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The SLC45A4 gene encodes a neuronal polyamine transporter and is linked to pain response in humans and mice.

Breugnathair elgolensis gen. et sp. nov., an early squamate identified from a newly discovered Middle Jurassic skeleton on the Isle of Skye, provides new evidence on the origins of snakes.

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).

Observations of natural samples combined with laboratory experiments reveal that manganese minerals substantially influence nickel cycling in marine sediments and seawater, driven by adsorption and incorporation processes.

The Middle Palaeolithic of southwest Asia witnessed interactions and knowledge sharing between archaic and modern humans ~130,000–80,000 years ago. These interactions led to increased behavioural complexity and consolidation of a uniform behavioural set across Homo groups in the region.

The GLASS Consortium studies the evolutionary trajectories of 222 patients with a diffuse glioma to aid in our understanding of tumour progression and treatment failure

Actin filament polymerization is crucial for building sound-sensitive stereocilia in the cochlea. Here, the authors show that a myosin motor can nucleate actin filaments, revealing a mechanism for stereocilia growth and hereditary hearing loss.

The Ton and Tol systems are bacterial energy-transducing complexes that use the proton motive force at the inner membrane to exert force on outer membrane proteins. Here the authors present the high-resolution cryoEM structures of the inner membrane engine part of these two complexes.

This study shows that animal-based high-fat diets accelerate tumour growth and impair anti-tumour response to melanoma in obese mice, whereas plant-based high-fat diets do not.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Antisense transcription from genic regions is a common phenomenon. Here Rosa et al. use single molecule FISH to show that during vernalization in Arabidopsis, cold-induced antisense transcription of COOLAIR is mutually exclusive to sense-strand transcription of the flowering regulator FLCfrom the same loci.

Screening platforms for rapid detection of infectious viruses are needed for diagnostic and therapeutic development. Here, authors present a bioelectronic platform that detects the entry processes of infectious viruses within minutes and differentiates the relative fusogenicities of viral variants.

High-resolution, spatial transcriptomic analysis of colorectal cancers using matched sequencing- and imaging-based methods characterizes immune cells and their interactions with the tumor microenvironment.

Forces that lead to stable bipolar organization of mitotic spindles are poorly understood. Here the authors show that growing interpolar microtubules make a unique contribution to the overall force balance, distinct from all other motors in the spindle.

Amyloid fibrils feature in many human diseases and in epigenetic memory, but understanding their molecular structure has been difficult. Now, through a combination of optical trapping and fluorescent imaging to examine amyloid fibrils of the yeast prion protein Sup35, the unexpected unfolding of individual subdomains has been detected, suggesting strong noncovalent interactions maintain the fibril even if individual monomers unfold.

The human ADAR enzyme can deaminate additional transcripts for therapeutic A-to-G RNA base editing using an antisense guide RNA. Here, authors engineer a universal guide RNA scaffold from the U7 snRNA, boosting editing efficiency from minimal doses, especially in organs with limited AAV delivery.

The development of high-performance ‘smart’ catalysts will rely on the rational design of nanoscale metal–metal oxide interfaces. A tandem catalyst that has both CeO₂-Pt and Pt-SiO₂ interfaces is now reported, and is capable of catalysing sequential reactions to convert methanol into ethylene.

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.

Here, the authors present and characterise a collection of human gut bacteria including novel taxa associated with health conditions and a large diversity of plasmids. All isolates, their genomes and metadata are publicly available, facilitating research by others (www.hibc.rwth-aachen.de).

Evidence for a past large explosive eruption within the Santorini caldera suggests that early stages of silicic caldera cycles can be more hazardous than previously assumed, according to analyses of intra-caldera deposits from the Kameni Volcano.

A metabolically bioactivated selective imidazothiazole nematicide shows comparable effectiveness at controlling plant root infection by Meloidogyne incognita to commercial nematicides, which are traditionally nonselective and toxic.

In a prospective, regulatory-grade study of assistance to pathologists in MASH histology scoring, AIM-MASH-assisted reads by expert MASH pathologists were superior to unassisted reads and decreased inter-reader variability.

The bacterial anti-phage defense systems known as ‘Zorya’ consist of a membrane protein complex (ZorAB) and soluble components of unclear function. Here, the authors solve cryo-EM structures of the ZorAB complex and show that the soluble component ZorE displays nickase activity and acts as an effector module.

Molecular self-assembly can be influenced by a number of external factors, though solvent effects are less commonly explored. Here, the authors present a three-armed metallopeptide complex that has a folded monomeric conformation in organic solvent, but can self-assemble in water into a supramolecular gel.

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

The possibility of banking cryopreserved organs could make transplantation medicine much more accessible. Here, the authors show that vitrification and nanowarming—cooling organs to an ice-free state followed by rapid rewarming using nanoparticles and magnetic fields—enables organ cryopreservation, long-term banking, and recovery of full function in a rat kidney transplant model.

Characterization of a contractile injection system (CIS) in the Gram-positive multicellular model organism Streptomyces coelicolor finds that CIS mediate cell death in response to stress that impacts cellular development.

A Sup35 chimaera that traverses the transmission barrier between two yeast species possesses the critical sequence elements from both. This chimaera is used to show that the influence of environment and mutations on the formation of species-specific strains is driven by selective recognition of either sequence element. Thus, critical aspects of prion conversion are enciphered by subtle differences between small, highly specific recognition elements.

Beck et al. conducted single-cell and spatial profiling of embryonal tumors with multilayered rosettes, finding that malignant cellular hierarchies are driven by developmental programs and specific members of the chromosome 19 microRNA cluster.

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.