Search

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Polyamines produced by gut bacteria have been proposed to contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases. Here, Nauta et al. show that bacteria can produce a noncanonical polyamine intermediate that functions similarly to deoxyhypusine synthase inhibitors, activates mitochondrial stress responses, and inhibits nematode development and mouse macrophage differentiation.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

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.

Reduced insulin-like signaling is required for C. elegans response to many environmental stressors, but how distinct outcomes are achieved is unknown. The authors show that the cytosolic sulfotransferase SSU-1 controls neurohormonal signaling via NHR-1 to specify the animals’ osmotic stress response.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

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.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

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.

Genome-wide analyses identify 30 independent loci associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder, highlighting genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders and implicating putative effector genes and cell types contributing to its etiology.

mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

A genome-wide association study for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) identifies 12 loci and implicates neurodevelopmental pathways and conserved regions of the genome as being involved in underlying ADHD biology.

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

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

Bar et al. show that neuronal glycogen feeds the pentose phosphate pathway and contributes to redox homeostasis, thus counteracting tauopathy-associated oxidative stress in Drosophila melanogaster.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

A case–control study investigating the causes of recent cases of acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in 32 children identifies an association between adeno-associated virus infection and host genetics in disease susceptibility.

An exciting genome-wide association study in the British population for seven common diseases. This analysis confirms previously identified loci and provides strong evidence for many novel disease susceptibility loci.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and type 2 diabetes are closely linked, but the connecting pathophysiological mechanisms are incompletely understood. Here the authors identify arylsulfatase A as a NASH-induced hepatokine that inhibits hepatic lysophosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidic acid secretion, and improves muscle insulin action and systemic glucose homeostasis.

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.

Christopher Newton-Cheh and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for blood pressure traits as part of the Global BPgen consortium. They report eight loci with replicated association to systolic and/or diastolic blood pressure, with each also showing association to hypertension.

Here authors show that machine learning derives the degree of background retinal pigmentation with more nuance than self-described ethnicity. Retinal pigment scores are associated with genes linked to melanin and may improve algorithmic fairness.

Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits multigenerational adaptation to bacterial infection but the mechanisms remain unclear. Here, the authors show that C. elegans parental exposure to Pseudomonas vranovensis promotes offspring resistance to infection, a process mediated by the cysteine synthases CYSL-1 and CYSL-2.

Martin Tobin and colleagues present genome-wide association studies for pulmonary function as part of the SpiroMeta consortium.

The 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) has been implicated in steroid biogenesis and neuroinflammation. Here, the authors create viable and fertile global TSPO knockout mice, challenging the assumption that TSPO is essential for mouse development but suggesting that it may have a role under certain disease conditions.

New methods and larger sample groups are used to precisely determine the alleles in the HLA complex which contribute susceptibility to type 1 diabetes.

Burton et al. show that Caenorhabditis elegans parental exposure to osmotic stress protects progeny from osmotic stress through insulin-like signalling, linking maternal germline signalling to progeny metabolism.

FGFR-1 upregulation has been associated with endocrine therapy resistance in breast cancer patients. Here the authors report the results of a phase IIa study to assess the safety and efficacy of AZD454, an inhibitor of FGFR-1, 2 and 3 receptor tyrosine kinases, in combination with anastrozole or letrozole, in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients.

In many species, a mother’s environment can impact offspring’s metabolism, but the mechanisms that mediate such intergenerational effects are unclear. In this issue, a study finds that the provisioning of a sphingolipid from mothers to offspring drives changes in offspring metabolism that protect against neuronal damage.

Using synthetic ubiquitins with non-natural acceptor site, the authors revealed that the length of lysine side chain in acceptor ubiquitins affects ubiquitin chain linkage specificity with native lysine as the preferred geometry.