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Covalent polymers with helical conformations offer an adaptive scaffold for smart materials, but polymer-to-monomer deconstruction is inhibited by the covalent backbone. Now it has been shown that poly(disulfide)s can be folded into helices driven by side-chain hydrogen-bonding self-assembly, resulting in a synthetic helical polymer that can be fully recycled.

Using 1,425 UK Biobank participants, we show for the first time that morphological brain asymmetry exhibits evidence of plasticity changes throughout adulthood, which tracks individual variation ~1,000 lifestyle factors and ~4,500 disease ICD codes.

Here, the authors show that KDM2A regulates cell cycle progression, modulation of H3K36me2 and H3K27me3 chromatin states and gene repression which are critical for survival of differentiating spermatogonia. KDM2A regulates progression through meiosis as well.

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

The tooth root is a critical component of the tooth. Here they identify root-forming CXCL12+ apical papilla progenitor cells that provide odontoblasts and cementoblasts in a Wnt-dependent manner, with plasticity to form alveolar bone osteoblasts during regeneration.

R9AP is a key receptor for entry of Epstein–Barr virus into human epithelial and B cells, and interacts directly with the viral glycoprotein gH/gL complex to mediate virus–host membrane fusion.

The overlap between different phases has hindered the understanding of how each phase affects superconductivity in FeSe. Here, Matsuura et al. achieve a complete separation of non-magnetic nematic and antiferromagnetic phases for FeSe_1-x S _x , observing a tetragonal phase in between with a strikingly enhanced T _c.

Integrated analysis of clinical, serological and behavioral data estimates that current clinical surveillance systems detect only 1 of 3,280 true community infections in a cholera-endemic region of Bangladesh.

BMP promotes bone formation but its efficacy is limited in some patients. Here, the authors show that osteoporosis patients with a poor response to BMP have increased expression of Smurf1, which targets BMP effectors for degradation, and demonstrate that its chemical inhibition enhances BMP-mediated bone formation in mice.

The role of IgG glycosylation in the immune response has been studied, but less is known about IgM glycosylation. Here the authors characterize glycosylation of SARS-CoV-2 spike specific IgM and show that it correlates with COVID-19 severity and affects complement deposition.

Genome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in ancestrally diverse populations implicate candidate causal genes and mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes. Trans-ancestry genetic risk scores enhance transferability across populations.

Perception methods that enable control systems to understand and adapt to unstructured environments are desired. Wang et. al. develop a memristor-based differential neuromorphic computing, perceptual signal processing, and online adaptation method providing neuromorphic style adaptation to external sensory stimuli.

Cathodic corrosion of platinum is investigated using operando high-resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy matched with density functional calculations. Platinum hydrides are found to be reaction intermediates in conditions at which these species are expected to be unstable.

Structural analysis of the human choline and ethanolamine transporters FLVCR1 and FLVCR2 clarifies the mechanisms of transport, the conformational dynamics of these proteins and the disease-associated mutations that interfere with these processes.

A chemical reservoir computer based on the formose reaction has been discovered that can perform several nonlinear classification tasks in parallel, predict the dynamics of other complex systems and achieve time-series forecasting.

Topological magnetic spin structures such as skyrmions and merons have the potential to be used in magnetic information devices. Now multistep transformations between such structures are demonstrated in a centrosymmetric material.

How ketamine and scopolamine produce sustained antidepressant effects remains unknown. Kim et al. show that BDNF-dependent MeCP2 phosphorylation drives sustained antidepressant effects of ketamine and scopolamine with distinct synaptic plasticity changes.

Sensitization to the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is associated with allergic airway disease and asthma. Now Dale Umetsu and colleagues report that invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells directly recognize the glycosphingolipid asperamide B derived from A. fumigatus. Asperamide B stains and activates mouse and human iNKT cells and induces airway hyper-reactivity in mice, suggesting that fungi can be directly detected by iNKT cells.

During alveologenesis myofibroblasts contractions at terminal sacs produce alveoli in the lungs. Here they show that endothelial cells promote myofibroblast-driven alveologenesis by forming basement membranes via Rap1-induced integrin β1 activation.

The authors show that optogenetic inhibition of inputs from medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) or insula to the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) inhibits aversion-resistant alcohol intake. Alcohol-drinking rats showed increased hyperpolarization-active NMDARs at mPFC and insula inputs to NAcore medium spiny neurons. Knocking down these receptors in the NAcore inhibited aversion-resistant alcohol intake.

The dynamic transformation in soft architected materials often brings in unusual properties. Here, Zhang et al. present magneto-elastomers with 3D heterogeneous magnetization profiles encoded by buckling instability to achieve the dynamic regulation.

Autophagy regulates multiple pathways including YAP/TAZ of the Hippo pathway, but precise mechanisms are unclear as autophagy may either activate or inhibit YAP/TAZ. Here, the authors show that autophagy can either activate or regulate YAP/TAZ via dynamic negative feedback loops involving alpha-catenin.

A comparison of the energetics of jumping between biological and engineered systems shows that engineered systems can greatly increase energy limits using the process of work multiplication, and this analysis leads to the demonstration of a 30-centimetre device jumping over 30 metres.

Using genetic approaches and transcriptional profiling, Kallies and colleagues reveal a common program of effector CD8⁺ T cell differentiation that is regulated by the cooperation of IL-2 and IL-12 signaling and the combined activities of the transcriptional regulators Blimp-1 and T-bet.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

Structural analysis reveals how certain designed peptides adopt unusual spiraling cross-α amyloid-like structures and also rearrange to helical polymers upon mutation of small nonpolar residues that are critical for packing and stabilization.

HOXB13 suppresses a lipogenic transcriptional program in prostate cancer (PCa) through HDAC3 recruitment to enhancers. Loss of HOXB13 leads to lipid accumulation in PCa cells, promoting cell motility in vitro and xenograft tumor metastasis in vivo.

Sleep and wakefulness is stabilized by a population of orexin-expressing neurons. In this study, the authors demonstrate how these neurons drive arousal by silencing sleep-promoting neurons in the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus.

Through cryo-EM analysis, here authors reveal conformational rearrangements that are critical for the gating mechanism of the human alpha3 Na+/K+−ATPase

A resource of cell-type-specific IMPACT regulatory annotations improves the trans-ancestry portability of polygenic risk scores by prioritizing variants enriched for trait heritability.

SEDS family peptidoglycan transglycosylases, RodA and FtsW, in Staphylococcus aureus pair with the cognate transpeptidases PBP3 and PBP1 to mediate sidewall elongation and septal peptidoglycan incorporation, respectively, and maintain coccoid morphology.

Thymocytes are screened by two processes, termed positive and negative selections, which are permissive only for immature thymocytes with intermediate avidity to the selecting ligands. Here the authors show that the nuclear receptor NCoR1 suppresses Bim1 to inhibit negative selection and promote thymocyte survival.

The role of mTORC1 at the lysosome is well established, but mTORC1 is known to be active in other cellular locations. Here, the authors develop Akt-STOPS to inhibit Akt specifically in the nucleus and identify a new regulatory mode for mTORC1 distinct in the nucleus.

In a series of clinically relevant tasks in computational pathology, AI-driven models display marked performance disparities across demographic groups, which can only partially be mitigated by self-supervision on large training datasets and existing debiasing techniques.

High-resolution subnational mapping of child growth failure indicators for 105 low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017 shows that, despite considerable progress, substantial geographical inequalities still exist in some countries.

Analyses of the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017 reveal inequalities across countries as well as within populations.

MgtE is a magnesium ion-selective channel conserved in all domains of life that contributes to the maintenance of cellular Mg²⁺homeostasis. Here, the authors provide high-resolution crystal structures of MgtE combined with biochemical analyses that reveal the molecular basis for selectivity.

Activation of the Tn7 transposase depends on the Tn7-encoded AAA+ ATPase adaptor, TnsC. A new cryo-EM structure reveals how TnsC targets DNA sequences between target and insertion sites to restrict insertion events to control sequence-specific transposon insertion.

The mechanisms underlying many genetic variants associated with human traits are often unknown. Here, the authors identify the developmental stage-, organ-, tissue- and cell type-specific associations between genetic variation and gene expression in cardiac tissues, and describe how these associations affect complex cardiac traits and disease.

In this Review, the authors discuss the origins of regulatory T (T_reg) cells in the periphery and the mechanisms by which T_reg cells are induced, as well as the regulation of the suppressive function of these cells. Moreover, they examine evidence for and  mechanisms of T_reg cell dysfunction in common autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.