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Analyses of ancient human DNA show that cultural and political transformations in Central Europe during the second half of the first millennium ce were associated with movements of Slavic populations into Germany, Poland and Croatia.

Gretzinger et al. examine genetic evidence from 31 Iron Age individuals in southern Germany and find that this early Celtic society probably had a dynastic system of matrilineal inheritance, with a network of well-connected elites covering a broad territory.

Here, the authors look at present day and medieval genome samples from Northern France to piece together demographic history and population structure across Brittany and the Loire basin.

gLike infers population demographic histories with a variety of complex admixture events by analysis of graphs of states, which conceptualize the relationships of all lineages found in trees encoded in the ancestral recombination graph.

Deep whole-genome sequencing of 300 individuals from 142 diverse populations provides insights into key population genetic parameters, shows that all modern human ancestry outside of Africa including in Australasians is consistent with descending from a single founding population, and suggests a higher rate of accumulation of mutations in non-Africans compared to Africans since divergence.

Archaeological and historical records had shown ancient Egypt before and after Ptolemaic and Roman periods to be a hub of human migration and exchange. Here, Schuenemann and colleagues analyse ancient mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to investigate the genetic history of Egypt.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Evidence from genetics, skeletal remains and dietary isotopes indicates that sex-specific height disparities in Early Neolithic Europe can be linked to culture, more than environment or genetics. This suggests that a cultural preference for males may have had biological effects 7,000 yr ago.

This report from the 1000 Genomes Project describes the genomes of 1,092 individuals from 14 human populations, providing a resource for common and low-frequency variant analysis in individuals from diverse populations; hundreds of rare non-coding variants at conserved sites, such as motif-disrupting changes in transcription-factor-binding sites, can be found in each individual.

Genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe between 12000 and 500 bc reveals that the region acted as a genetic crossroads before and after the arrival of farming.

Tuberculosis is a major cause of mortality, and the rise of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis requires the urgent development of safe and effective treatments. In this work, the authors develop a compound against lysyl-tRNA synthetase, demonstrating on-target mechanism of action and efficacy in vivo.

The proteome-wide characterization of proteostasis depends on robust approaches to determine protein half-lives. Here, the authors improve the accuracy and precision of mass spectrometry-based quantification, enabling reliable protein half-life determination in several non-dividing cell types.

Confocal optical microscopy is used to visualize—at high speed—solid (particle volume changes and phase-front velocities) and liquid electrolyte (concentration polarization gradients) dynamics inside operating batteries.

Levels of circulating thyrotropin and free thyroxine reflect thyroid function, however, their genetic underpinnings remain poorly understood. Taylor et al. take advantage of whole-genome sequence data from cohorts within the UK10K project to identify novel variants associated with these traits.

1000 Genomes imputation can increase the power of genome-wide association studies to detect genetic variants associated with human traits and diseases. Here, the authors develop a method to integrate and analyse low-coverage sequence data and SNP array data, and show that it improves imputation performance.

Analysis of ancient genomic data of 51 humans from Eurasia dating from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago provides insight into the population history of pre-Neolithic Europe and support for recurring migration and population turnover in Europe during this period.

A quantitative atlas of the transcriptomes, proteomes and phosphoproteomes of 30 tissues of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana provides a valuable resource for plant research.

Results for the final phase of the 1000 Genomes Project are presented including whole-genome sequencing, targeted exome sequencing, and genotyping on high-density SNP arrays for 2,504 individuals across 26 populations, providing a global reference data set to support biomedical genetics.

Analysis of DNA from ancient individuals of the Near East documents the extreme substructure among the populations which transitioned to farming, a structure that was maintained throughout the transition from hunter–gatherer to farmer but that broke down over the next five thousand years.

Imputation uses genotype information from SNP arrays to infer the genotypes of missing markers. Here, the authors show that an imputation reference panel derived from whole-genome sequencing of 3,781 samples from the UK10K project improves the imputation accuracy and coverage of low frequency variants compared to existing methods.

Population-based genome sequencing provides an increasingly rich resource for the identification of low-frequency, large effect variants associated with clinically important phenotypes. Timpson et al. use UK10K data to identify a variant of the APOC3gene strongly associated with plasma triglyceride levels.

Low read depth sequencing of whole genomes and high read depth exomes of nearly 10,000 extensively phenotyped individuals are combined to help characterize novel sequence variants, generate a highly accurate imputation reference panel and identify novel alleles associated with lipid-related traits; in addition to describing population structure and providing functional annotation of rare and low-frequency variants the authors use the data to estimate the benefits of sequencing for association studies.

Genome-wide data from 400 individuals indicate that the initial spread of the Beaker archaeological complex between Iberia and central Europe was propelled by cultural diffusion, but that its spread into Britain involved a large-scale migration that permanently replaced about ninety per cent of the ancestry in the previously resident population.

Using whole-genome data for single-nucleotide polymorphism and results from genome-wide association studies, the authors show that people’s preference for pairing with those with similar phenotypic traits has genetic causes and consequences.

Targeted protein degradation by proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) is attracting substantial interest as a therapeutic modality that could circumvent some limitations of traditional small-molecule drugs. This article presents a systematic approach to assessing the PROTAC tractability (PROTACtability) of protein targets, which could support decision-making on whether a particular target may be amenable to modulation using a PROTAC.

Size and shape of the brain are, among others, influenced by the dimensions of the skull. Here, the authors report genome-wide association studies for head circumference and intracranial volume in children and adults and the identification of nine common or low-frequency variants associated with these traits.

The genome of the jellyfish Clytia hemisphaerica and the transcriptomes of its planula, polyp and medusa life stages show genetic changes associated with the evolution of complex life cycles.