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The Huayuan biota exhibits extraordinary biodiversity, illuminating the impact of the Phanerozoic mass extinction around 513 million years ago and offering critical insights into the transformation of global ecosystems in the early Cambrian.

Limited genomic resources constrain our understanding of fern evolution and conservation. Here, the authors present the genome of Brainea insignis, a monotypic endangered fern, and identify evolutionary signatures to guide conservation strategies from comparative and population genomic analyses.

Here, Cai et al. demonstrate that environmental metabolite availability directly impacts glucose utilization and function in trained immunity - trained monocytes prefer lactate over glucose as a physiologic fuel, and lactate regulates trained immunity by altering histone lactylation.

In this partially randomized clinical trial, the authors find that an orally inhaled Ad5-nCoV booster is associated with a lower incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 during the following 6 months compared with controls who haven’t received a booster. Intramuscular administered Ad5-CoV booster is associated with reduced COVID-19 incidence as well.

Tumour relapse after resection undermines the efficacy of surgical treatment for glioblastoma multiforme. Here the authors present a hydrogel that can be injected in the tumour cavity after resection and that promotes antitumour immunity, reducing postoperative cancer growth in animal models.

Metabolic conditions associated with alterations of the gut microbiome, such as obesity and diabetes, predispose to gallstone disease. Here the authors demonstrate that the gut microbiome, in particular the genus Desulfovibrionale, contribute to gallstone formation in mice.

Pendrin SLC26A4 plays an important role for anion balance. Here, authors resolve cryo-EM structures of pendrin performing co-incident uptake and secretion of anions, providing a structural basis of this anion exchange mechanism.

Here, upon obtaining cryo-EM structures of CRL3^KBTBD2 in seven states, the authors propose a model for the activation cycle of CRL3 ligases, including assembly, substrate recruitment, (de)neddylation and CAND1-mediated substrate receptor exchange.

Chiral photons can accelerate the differentiation of neural stem cells into neurons in vitro and in vivo when DNA-bridged chiral assemblies of gold nanoparticles are tightly entangled with the cells’ cytoskeletal fibres.

TMPRSS2 and CTSL/CTSB, host proteases that facilitate SARS-CoV-2 entry, are promising drug targets. Here the authors simultaneously inhibit these host proteases and see synergistic antiviral effects, offering a broad-spectrum intervention against SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Using zebrafish as a model, Zhang et al. show that Tmem88a/b expression is required to balance proliferation and differentiation of pharyngeal arch artery progenitors into angioblasts by confining ectodermal Wnt2bb signaling.

Multi-ancestry meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for self-reported physical activity during leisure time, leisure screen time, sedentary commuting and sedentary behavior at work identify 99 loci associated with at least one of these traits.

Caloric restriction is a common approach to weight reduction, however, weight regain is common. Here the authors report that caloric restriction reduces the abundance of Parabacteroides distasonis in the gut and alters serum bile acid (BA) profile, which contribute to weight regain in mice.

Gold-nanoparticle-coated titania nanowire arrays subretinally implanted in blind mice and monkeys offer advantages in visual acuity and contrast sensitivity towards the restoration of visual function.

Non-ischemic cardiomyopathy is a severe disease, characterized by interstitial fibrosis in the left ventricle of the heart. Here authors show that the E3 ubiquitin ligase WWP2 plays a pathogenic role in heart fibrosis via regulating a distinct monocyte population that initiates the process.

This genome-wide association study on persistent hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection among Chinese confirms previously associated genetic loci while discovering a novel protective locus at 8p21.3. The study also demonstrates the nearby gene INST10 suppresses HBV replication in vitro.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) are subject to noise, biases and missing data. Here, the authors present MixEHR, a multi-view Bayesian framework related to collaborative filtering and latent topic models for EHR data integration and modeling.

Retrotransposons are silenced by an epigenetic mechanism and piRNA pathway in the mammalian germline. Here, the authors report that UHRF1 suppresses retrotransposons by interacting with PRMT5 and PIWI proteins during spermatogenesis.

Although the permeation mechanisms for K⁺ and Na⁺ channels have been extensively studied, the ion permeation mechanism through Ca²⁺ channels was largely unknown. Here the authors develop a multisite Ca²⁺ model that can be used in the framework of classical MD simulations to study Ca²⁺ in a quantitative manner, and use it to investigate the ion permeation mechanism of the ryanodine receptor 1.

Based on previous research that the Chaoyang virus is an insect-specific flavivirus, only able to replicate in insects and insect cells, authors present this proof-of-concept mosquito-delivered vaccine; they construct a Zika virus focused candidate that can be delivered by mosquito bite, and assess the immune response and protection in mice.

Kidney injury leads to fibrosis during the progression of chronic kidney disease. Here the authors report that the DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) drives chronic kidney disease progression in a study with male mice, potentially via TAF7/RAPTOR/mTORC1 signaling.

An 80 thousand-year-long period of extreme non-geocentric dipole magnetic fields is recorded in Late Cambrian carbonate rocks of South China, suggesting that 495 million years ago Earth’s inner core had not grown large enough to stabilize the dynamo.

A set of three papers reports that the piRNA pathway is essential for mammalian female fertility based on genetic perturbation experiments performed in golden hamsters.

We introduce a major scientific endeavour called π-HuB (proteomic navigator of the human body), its aim being to generate and harness multimodality proteomic datasets to enhance our understanding of human biology.

A subtype of early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma characterized by disrupted cholesterol homeostasis and associated with a poor prognosis responds to treatment with the SOAT1 inhibitor avasimibe in a patient-derived xenograft mouse model.

Combining fungal-resistance genes into a single cassette enables the generation of highly resistant wheat lines.

Pu-erh tea displays cholesterol-lowering properties. Here, Huang et al. show that this is mostly due to the action of a pigment in Pu-erh tea that induces changes in certain gut microbiota and bile acid levels, thus modulating the gut-liver metabolic axis.

Long Yu and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for hepatitis B virus–related hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC). They report that genetic variants in STAT4 and HLA-DQ genes confer risk of HBV-HCC.