical sensors are powerful tools, but their development can be slow and laborious. Here, authors introduce a platform to expedite biosensor discovery and evolution using genetically encodable fluorogenic amino acids.

Changes in brain structure asymmetry have been reported in autism spectrum disorder. Here the authors investigate this issue using a large-scale sample consisting of 54 data sets.

Palmer et al. present interim findings from their clinical trial; they describe the reactogenicity and immunogenicity results of a self-amplifying mRNA SARS-CoV-2 booster vaccine within an older population (≥60 years of age).

The sensitivity of circulating tumor DNA detection is improved by identifying sequences with two or more mutations.

RNA conformational heterogeneity is important to diverse functions. Here, the authors use AFM to directly visualize individual RNA molecules that are in various conformational states under near physiological solution conditions for the first time.

Availability of intense hard X-ray pulses allows exploration of multiple ionization effects in heavier elements. Here, the authors measure the complex charge state distributions of xenon and found a reasonable agreement by comparing with the model including the relativistic and resonance effects.

Metagenomics is revealing auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) in soil viral genomes. Here, authors solve the crystal structure for a soil viral AMG product, free and ligand bound, and show the protein can decompose chitin, a common carbon polymer.

Bosonic qubits can be engineered to feature intrinsic protection against certain kinds of errors, which makes quantum error correction across many bosonic qubits possible with less overhead.

Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.

Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) limit the aggregation of proteins, such as tau. Here the authors show that Hsp27 recognizes two aggregation-prone regions of tau and that this interaction competes with Hsp27 oligomerization.

Using large-scale multimodal retinal and brain imaging data, the authors map eye-brain connections and uncover underlying genetic factors, suggesting the retina as a window into brain structure, function, and disorders.

Site-specific hyperphosphorylations of tau in the cerebrospinal fluid change with disease course, and correlate with pathology and cognitive decline in dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s disease.