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Lipid droplets (LDs) supply fatty acids to cellular processes and move bidirectionally on microtubules. Here the authors show that nutrient starvation causes dispersal of mitochondria and LD to the periphery of the cell along detyrosinated microtubules and increases LD–mitochondria interactions in an AMPK-dependent manner.

Reducing the competitive advantage conferred by driver mutations can abrogate expansions of mutant clones in healthy tissue in mice. This suggests ways to prevent cancer and other diseases that are associated with somatic mutations in humans.

Epithelioids are genetically stable, self-sustaining three-dimensional cultures. They may be used to investigate various aspects of epithelial biology over several months without need for passaging. In this paper, mouse epithelioids are used to identify drivers of clonal expansion in the esophagus.

Most SNPs are located in non-coding genomic regions and their function remains elusive. Here, the authors perform a genome-wide scan of expression and DNA methylation quantitative trait loci in human hippocampal tissue to provide a resource for the functional interpretation of SNPs in brain disorders.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis of individuals with clinically assessed or self-reported depression identifies 44 independent risk loci. Comparisons with other psychiatric disorders and candidate gene analyses provide new insights into major depressive disorder.

Sven van der Lee, Julie Williams, Gerard Schellenberg and colleagues identify rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3 and TREM2 associated with Alzheimer's disease. These genes are highly expressed in microglia and provide additional evidence that the microglia-mediated immune response contributes to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

Understanding how cells maintain tissues is challenging. Here, the authors present a single consistent quantitative approach to analyse cell proliferation and lineage tracing data, which shows a single proliferating cell population that maintains epidermal and esophageal epithelial homeostasis.

Better analytical methods are needed to extract biological meaning from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders. Here the authors take GWAS data from over 60,000 subjects, including patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, and identify common etiological pathways shared amongst them.

Notch1 mutations have opposing effects on clonal growth in normal and tumor cells of the mouse esophagus. In a mouse model of squamous esophageal tumorigenesis, Notch1 blockade reduced premalignant tumor growth, suggesting that it might be an effective prevention strategy for the disease.

Ageing normal oesophagus epithelium contains p53 mutant clones. Here the authors use transgenic mice to show how these clones form and contribute to cancer development.

Deep sequencing and lineage tracing analysis of esophageal epithelium of mutagen-treated aging mice leads to a model in which the proliferative advantage of positively selected mutations depends on the competitive fitness of neighboring cells.

Cortex morphology varies with age, cognitive function, and in neurological and psychiatric diseases. Here the authors report 160 genome-wide significant associations with thickness, surface area and volume of the total cortex and 34 cortical regions from a GWAS meta-analysis in 22,824 adults.

The onset of differentiation has been assumed to follow withdrawal from the cell cycle. A new study shows that keratinocytes initiate differentiation before exiting the cell cycle, allowing the skin to respond rapidly to damage.

Relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis have an unexpectedly high incidence of schizophrenia. Here, the authors show a genetic link between the two conditions, suggesting shared neurobiological mechanisms.

Depression is correlated with many brain-related traits. Here, Shen et al. perform phenome-wide association studies of a depression polygenic risk score (PRS) and find associations with 51 behavioural and 26 neuroimaging traits which are further followed up on using Mendelian randomization and mediation analyses.

Environmental influences during prenatal development may have implications for health and disease later in life. Here, Czamara et al. assess DNA methylation in cord blood from new-born under various models including environmental and genetic effects individually and their additive or interaction effects.

Naomi Wray and colleagues report an analysis of genome-wide association data sets from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium for five psychiatric disorders. They find that common variation explains 17–29% of the variance in liability and provide further support for a shared genetic etiology for these related psychiatric disorders.

A genome-wide-association meta-analysis of 18,381 austim spectrum disorder (ASD) cases and 27,969 controls identifies five risk loci. The authors find quantitative and qualitative polygenic heterogeneity across ASD subtypes.

Tom Karlsen and colleagues report an association study for primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a severe liver disease, using the Immunochip array. They identify nine loci newly associated with PSC and examine pleiotropy with other autoimmune disorders.

The role of water poses a problem in our understanding of prebiotic chemistry, as some biochemical reactions, such as RNA polymerization, are impeded in aqueous solutions. Here, the authors report the abiotic temporal nanoconfinement of water within aqueous particle suspensions, showing that such conditions can induce and promote prebiotic RNA formation.

Simone de Jong et al. examine the balance of common and rare risk for psychiatric disorders in a large family with high incidence of Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. They find that increased polygenic risk over generations could be partially due to assortative mating, which may explain the observation of anticipation in mood disorders.