Search

Grain number per panicle (GNP) is a yield-determining trait of rice. Here, the authors identify a GSK3-like kinase-encoding gene GNP2 and a bZIP transcription factor-encoding gene GNP5, demonstrating their synergistic regulation of GNP and showing that specific allele combinations of these genes enhance rice yield in field conditions.

Grain chalkiness is an undesirable trait that severely compromises rice quality. Here, the authors report the cloning of an E3 ubiquitin ligase encoding gene Chalk9 and reveal its crucial role in regulating grain chalkiness through mediating the ubiquitination-dependent degradation of OsEBP89.

The genetic basis underlying resistance to Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR) in oilseed rape remains elusive. Here, the authors identify BnaA07.MKK9 as a pivotal regulator of SSR resistance in oilseed rape by GWAS, providing new insights into plant defense mechanisms against necrotrophic pathogens.

High-resolution computed tomography is used to reconstruct and analyse fossils of the herbivorous tritylodontid Polistodon and a newly named morganucodontid species called Camurocondylus, providing key insights into the evolution of the mammalian jaw joint.

Issa et al. show that the ciliary small guanosine triphosphatase Arl3 displaces the inhibitory regulator Shulin/DNAAF9 from the outer dynein arm, leading to motor activation.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

Lodging resistance is critical for rice yield. Here, the authors demonstrate that STRONG1 alters the arrangement of the microtubule skeleton, resulting in changes in secondary cell wall development, thereby negatively regulating lodging resistance and grain yield.

Although the number of participants is important for phenotypic prediction accuracy in brain-wide association studies using functional MRI, scanning for at least 30 min offers the greatest cost effectiveness.

In this Perspective, members of the Aging Biomarker Consortium outline the X-Age Project, an Aging Biomarker Consortium plan for building standardized aging clocks in China. The authors discuss the project roadmap and its aims of decoding aging heterogeneity, detecting accelerated aging early and evaluating geroprotective interventions.

A refractory high-entropy alloy was designed with the composition chosen based on the natural-mixing characteristics among refractory elements; this alloy demonstrates good tensile ductility in the as-cast state and physicochemical stability at high temperatures.

The authors show that gymnosperm-specific CYP90J enzymes catalyze biflavonoid C-C coupling, reveal a diradical-based mechanism, and achieve microbial production of amentoflavone via synthetic biology.

The tumour microenvironment often suppresses immune cell function and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) are involved in the process. Here authors show in human tumours and in mouse models that AEBP1 is highly expressed in CAFs, and via autocrine stimulation of its receptor CKAP4, it induces the upregulation of PD-L1, which inhibits the anti-tumor T cell response.

In this study, Yang et al. compile a global dataset to uncover the degree to which plants coordinate root and seed traits. They report a global positive correlation between root diameter and seed size, driven by dual roles of arbuscular mycorrhiza in phosphorus uptake and pathogen defence.

The connection between plasma proteomic and brain structure remains unclear. Here, the authors establish a comprehensive atlas of the patterns of associations between microscale proteome and brain structure, and demonstrate their potential value for studying brain disorders.

RNA circularization is vital for circRNA therapeutics. Here, authors present two in vitro methods—PIET and CIRC—where CIRC employs intact self-splicing introns to generate circRNAs efficiently, and enables large circRNA generation, broadening the circRNA platform’s potential.

This study projects heat-related mortality in Europe across various adaptation scenarios by modelling humid and compound day-night heat, using a health-based heat definition. Without heat adaptation, mortality could rise by 103.7–135.1 deaths per million people per 1 °C of global warming.

Polyploidy and subsequent post-polyploid diploidization (PPD) contribute to evolutionary success of plant species. Here, using 11 genomes from all nine subfamilies of Malvaceae as an example, the authors provide evidence to support the “polyploidy for survival and PPD for success” hypothesis.

Kagome materials have become a popular platform to investigate a range of competing quantum phases, such as the interplay between superconductivity and charge density waves (CDW). Here, the authors use x-ray diffraction, scanning tunneling microscopy and resonant elastic x-ray scattering to investigate the evolution of CDW ordering as a function of temperature in canted antiferromagnetic kagome FeGe. They find for post-annealed samples that the long-range CDW orders persist even as the structural modulations are suppressed although observations are highly dependent on the sample growth condition.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells can utilise the tumour microenvironment to metastasise to the liver. Here the authors show that hepatoctyes overexpress SLIT2 to enable premetastatic niche formation for ROBO1-positive PDAC cells to support the survival of these tumour cells in the liver.

This study uses chromatin tracing to identify alterations in single-cell 3D genome conformation during the progression of Kras-driven mouse lung adenocarcinoma and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, and proposes Rnf2 as a regulator of the 3D genome.

Here the authors develop topological polarization singular lasers that feature paired radiation channels carrying distinct topological properties which leads to single mode lasing with high external quantum efficiency.

A reinforcement learning-based virtual reality system, implementing a series of sport sessions with coaching, was as effective as standard physical activity in reducing fat mass in adolescents, with positive effects on cognition.

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.

De novo genome assemblies of 22 Brassica oleracea accessions and pan-genome analyses highlight the effects of structural variations on gene expression and their contributions to morphotype diversification.

It is important to understand the cross-neutralization among distinct SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sublineages. Zou et al. show that sera from Omicron BA.1-infected people are significantly weaker in neutralizing Omicron BA.2, BA.3, and USA-WA1/2020 than neutralizing BA.1.

The SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern Omicron has quickly spread. Here, Zou et al. develop a high-throughput neutralization test for Omicron SARS-CoV-2 and show that patients with previous non-Omicron infections do not develop robust neutralization against Omicron.

URAT1 is the target for gout drugs that block urate reuptake in the kidneys, however current treatments have limitations. Here, authors show how urate-lowering drugs inhibit URAT1, facilitating antigout drug development.

C4 photosynthesis serves as a prominent example of convergent evolution in complex traits. Here, the authors construct chromosome-scale genome assemblies for five Flaveria species and investigate the genomic evolution of C4 photosynthesis. Their findings emphasize the roles of retrotransposition and transcriptional regulation in shaping C4 traits.

Achieving CO oxidation at room temperature is significant for gas purification but remains challenging to perform. Here, the authors report design of graphene-isolated Pt from cobalt-nickel nanoparticles for efficiently catalytic CO oxidation in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

The red fluorescent protein mScarlet3-H is bright, photostable and very robust to high temperature, chaotropic conditions and oxidative environments. mScarlet3-H works well in correlative light and electron microscopy, tissue clearing and time-lapse super-resolution microscopy.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Neutralizing antibody titers in SARS-CoV-2 infected or vaccinated people are an important measure for vaccine development and public health decision-making. Here, the authors develop a fluorescence based SARS-CoV-2 assay to determine neutralizing antibody titers in COVID-19 patient sera in a high throughput set-up.

Early and accurate clinical assessment of disease severity in COVID-19 patients is essential for planning the allocation of scarce hospital resources. An explainable machine learning tool trained on blood sample data from 485 patients from Wuhan selected three biomarkers for predicting mortality of individual patients with high accuracy.

The use of biomarkers of ageing is crucial for investigating age-related processes. This Review discusses biomarkers of ageing and of ageing-associated physiological changes, at the cellular, tissue and organism levels in humans and non-human primates.

The Chinese tree shrew, Tupaia belangeri chinensis, has been proposed as a potential animal model in biomedical research and drug safety testing. This study presents the full genome of the Chinese tree shrew, identifying common features between the tree shrew and primates.

Inert C–C bond cleavage remains a challenge in organic chemistry. Herein, the authors report a retro-Diels-Alder process via palladium catalysis to achieve selective C(alkyl)–C(vinyl) bond cleavage.

Ionic control of magnetism promises ultralow-field sensor, but current physical realizations of proton-based magneto-ionic sensor are limited due to the lack of effective solid-state sensing methods. Here, authors report magneto-ionics-based proton sensing under low working radiofrequency and magnetic fields.

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) regulates a variety of physiological processes in plants. A molecule involved in chlorophyll biosynthesis, the H-subunit of Mg-chelatase functions as an ABA receptor. This interaction controls seed germination and stomatal movement.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

Nanoscale porous building blocks hold great promise for a range of thermal management technologies but often porous nanoparticle assemblies are intrinsically brittle. Here, the authors report 3D printing of porous silica voxels with polymeric additives to enable the coupling between additive manufacturing and hierarchical assembly for superior machinability and structural controllability.

Targeted deletion of integrin-associated protein CD47 enhances long-term engraftment of human CD34⁺ cells in immunodeficient pigs lacking IL2RG and RAG2, enabling large-scale production of functional human immune cells.

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.

China maintained a ‘zero-COVID’ policy from early in the pandemic until late 2022 that employed various public health interventions with the aim of COVID-19 containment. Here, the authors use data from 131 outbreaks in China to estimate the effects of a range of interventions against different SARS-CoV-2 variants in diverse settings.