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Recent experimental evidence shows a new type of intrinsic fluorescence in biomolecules void of aromatic chemical compounds whose origin is unclear. Here, the authors use non-adiabatic AIMD simulations to show a potential carbonyl-lock mechanism originating this phenomenon.

Quinol-dependent nitric oxide reductases, unique to bacteria, are considered members of respiratory heme copper oxidases. A 2.2 Å cryoEM structure of qNOR is reported shedding light on key aspects of enzyme mechanism including quinol binding and pathways for electron, substrate, and proton transport.

The interactions of lignin with polysaccharides in plant secondary cell walls are not well understood. Here the authors employ solid-state NMR measurements to analyse intact stems of maize, Arabidopsis, switchgrass and rice and observe that lignin self-aggregates and forms highly hydrophobic microdomains that make extensive surface contacts to xylan.

Phenotypic screens in organoids and primary cells are scaled up using perturbation pooling.

A challenge in psychiatric drug discovery is to predict the therapeutic potential of a novel compound. Here, the authors show that brain-wide imaging of immediate early gene expression can be used to classify a panel of drugs including psychedelics and antidepressants with high accuracy.

Study shows PTSD predisposition shares distinct genes and genomic regions with several cardiovascular conditions. Here the findings reveal neuronal, immune, and metabolic pathways, and repurposed drug targets that further the understanding of the comorbidity.

Spatial transcriptomics aims to pair omic data with tissue structure. Here the authors report Spatially PhotoActivatable Colour Encoded Cell Address Tags (SPACECAT) to track and isolate live cells by location; this enables spatially informed downstream assays like scRNA-seq and flow cytometry.

The realization of efficient perovskite/organic tandem solar cells has been challenging due to large voltage deficits and severe non-radiative recombination. Here, the authors introduce sandwiched hole transport configuration for more balanced carrier transport, achieving efficiency of 26.05%.

Spatial transcriptomics reveals distinct microglial mechanisms driving amyloid-β clearance in both passively and actively immunized patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Dendritic cells play pivotal roles in the immune response to viral infection but are targeted by flaviviruses resulting in evasion of the host response. Here the authors show Zika but not Dengue virus limits the NF-κB response in monocyte derived dendritic cells diminishing their ability to activate T cells.

Isolating and studying haematopoietic stem cells in young and aged mice demonstrates evolutionary processes related to blood production and provides a framework for interpreting future work using laboratory mice to study stem cell ageing.

SLC26A2 transports crucial ions and mutations in it cause diverse diseases. Here, authors present cryo-EM structures of SLC26A2 with substrates, revealing details of its homodimer assembly, dynamic substrate binding, and effects of mutations.

Erasure of DNA methylation from the parental genomes is critical to reset the methylome of differentiated gametes to pluripotent cells in the blastocyst. Here, the authors present a high-throughput single-cell method that enables strand-specific quantification of DNA methylation and identify distinct modes of DNA demethylation dynamics during early mammalian development.

Survey data collected across ten low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia, Africa and South America compared with surveys from Russia and the United States reveal heterogeneity in vaccine confidence in LMICs, with healthcare providers being trusted sources of information, as well as greater levels of vaccine acceptance in these countries than in Russia and the United States.

Measuring rhythm priors in 39 participant groups from 15 countries, the authors find that properties of rhythm representations are common across cultures, while variation from place to place related to local musical traditions exists.

Evolution has produced a range of diverse proteins, and now a generative model called Chroma can expand that set by allowing the user to design new proteins and protein complexes with desired properties and functions.

Leptomeningeal disease (LMD) is a serious complication of metastatic solid tumors with a poor prognosis. Here, by using single-cell RNA sequencing of cerebrospinal fluid, the authors report genomic and immune correlates of response to immunotherapy in two cohorts of patients with LMD treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Bhattacharjee and Schaeffer et al. map exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) in 94 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), finding increased EBF practice and reduced subnational variation across the majority of LMICs from 2000 to 2018. However, only six LMICs will meet WHO’s target of ≥70% EBF by 2030 nationally, and only three will achieve this in all districts.

A strategy for inferring phase for rare variant pairs is applied to exome sequencing data for 125,748 individuals from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD). This resource will aid interpretation of rare co-occurring variants in the context of recessive disease.

Traumatic brain injury is associated with changes to the metabolome. Here the authors show that acute traumatic brain injury has distinctive serum metabolic patterns which may suggest protective changes of systemic lipid metabolism aiming to maintain lipid homeostasis in the brain.

Carbon isotopic analysis reveals global biogeographic traits in shark trophic interactions, and sheds light on the diverse foraging behaviour of sharks.

This overview of the ENCODE project outlines the data accumulated so far, revealing that 80% of the human genome now has at least one biochemical function assigned to it; the newly identified functional elements should aid the interpretation of results of genome-wide association studies, as many correspond to sites of association with human disease.

Ruth Loos and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association study for body mass index. They identify 18 new loci associated with this trait, some of which map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance.

Timothy Frayling, Joel Hirschhorn, Peter Visscher and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for adult height in 253,288 individuals. They identify 697 variants in 423 loci significantly associated with adult height and find that these variants cluster in pathways involved in growth and together explain one-fifth of the heritability for this trait.

Infection with SARS-CoV2 and the development of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been linked to induction of autoimmunity and autoantibody production. Here the authors characterise the new-onset IgG autoantibody response in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 which they correlate to the magnitude of the SARS-CoV2 response.

Biodiversity loss threatens deep time evolutionary history. Here, the authors describe patterns of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species across all tetrapod groups and identify 25 priority zones which are insufficiently protected and exposed to high human pressure.

Viana and colleagues evaluate the potential effects of expanding a subset of marine protected areas that allow some level of fishing within their borders (sustainable-use MPAs) to improve the nutrition of coastal communities. They estimate that, depending on site characteristics, expanding sustainable-use MPAs could increase catch by up to 20%, which could help prevent 0.3-2.85 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake in coral reef nations.

Efficient hydrogen production is a major societal challenge. Here the authors use operando neutron diffraction to quantitatively support the operating principle of a memory reactor that allows super-equilibrium operation of the water–gas shift reaction, which can also be used for steam methane reforming.

A platform for mRNA lipid nanoparticle delivery to the placenta to treat pre-eclampsia is shown to improve fetal and maternal health in mice and has potential clinical applications in obstetric disorders and women’s health.

Foutel et. al. identify conformational buffering as a mechanism for functional selection in intrinsically disordered protein regions that allows robust encoding of a tethering function by a hypervariable disordered linker through compensatory changes in sequence length and composition.

The Zwicky Transient Facility has observed a transitioning white dwarf with two faces, with one side of its atmosphere dominated by hydrogen and the other by helium.

By using new on-chip terahertz spectroscopy techniques to measure the absorption spectra of a graphene microribbon as well as the energy waves close to charge neutrality, hydrodynamic collective excitations are observed.

The authors introduce Bond-selective Intensity Diffraction Tomography, a computational mid-infrared photothermal microscopy technique based on a standard bright-field microscope and an add-on pulsed light source. It recovers both mid-infrared spectra and bond-selective 3D refractive index maps based on intensity-only measurements.

Nuclear speckles are shown to have a functional role in mRNA splicing, whereby dynamic three-dimensional organization of DNA around these structures mediates splicing efficiency.

A 4 °C global temperature increase would push 7.5% of amphibian species beyond their physiological limits.

Using updated phylogenies and the largest dataset to date, the authors find that primate brain size is better predicted by diet than any measure of sociality, suggesting a revision is needed to prevailing hypotheses explaining brain size evolution.

Polyamines are essential metabolites linked to aging, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease. Here, authors develop a live-cell polyamine reporter and use a genome-wide CRISPR screen to uncover a link between mitochondrial respiration and polyamine import.

Materials that are both electrically conducting and transparent to light are vital for optoelectronic devices, but are rare. Here, the authors perform a quantum mechanical search for such materials and identify the compound TaIrGe as an unexpected possibility, which they then synthesize.

A single-molecule attosecond interferometry that can retrieve the spectral phase information associated with the structure of molecular orbitals, as well as the phase accumulated by an electron as it tunnels out, is demonstrated.

Alex Kentsis and colleagues identify somatic genomic rearrangements in primary human rhabdoid tumors characterized by deletions and inversions involving PGBD5-specific signal sequences at their breakpoints. They further show that ectopic expression of PGBD5 in primary immortalized human cells is sufficient to promote cell transformation in vitro and in immunodeficient mice in vivo, thus defining PGBD5 as an oncogenic mutator and providing a plausible mechanism for site-specific DNA rearrangements in solid tumors.

Piezoelectric coupling of a single superconducting qubit to two phononic crystal nanoresonators results in an integrated device that is able to control and read out the quantum state of the two mechanical resonators.

Longitudinal genomic and transcriptomic profiling of 1,143 patients with multiple myeloma by the Relating Clinical Outcomes in Multiple Myeloma to Personal Assessment of Genetic Profile study yields an improved copy number and gene expression subtype scheme, most notably a high-risk proliferative subtype associated with complete loss of RB1 or MAX.

The insertion of metal atoms and heteroaromatic units provides a way to tune the optical, electronic and magnetic properties of graphene nanoribbons. Now the synthesis of a porphyrin-fused graphene nanoribbon with a narrow bandgap and high charge mobility has been achieved, and this material used to fabricate field-effect and single-electron transistors.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide analyses identify 95 loci associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and implicate candidate genes, pathways and neurobiological systems underlying its pathophysiology.

Using large-scale mobility data, the authors examine how the quality of food in mobile environments away from home affects food choice.