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With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

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).

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.

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.

SCIFER detects clonal selection in whole-genome sequencing data using a population genetics model. Applied to a range of somatic tissues, SCIFER quantifies stem cell dynamics and infers clonal ages and sizes without requiring knowledge of driver events.

A global research network monitoring the Amazon for 30 years reports in this study that tree size increased by 3% each decade.

JWST and Keck II spectral observations of Saturn’s moon Titan reveal methyl (CH₃) as well as non-local thermodynamic equilibrium emission bands of CO and CO₂. Imaging shows clouds in Titan’s northern hemisphere at several epochs, with some appearing to evolve in altitude.

Inventory data from more than 1 million trees across African, Amazonian and Southeast Asian tropical forests suggests that, despite their high diversity, just 1,053 species, representing a consistent ~2.2% of tropical tree species in each region, constitute half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees.

The quark structure of the f₀(980) hadron is still unknown after 50 years of its discovery. Here, the CMS Collaboration reports a measurement of the elliptic flow of the f₀(980) state in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV, providing strong evidence that the state is an ordinary meson.

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.

In an integrated analysis of transcriptomic data from the SUBSPACE consortium and public datasets of patients with sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, trauma and burns, dysregulation within four consensus molecular clusters related to myeloid and lymphoid cells is associated with mortality and illness severity.

A high-bandwidth neuromotor interface offers performant out-of-the-box generalization across people.

FinFETs are an evolution of metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) featuring a semiconducting channel vertically wrapped by conformal gate electrodes. Here, the authors use a two-dimensional semiconductor to push the FinFET width to sub-nm whilst achieving a 107 ON/OFF ratio.

An artificial reaction centre has been designed that contains a benzimidazole–phenol model of the Tyr–His relay in photosystem II. It has been seen to mimic both the short internal hydrogen bond of the natural relay, and — using electron paramagnetic resonance —the relaxation behaviour that accompanies proton-coupled electron transfer in photosystem II.

The relationships that control seed production in trees are key to understand evolutionary pressures that have shaped forests. A global synthesis of fecundity data reveals that while seed production is not constrained by a strict size-number trade-off, it is influenced by taxonomy and nutrient allocation.

The authors summarize the data produced by phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a resource for better understanding of the human and mouse genomes.

The noisy dynamics of biological neurons is vital for cognition, but artificial neurons failed to replicate it. Here, the authors show that neurons built with diffusive memristors can emulate the balance of stochastic and deterministic activity in biological neurons, while surpassing them in computational efficiency.

Photonic memristor arrays fabricated from hexagonal boron nitride/silicon heterostructures provide a scalable, silicon-compatible solution for artificial vision systems, featuring broad spectral reconfigurability and promising performance characteristics.

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

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

Members of the hapalindole, fischerindole, welwitindolinone and ambiguine families were synthesized, each constructed without the use of a single protecting group. As a consequence, molecules that have previously required 20 or more steps to synthesize racemically in milligram amounts can now be procured as single enantiomers in significant quantities in 10 steps or less.

Wood density is a key control on tree biomass, and understanding its spatial variation improves estimates of forest carbon stock. Sullivan et al. measure >900 forest plots to quantify wood density and produce high resolution maps of its variation across South American tropical forests.

A new method to quantify three masting components from individual tree-years has revealed that globally, masting is uncommon in tree species that depend on mutualist dispersers, with its distribution further mediated by climate and nutrient availability.

Inbreeding depression has been observed in many different species, but in humans a systematic analysis has been difficult so far. Here, analysing more than 1.3 million individuals, the authors show that a genomic inbreeding coefficient (FROH) is associated with disadvantageous outcomes in 32 out of 100 traits tested.

An industry-compatible disorder-to-disorder synthesis produces wafer-scale, ultraclean monolayer amorphous carbon in seconds that can be used as a membrane for generating high-precision proton beams.

Species databases are critical tools for biologists and conservationists around the world, but a number of problems, including lack of common standards, are causing issues that even include the miscategorization of species as extinct when they are not.