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Ahmed, Nguyen et al. show that two FDA-approved antibiotics, paromomycin and neomycin, promote cardiomyocyte proliferation and improve cardiac function after myocardial infarction in mice and pigs by interfering with the cell division inhibiting function of transcription factors Meis1 and Hoxb13.

In non-small cell lung cancer, the presence of monocyte-derived macrophages inversely correlates with the presence of NK cells. Merad and colleagues propose that when monocytes phagocytose tumor debris they express TREM2, become pro-tumorigenic, and suppress NK cell recruitment and activation in tumors.

Lam et al. show that conditional deletion of calcineurin B1 in cardiomyocytes and its inhibition using the US Food and Drug Administration-approved drug, FK506, promotes cardiomyocyte cell-cycle re-entry and increases cardiomyocyte numbers in adult mice

Lineage-restricted transcription factor PAX8 is oncogenic in ovarian cancer cells. Here the authors show that PAX8 interacts and recruits a splice variant of the MECOM locus PRDM3 to control the gene expression module involved in adhesion and extracellular matrix, and consequently promotes ovarian tumorigenesis.

Single-cell transcriptomics studies on human and mouse non-small cell lung cancer and conditional knockout mouse models show that IL-4 from bone marrow basophils drives the development of granulocyte-monocyte progenitors to myeloid cells that suppress antitumour immunity.

Neurons deploy diverse adaptive strategies to ensure survival and neurotransmission amid cellular stress. Here authors show that stressed dopaminergic neurons actively induce a state of transmissive dormancy and appear to prioritize viability over functionality.

Amino acids availability is normally a limitation for protein synthesis and can determine cancer progression and therapy response. Here, the authors show that MYC-associated cancer has a dependency on tryptophan not because of translation regulation, but Indole 3-Pyruvate synthesis.

Single-cell RNA sequencing and imaging of macrophages in human non-small cell lung cancer and in a mouse model of lung adenocarcinoma show that tissue-resident macrophages have a key role in early tumour progression.

O’Donnell and colleagues report that activation of the integrated stress response in non-small cell lung cancer cells by impairing heme production leads to enhanced PD-L1 translation in an eIF5B-dependent manner.

The liver tumour suppressor LIFR plays a key role in liver repair and regeneration by orchestrating cholesterol-driven neutrophil hepatocyte growth factor production and hepatocyte–neutrophil cross-talk.

ON-target genotoxicity in gene editing is generally underestimated. Here the authors report Fluorescence-Assisted Megabase-scale Rearrangements Detection (FAMReD) systems to detect and characterize rare large loss of heterozygosity: they show that ON-target genotoxicity can be prevented by p53 and cell cycle arrest.

Spacia is a multiple-instance learning model for cell–cell communication (CCC) interference in single-cell resolution spatially resolved transcriptomics data. Spacia can map complex CCCs by modeling cell proximity and CCC-driven gene perturbation.

Vargas Aguilar et al. report that the PD-1–PD-L1 checkpoint-inhibitor pathway is highly active in heart-resident and circulating immune cells of newborn mice and disruption of this pathway led to increased inflammation and pathogenic T cell activity, impairing regeneration.

ATRX is a chromatin remodeling protein, which loss has been associated to replication stress, DNA damage, and DNA repair failures that drive genome instability. Here the authors reveal that ATRX protects genomic integrity at G4-containing regions by maintaining these regions in a closed heterochromatic state.

Gao et al. report that leptin receptor⁺ stromal cells sustain nerves in the bone marrow by producing nerve growth factor. After myeloablation, nerves promote marrow regeneration by increasing the production of multiple growth factors by leptin receptor⁺ cells.

Reconstitution of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA 5′ cap reveals the unconventional mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 caps its RNA genome, providing a new target in the development of antiviral agents to treat COVID-19.

Tsp-1 in the tumor microenvironment is known to suppress tumor growth and progression. Here the authors show that PRSS2 represses Tsp-1 by binding to lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 and suggest targeting PRSS2 mediated Tsp-1 repression as a potential therapeutic strategy.

In this study, Patrick et al. provide insight into the regulation of branched-chain amino acid metabolism and its impact on whole-body physiology by identifying and characterizing a metabolon formation.

Patient-derived xenograft models (PDX) have been extensively used to study the molecular and clinical features of cancers. Here the authors present a cohort of 536 PDX models from 25 cancers, as well as their genomic and evolutionary profiles and their suitability for clinical trials.

Woermann and colleagues describe a deaminase-independent function for APOBEC3A in initiating chromosomal instability and STING-dependent metastasis in human and mouse pancreatic cancer.

MPHOSPH8 loss inhibits acute myeloid leukemia (AML) development by reactivating LINE-1 retrotransposons. LINE-1 suppression is associated with therapy resistance and poor prognosis in patients with AML.

Neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs) arise from different anatomic sites, but have similar histological and clinical features. Here, the authors show that the epigenetic landscape of a range of NECs converges towards a common epigenetic state, while distinct subtypes occur within neuroendocrine prostate cancer contributing to intratumor heterogeneity in clinical samples.

Meacham et al. report that adiponectin receptors suppress chronic inflammatory signalling by immune effector cells to prevent haematopoietic stem cell exit from quiescence and, thus, protect them from exhaustion.

Analysis of copy number alterations in 1,451 patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) and matched patient tumor samples shows strong conservation from patient tumors through late-passage PDXs and a lack of systematic copy number evolution driven by the mouse host.

Differences in MCT1 function among melanoma cells confer differences in oxidative stress resistance and metastatic potential.

Melanoma cells undergo less oxidative stress and less ferroptosis in lymph than in blood, owing to higher levels of oleic acid in lymph, and thus exposure to the lymphatic environment increases subsequent metastasis through blood.

A peri-arteriolar niche in the bone marrow for osteogenesis and lymphopoiesis is maintained by mechanical stimulation and is depleted during ageing.

Dysregulation of ribonucleoprotein complex granules, previously implicated in neuromuscular disease, can drive pathogenesis in a genetic form of dilated cardiomyopathy, as shown in gene-edited pigs and patient-derived cardiomyocytes.

Tissues-specific gene expression requires coordinated cis-regulatory elements. Here the authors use dCas9-based enhancer targeting to remodel local epigenetic landscapes and activate or inactive transcription.

Ascorbate depletion in mice increased haematopoietic stem-cell frequency and promoted leukaemogenesis, partly by reducing the function of the Tet2 tumour suppressor enzyme.

Hoxb13 acts as a cofactor of Meis1 in regulating cardiomyocyte maturation and cell cycle, and knockout of both proteins enables regeneration of postnatal cardiac tissue in a mouse model of heart injury.

During embryogenesis, the cytoplasmic protein Myomarker (MYMK) mediates muscle fibre formation by fusion of myoblasts. Here, the authors identify autosomal recessive mutations in MYMK that cause Carey-Fineman-Ziter syndrome in humans, and model the disease variants in zebrafish.

Identifying how genetic alterations cooperate in cancer is challenging. Here the authors analyze leukemia mouse models with both oncogenic NRAS and EZH2 mutations using single-cell RNA-sequencing, evaluate oncogenic cooperation, and identify GEM as a regulator of leukemia-initiating cells.

In vitropharmacological profiling is playing an increasing part in identifying undesirable off-target effects of candidate drugs earlier in the drug discovery process. In this article, authors from four large pharmaceutical companies share their views on the rationale, strategies and methodologies forin vitropharmacological profiling, and recommend a minimal panel of targets for screening.

Treatment responses of melanoma patients to MAPK pathway inhibitors are often limited. Here, the authors show that combining cardiac glycosides with MAPK inhibitors improves tumor regression by inducing intracellular acidification, mitochondrial calcium dysregulation, ATP depletion, and cell death.

Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have a lower rate of protein synthesis in vivo than most other haematopoietic cells, and both increases and decreases in the rate of protein synthesis impair HSC function, demonstrating that HSC maintenance—and hence, cellular homeostasis—requires the rate of protein synthesis to be highly regulated.

Haematopoietic stem cells normally reside in a bone marrow niche but they are recruited to the spleen after physiological stresses; here, endothelial cells and stromal cells around sinusoidal blood vessels of the spleen are shown to secrete key niche factors to support this process.

Allergen-specific immunotherapy is used to treat patients affected by acute immunoglobulin E (IgE) responses, but the function mechanism is unclear. Here the authors show that the administration of two cat allergen-specific IgGs reduces allergic responses in mouse models and helps ameliorate clinical symptoms in a phase 1b clinical trial.

Human melanoma cells grown in mice experience high levels of oxidative stress in the bloodstream such that few metastasizing cells survive to form tumours; the rare melanoma cells that successfully metastasize undergo metabolic changes that increase their capacity to withstand this stress, and antioxidant treatments increase metastasis formation by human melanoma cells, while inhibiting antioxidant pathways had the reverse effect.

The application of genome-wide CRISPR–Cas9 screening coupled with a fluorescent reporter to interrogate the microRNA pathway reveals that continual transient phosphorylation of Argonaute 2 is required to maintain the global efficiency of microRNA-mediated repression.

Aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis often occurs after acute seizures that produce epilepsy and cognitive impairment but the role of neurogenesis in the development of epilepsy is unclear. Here the authors suppress adult neurogenesis in mice preceding seizures and show that it reduces subsequent chronic seizure frequency and epilepsy-associated cognitive decline.

Although endogenous inhibitors of blood vessel growth have been studied extensively, specific inhibitors of lymphatic vessel growth have not been identified. Albuquerque et al. now identify truncated, secreted versions of mouse and human VEGFR-2 receptors generated by alternative splicing. The mouse protein acts as an endogenous inhibitor of lymphatic vessel growth in the cornea and skin, and its administration had therapeutic effects in mouse models of corneal injury and transplantation.

Lymphocytes crawl on blood vessels against the flow of blood, but the mechanism for this directed migration is not known. Here, Valignat et al.show that lymphocytes can use their uropods as wind vanes to passively steer their migration in the presence of fluid flow, without the need for internal guidance cues.