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Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

Acoustically activatable nanocarriers made by incorporating 5% sucrose into liposomes release drug with low-intensity ultrasound, providing a readily clinically translatable system for both central and peripheral noninvasive neuromodulation.

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 large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

The spin–orbit interaction and the two-dimensional honeycomb structure of iridium-based oxides are promising for exotic electronic states. Here, the authors find an iridium oxide with a three-dimensional structure that preserves the features of the honeycomb systems, creating new material possibilities.

The authors estimate the damages associated with global temperature variability. They find that variability in temperature leads to substantial uncertainty about damages, which imposes costs equivalent to a large fraction of annual consumption today.

Enantioselective activation of a single C–F bond in a difluoromethylene group is achieved using a chiral transition metal catalyst and a fluorophilic activator.

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).

A multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

We show the evolution of a case of EGFR mutant lung cancer treated with a combination of erlotinib, osimertinib, radiotherapy and a personalized neopeptide vaccine targeting somatic mutations, including EGFR exon 19 deletion.

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.

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.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

A robust, cost-effective technique based on whole-exome sequencing data can be used to characterize immune infiltrates, relate the extent of these infiltrates to somatic changes in tumours, and enables prediction of tumour responses to immune checkpoint inhibition therapy.

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.

Ruth Loos and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association study for body mass index. They identify 18 new loci associated with this trait, some of which map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance.

Chromosomal instability enables the continuous selection of somatic copy number alterations, which are established as ordered events that often occur in parallel, throughout tumour evolution and metastasis.

Genome-wide association analysis in over one million individuals of European ancestry identifies 2,103 independent genetic signals (including 113 new loci) associated with blood pressure traits.

Analysis of more than 95% of each diploid human genome of a four-generation, twenty-eight-member family using five complementary short-read and long-read sequencing technologies provides a truth set to understand the most fundamental processes underlying human genetic variation.

Sex differences in fasting glucose and insulin have been identified, but the genetic loci underlying these differences have not. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies to detect sex-specific and sex-dimorphic loci associated with fasting glucose and insulin.

Analysis of whole-genome doubling (WGD) by using cancer sequencing data combined with simulations of tumor evolution suggests that there is negative selection against homozygous loss of essential genes before WGD but not after.

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 longitudinal evolutionary analysis of 126 lung cancer patients with metastatic disease reveals the timing of metastatic divergence, modes of dissemination and the genomic events subject to selection during the metastatic transition.

A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loss of heterozygosity, allele-specific mutation and measurement of expression and repression (MHC Hammer) detects disruption to human leukocyte antigens due to mutations, loss of heterogeneity, altered gene expression or alternative splicing. Applied to lung and breast cancer datasets, the tool shows that these aberrations are common across cancer and can have clinical implications.

Erik Ingelsson and colleagues report a large-scale genome-wide meta-analysis for associations to the extremes of anthropometric traits, including body mass index, height, waist-to-hip ratio and clinical obesity. They identify four loci newly associated with height and seven loci newly associated with clinical obesity and find overlap in the genetic structure and distribution of variants identified for these extremes of the trait distributions and for the general population.

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.

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.

Circulating tumour DNA profiling in early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer can be used to track single-nucleotide variants in plasma to predict lung cancer relapse and identify tumour subclones involved in the metastatic process.

Analyses of the TRACERx study unveil the relationship between tissue morphology, the underlying evolutionary genomic landscape, and clinical and anatomical relapse risk of lung adenocarcinomas.

Timothy Frayling, Joel Hirschhorn, Peter Visscher and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for adult height in 253,288 individuals. They identify 697 variants in 423 loci significantly associated with adult height and find that these variants cluster in pathways involved in growth and together explain one-fifth of the heritability for this trait.

Animal migrations are extensive and crucial for ecosystem health but are in decline. This study identifies 1,787 sites and links among them for 109 marine species, highlighting the need for international cooperation and providing policymakers with essential knowledge for effective conservation.

A study examines the diversity of extrachromosomal DNA elements in cancer, and provides details on the frequency and origin of extrachromosomal DNA and its role in the development of different types of cancer.

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.

Genome-wide association analyses of blood glucose measurements under nonstandardized conditions provide insights into the biology of glucose regulation, diabetes complications and pathways for treatment stratification.

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.

Jose Florez, Claudia Langenberg, Erik Ingelsson, Inga Prokopenko, Inês Barroso and colleagues perform large-scale association analyses using the Metabochip to gain further insights into the genetic architecture of glucose regulation. They identify 38 new loci influencing 1 or more glycemic traits and show that many of these loci also modify risk of type 2 diabetes.

Anna Köttgen and colleagues report genome-wide association studies for serum urate in over 140,000 individuals from the Global Urate Genetics Consortium (GUGC). They identify 18 loci newly associated with serum urate concentrations and confirm 10 known loci, characterize their associations with gout and include a network analysis suggesting a role for inhibins-activins pathways in regulating urate homeostasis.

Computational and machine-learning approaches that integrate genomic and transcriptomic variation from paired primary and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer samples from the TRACERx cohort reveal the role of transcriptional events in tumour evolution.

Measurements of subclonal expansion of ctDNA in the plasma before surgery may enable the prediction of future metastatic subclones, offering the possibility for early intervention in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer.