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Leukocyte migration over two-dimensional surfaces is dependent on the integrin family of adhesion receptors, which couple the contractile force of the actomyosin cytoskeleton to the extracellular environment. In this study, all integrin heterodimers from mouse leukocytes were ablated and it is shown that integrins are not required for migration in 3D environments, in vitro and in vivo. Such non-adhesive migration renders leukocytes autonomous from the tissue environment.

Molecular orientation profoundly affects the performance of donor-acceptor heterojunctions, whilst it has remained challenging to investigate the detail. Using a controllable interface, Ran et al. show that the edge-on geometries improve charge generation at the cost of non-radiative recombination loss.

Lakes are a large source of CO₂. An analysis of chemical and physical data from 5,118 boreal lakes reveals that a majority emit CO₂ originating primarily from terrestrial sources rather than CO₂ produced within the lakes.

Extravillous trophoblasts are pivotal in placental invasion and artery remodeling. Here the authors report stage-specific transcriptional regulators and their sequential roles in guiding proper trophoblast differentiation.

SNAIL promotes tumour metastasis through inducing epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT). Here the authors report that SNAIL bypasses senescence and regulates cell cycle progression to promote pancreatic carcinogenesis and this is independent of EMT induction.

Cellular metabolism is dysregulated in cancer and may be reflected in differences in the expression of metabolic genes. In this study, the authors find that mitochondrial folate-coupled dehydrogenase is increased in expression in a wide variety of cancers and negatively correlates with breast cancer patient survival.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) modern strains emerged from a common progenitor after the loss of Mtb-specific deletion 1 region (TbD1). Here, the authors show that deletion of TbD1 correlates with enhanced Mtb virulence in animal models, mirroring the development of hypoxic granulomas in human disease progression.

Current RSV vaccines induce immunity with limited durability in pre-exposed populations. Here, the authors generated an RSV preF self-amplifying RNA vaccine and show that a single dose induces potent innate, cellular, and humoral immunity in RSV-infected in naïve and pre-exposed non-human primates.

A CasRx-based screening platform for genome-scale long noncoding RNA transcriptome perturbation is described.

Viiri and colleagues show that an orally administered transglutaminase 2 inhibitor prevented gluten-induced intestinal damage and inflammation at the transcriptional level.

Branched organoids embedded in collagen gels can recapitulate the phenotypic landscape and pronounced molecular and morphological heterogeneity of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Blockade of intrahepatic accumulation and function of platelets represents a potential approach to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and prevent subsequent progression to hepatocellular carcinoma

Achieving higher efficiencies for thin-film solar cells always requires identification of the limiting factors. Here Krause et al. show that inhomogeneously distributed net doping or lifetime have little impact while recombination at grain boundaries is one of the main loss mechanisms for high performance Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ solar cells.

The cholesterol-transfer protein GRAMD1A is identified as the target of the autophagy inhibitors autogramin-1 and autogramin-2. GRAMD1A is found to be required for autophagosome biogenesis.

Plant ESCRT component FREE1 forms liquid-like condensates that associate with membranes to drive intraluminal vesicle formation.

Pancreatic tumors are frequently divided into basal and classical subtypes. Here, the authors use single cell sequencing to investigate organoids derived from pancreatic cancer tissue and find a hierarchy of distinct cell states, and classical and basal cells existing within the same tumor.

Cryo-electron-microscopy reconstructions of eukaryotic and archaeal ribosomes bound by ABCE1 and Pelota suggest a conserved mechanism for ribosome recycling.

CRISPR/Cas9 technology has been used for genome engineering in vivo. Here, the authors use a transfection technique to deliver multiple guide RNAs to the pancreas of adult mice, allowing genetic screening and chromosome engineering in pancreatic cancer.

In bacteria, a newly identified endonuclease activated by ribosome collisions truncates mRNA to trigger rescue of stalled ribosomes.

Proteomic characterization of varicella-zoster virus–host protein interactions and infection-induced changes in a neuronal cell line identifies potential targets for drug discovery and molecular insights into severe disease.

A new study shows that Wnt16 inhibits osteoclast formation, suggesting it may be a possible therapeutic option for treating bone fractures in osteoporosis.

Zhou et al. unveil a novel role for activated microglia and macrophages during wound healing after CNS injury. Microglia promote corralling and form a protective barrier at the injury penumbra via the axon guidance receptor Plexin-B2.

Although some fungal mitochondria lack the calcium uniporter, many intriguingly encode homologs of the uniporter assembly factor MCUR1. Here, the authors show that in budding yeast, the MCUR1 homologs Put6 and Put7 regulate mitochondrial proline metabolism, a function also conserved in human MCUR1.

The axon guidance receptor Plexin-B1 regulates the cellular interaction of peri-plaque astrocytes with microglia to affect the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease.

A liver-intrinsic mechanism is presented that suppresses effective anti-hepatitis virus B responses in mice and humans by rendering virus-specific CD8 T cells refractory to activation causing loss of effector functions.

Tigecycline is widely used to treat complex bacterial infections. Here, authors present cryo-EM structures of tigecycline-bound eukaryotic ribosomes, revealing how it also targets the human mitoribosome with distinct binding properties.

Here, Bergant et al. provide evidence that Influenza A viruses cause alternative polyadenylation of host mRNAs and abrogation of this function leads to an attenuated phenotype in mice. This may constitute a general immune evasive mechanism employed by a variety of pathogenic viruses.

Macrophages are increasingly recognized as key drivers of lung damage in acute pneumonia including COVID-19. Here, the authors report on a first-in-class, inhalable, carbohydrate-coupled microRNA-inhibitor for selective targeting of macrophages and that prevents pulmonary hyperinflammation.

Juan Cadiñanos and colleagues perform an insertional mutagenesis screen with a single-copy inactivating Sleeping Beauty transposon to look for Pten-cooperating tumor suppressor genes in mice. They find novel candidate cancer genes, verify their clinical relevance in patient cohorts and functionally demonstrate their synergistic relationship to Pten in tumor suppression.

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are crucial regulators of cell identity. Ellmeier and colleagues show that HDAC1 and HDAC2 maintain CD4⁺ T cell lineage integrity by repressing Runx-CBFβ complexes in T_H1 cells but not in T_H2 cells.

Proteomics is often used to map protein-drug interactions but identifying a drug’s protein targets along with the binding interfaces has not been achieved yet. Here, the authors integrate limited proteolysis and machine learning for the proteome-wide mapping of drug protein targets and binding sites.

Our understanding of ribosome biogenesis is limited by a lack of structural knowledge of assembly intermediates. Here, Leidig et al.report a high-resolution cryo-EM structure of a pre-60S particle that suggests that substantial rearrangements of the 5S RNP are required during ribosome maturation.

It has been reported that human cancer cell lines present significant diversity across laboratories and become heterogeneous during long-term culture. Here, the authors show that oligo-mutated pediatric sarcoma cell lines are genetically and phenotypically more stable than the highly mutated adult carcinoma cell lines.

Lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) induce peripheral tolerance of CD8 T cells. Here the authors show that LECs cannot directly tolerize CD4 T cells as they lack the machinery for loading the antigenic peptide to MHC-II; instead, LECs pass these antigens to dendritic cells that induce CD4 tolerance.

piggyBac transposons carrying reprogramming factors are used to reprogram mouse embryonic fibroblasts, with efficiencies equivalent to retroviral transduction, and then removed from the induced pluripotent state cell genome without a trace.

BURP-domain proteins are an unexplored family of plant-specific, copper-dependent peptide cyclases. Here the authors show that a BURP-domain protein has a particular protein fold, investigate its mechanism and provide evidence for intramolecular modification in RiPP biosynthesis.

Mucosal antibodies maintain gut homeostasis, and may influence gut health through modulation of microbiota composition. Here the authors use a CD19-deficient mouse model with deficient B-cell immune responses to uncover an association between humoral immunodeficiency, dysbiosis, and perturbations to bile acid homeostasis in the gut in the context of glute-sensitive enteropathy.

Epidemiological analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis genomes and public health data show that lineage-specific variation in transmission varies with the degree of host and pathogen geographical coincidence and reveals signals of a biological effect of host–pathogen coexistence.

Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes from glioblastoma can recognize bacterial and gut microbial peptides.

The protective efficacy of a single dose of adenovirus serotype 26 (Ad26) vector-based vaccine expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in non-human primates is demonstrated.

The authors identify Drosophila cGLR1 as a double-stranded RNA sensor and 3′2′-cGAMP as a nucleotide second messenger and activator of Drosophila STING signalling.