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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.

Most H₂ used in the chemical industry is derived from fossil fuels. Now it has been shown that coupling native microbial H₂ pathways with engineered alkene biosynthesis and membrane-bound Pd catalysis enables biocompatible hydrogenation of metabolic intermediates in living bacteria. This hybrid chemo-microbial platform supports the carbon-negative synthesis of industrial chemicals from waste-derived feedstocks.

Climate action could avoid over 1 million deaths globally from air pollution in 2040. However, it is suggested that cooperation is needed between developed and developing nations to ensure that disparities in air pollution are not perpetuated in the future.

Here, the authors show that bile salt hydrolase activity is common among human gut bacterial isolates spanning seven major phyla and identify strains capable of directly dehydrogenating conjugated bile acids via hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases to produce conjugated secondary bile acids, challenging the notion that deconjugation is a prerequisite for further bile acid modifications.

Using large-scale genetics and Genomic SEM/E-SEM, the study shows broad shared genetic risk between many physical illnesses and internalizing, neurodevelopmental, and substance-use disorders, revealing a transdiagnostic illness factor and cross-cutting disease pathways.

Borneol has repelled mosquitoes for millennia, but how it worked was unknown. Here, the authors show the sensory pathway mosquitoes use to detect and avoid this ancient plant compound, opening the door to improved natural repellents.

Understanding how each tumor establishes its unique spatial landscape and what factors drive the landscape for tumor fitness remains significantly challenging. Here, the authors employ spatial single-cell imaging and single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze 50 liver cancer biospecimens and find that different tumor cell states may be organized into distinct clusters, or ‘villages’.

Past work has found that Black and Hispanic faculty are judged more harshly in promotion and tenure. Here, evidence from a natural experiment shows that evaluating faculty simultaneously with other candidates helps mitigate these racial disparities.

The authors show that aging of metastable protein condensates can lead to amyloid formation and impair biochemical activity. Certain small molecule metabolites can selectively impede this transition, preserving condensate function.

Gel ionotronics are typically easy to prepare, but control of local ionic character is unusual. Here, the authors report the combination of elastomers with photo-ion generators for photopatterned control of conductivity in the gel materials.

The paper reports a scalable, chemical-free plasma process that converts methane and water into high-purity, single-layer graphene oxide while co-producing hydrogen, cutting greenhouse emissions, and lowering cost compared with conventional methods.

This study shows that mithramycin suppresses the EWS::FLI1 transcription factor in Ewing sarcoma using a hybrid CUT, Tag & GRO assay, revealing mechanism, need for continuous dosing, and supporting clinical use of next-gen analog AIT-102.

PARP1 is a first responder to DNA damage. Here, multiple cryo-EM strategies and biophysical tools analyze PARP1 and partner HPF1 detecting a DNA break, revealing a striking mobility of the PARP1 catalytic domain relative to the DNA binding domains.

Autopsy brain studies can be distorted because time and temperature alter gene expression. Here, the authors show that neurons, then oligodendrocytes, sequentially activate artifact genes, and provide a tool to measure these effects in RNA sequencing data.

Fibrosis is the final common pathway in chronic kidney disease and a potential target for therapeutic interventions. Here, the authors use intravital imaging to show that pyrimidinergic calcium signaling links tubular injury to fibroblast activation, and that blocking this pathway reduces fibrosis

The study shows that incorporating information on pre-existing moisture conditions into the atmospheric river scale improves early-warning identification of flood-generating events.

Neoantigen-based adoptive T cell therapies represent a personalized approach for cancer immunotherapy. Here the authors describe NEO-STIM, an ex vivo T cell induction platform to STIMulate peripheral blood T cells to generate responses against tumor NEOantigens.

Radical protein footprinting reveals protein structure and interactions, but has not – to the best of the authors knowledge - been applied in whole blood. Here, authors demonstrate in-blood footprinting in mice, uncovering diabetes-associated protein conformational changes that were validated by orthogonal assays.

DNA recognition and cleavage control in type II topoisomerases are poorly understood processes. Here, the authors determine cleaved and uncleaved structures of supercoiled DNA-bound topoisomerase VI that reveal how the enzyme activates its cleavage state and prefers to act at deformable substrates.

Brief ultrasound to human frontal eye fields, but not motor cortex, rapidly biases eye movement contralaterally in a perceptual choice task. The size of this effect scales with individual baseline FEF inhibitory tone.

The transformations for aragonite precursors in coral are not fully understood but have implications in bio, biogenic and geological mineralization. Here, the authors use high-resolution mapping and observe exponential decay from the edge of four precursors to coral aragonite skeleton in Stylophora pistillata.

The limited tunability of threshold voltage is a major obstacle for applying two-dimensional transistors in post-silicon electronics. Here, the authors show that bimetallic thiophosphates, such as LiInP₂S₆, enable programmable threshold voltages in both n-type and p-type 2D transistors, leading to low-power, high-speed complementary logic inverters.

Supersolid phases are quantum-entangled states of matter exhibiting the dual characteristics of superfluidity and solidity. Here, the authors map the phase diagram of K₂Co(SeO₃)₂. and identify signatures of two supersolid phases separated by a 1/3 magnetization plateau.

This study shows that strain-stabilized interfacial polarization in metallic RuO₂/TiO₂ heterostructures modulates the work function by over 1 eV and the metallicity, establishing a new route to control the electronic properties of functional metals.

By generating whole genomes of 150 participants representing 12 Khoe-San click-speaking groups, the authors, reveal over 1.3 million unknown DNA variants, distinct San and here described Damara genetic trajectories, while achieving century-long global predominance.

Exhaustion is a functional state that hampers anti-cancer and antiviral CD8 T cell activity, and is preceded by a stem-like state, maintained by the transcription factor TCF1. Here authors develop mouse models that allow a precise understanding of the developmental trajectory between the stem-cell-like and exhausted states of CD8 T cells and find that while constitutive overexpression of TCF1 expands the stem-like T cell pool, TCF1 expression specifically in already exhausted cells is unable to promote dedifferentiation.

The roles of orbitofrontal and cingulate cortex in emotional decisions remain unclear. Here the authors show distinct timing between caudal orbitofrontal and cingulate signals, that orbitofrontal stimulation increases avoidance, and that physiological responses mirror behavior.

In this work, authors use whole genome tracking in a neonatal intensive care unit to reveal a strong link between Staphylococcus aureus colonization and invasive infection, pinpointing critical new targets for infection prevention in high-risk infants.

Surface plasmon-mediated steady-state and on-demand electronic spin modulation effectively activates light-driven plasmonic catalysis, facilitating polarization reactant activation and preferential reaction pathway modulation.

How the brain maintains object representations during grasping, when complex sensory input rapidly changes, remains poorly understood. Here the authors show that object-identity signals shift and strengthen across sensorimotor cortex as reaching transitions to grasping.

Neurotrophic factor Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) is involved in bladder physiopathology. Here the authors report that mast-cell derived NGF sustains the pro-tumoral functions of ILC2s in bladder cancer (BC), showing that selective targeting of the NGF receptor TrkA improves survival and response to immune checkpoint blockade in BC models.

Mechanical response of semiconducting polymers affects their electrical properties, yet the detail remains elusive. Zhong et al. examine the multiscale structural evolution of conjugated polymer thin films during uniaxial deformation and link it to mechanical resilience and solar cell performance.

The ferroelectric nematic phase has both spontaneous polarity and fluidity and is therefore desirable, but can be challenging to obtain. Here, the authors report the preparation of a number of ferroelectric nematogens, of which several show the phase transition at relatively low temperatures.

Little work has been done to describe and address the variability inherent in the agroinfiltration and genetic engineering of Nicotiana benthamiana. Here, the authors identify and quantify the sources of virtually all variation and develop recommendations for minimizing variation.

In this work, authors provide evidence that bacteria in spatially structured populations protect each other from antibiotics through collective nutrient consumption, creating ‘death fronts’ that sweep through the colony– explaining why infections often survive treatments that work in lab tests.

Here, the authors show that dietary fiber availability shapes the development and survival strategies of an intestinal worm, revealing stage-dependent plasticity and tight links between diet, the gut microbiome, host metabolism, and worm persistence.

MedHELM, an extensible evaluation framework including a new taxonomy for classifying medical tasks and a benchmark of many datasets across these categories, enables the evaluation of large language models on real-world clinical tasks.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has improved breast cancer patient outcomes but residual disease limits success. Here, the authors report a phase II clinical trial investigating talimogene laherparepvec (oncolytic virus engineered to express GM-CSF) combined with atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1) in HER2-negative breast cancer patients with residual disease following NAC.

Continuous monoculture of banana can result in proliferation of parasitic nematodes. Here the authors show that in the long term, soil can become suppressive to disease and this is associated with enrichment of free-living nematodes and Bacillus bacteria.

KRAS is an oncogene that switches between a GDP-bound inactive state and a GTP-bound active state. Recently developed KRAS G12C inhibitors are specific to the GDP-bound inactive state. Here, the authors develop a class of covalent KRAS G12C inhibitors capable of targeting both states for the treatment of KRAS-driven cancer.

Cationic amino acids are essential to protein synthesis and cellular signaling. Here, authors determine the structure of the cationic amino acid transporter 1 and determined how it is co-opted as a receptor for leukemia-causing animal viruses.

The authors present evidence for the coexistence and coupling of ferroelectricity and superconductivity at amorphous LaAlO3/KTaO3(111) interfaces. Furthermore, flipping ferroelectric polarization reduces interfacial conductivity by more than 1000 times, and simultaneously suppresses superconductivity

Skin-targeted siRNA therapies require optimized delivery to achieve therapeutic efficacy. Here, authors show that increasing conjugate hydrophobicity enhances siRNA skin retention and gene silencing in porcine and human models while limiting systemic tissue exposure.

This manuscript from Choquette and colleagues finds that sclerostin gene expression is up-regulated in bone by β3-adrenergic signaling via an adipose to bone relay and acts as an endocrine factor to inhibit adipose tissue beiging in mice.

Using recent TMTH-sulfoximine (THS)-based biorthogonal chemistry in live cells, Smits et al. identify micro- and nanodomains in cell-cell and cell-matrix contacts of heterogenous glycocalyx density in invading melanoma cells.

Negative regulation of the cGAS-STING pathway is crucial to limit damaging inflammation. Here, by combining in vitro experiments and myeloid cell-specific conditional knockout mice, the authors identify the autophagy receptor TAX1BP1 as a negative regulator of STING by targeting it for degradation through Golgiphagy and ESCRT-mediated microautophagy.

Meningiomas are common brain tumors with variable behavior. This study reveals high STING expression across multiple cell types in the meningioma microenvironment. STING agonism triggers tumor cell death via programmed necrosis and pyroptosis, enhancing survival in preclinical models.

Here they show that FOXF2 is required for pericyte maturation and function during postnatal alveolar morphogenesis. FOXF2 is required in pericytes to induce angiogenesis after neonatal hyperoxic injury, revealing a link between pericyte-endothelial crosstalk and bronchopulmonary dysplasia pathogenesis.

Attention fluctuates over time and across contexts—how is this reflected in the brain? Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, Song and colleagues show that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects changes in attention.

Researchers report a solid that is amorphous in two dimensions but crystalline in the third, made of stacked disordered atomic layers. This shows that crystalline and amorphous order can coexist within a single material depending on direction.