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Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

The anterior cingulate cortex encodes affective pain behaviours modulated by opioids; targeting opioid-sensitive neurons through a new chemogenetic gene therapy replicates the analgesic effects of morphine, providing precise chronic pain relief without affecting sensory detection.

Newly developed mouse models that enable cell-specific analyses of proteostasis dynamics across the lifespan of the mice reveal key aspects of neuronal proteostasis with ageing.

With its attribution to Paranthropus, a 2.6-million-year-old partial mandible expands the range of the genus into the Afar region of Ethiopia and adds to our understanding of hominin evolution in eastern Africa.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

Fast panoramic rotational ultrasound tomography and photoacoustic tomography are integrated for hybrid rotational ultrasound and photoacoustic tomography, for three-dimensional dual-contrast imaging of soft tissue and vasculature across the human body.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

Trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) is a HER2-targeted antibody drug conjugate. Through integrated laboratory and clinical studies, the authors identify significant ERBB2 (the gene that encodes the HER2 protein) mutational heterogeneity in patients with urothelial cancer and co-mutation and amplification of ERBB2 as a potential biomarker of exceptional response to T-DXd.

Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant global health threat, necessitating swift and precise diagnostic solutions. Here, the authors introduce a culture-free diagnostic platform integrating microfluidic cell enrichment, single-cell Raman spectroscopy, and deep learning, that identifies bacterial and fungal infections directly from clinical samples within 20 minutes.

Disparities in risk and outcomes of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are apparent between different ancestries. Here the authors identify genetic variants with African ancestry-specific risks for developing pediatric B-cell ALL that are also linked to greater 5-year mortality risk.

Budding yeast use multilayered regulation by Ait1, Gcn2, and the SEAC/GATOR complex to control TORC1 activity. This circuit design ensures that cells can adapt to low-quality nitrogen sources or shut down growth during starvation.

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.

Dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) contain a plethora of neuron types. The authors show that the existence of human-specific DRG neuronal types and microneurography recordings reveal distinct temperature-sensing properties across human sensory afferent types.

Melanoma cells lacking SOX10 are tolerant to MAPK inhibition (MAPKi) due to elevated TAZ-driven TEAD signaling. Here, the authors develop two inhibitors of TEAD, capable of resensitising SOX10 knockout melanoma cells to MAPKi and offering a strategy to overcome drug tolerance and improve treatment response.

Yamazoe et al. show that B cell-derived autoantibodies contribute to the development of atrial fibrillation, suggesting that targeting the humoral immune response may represent a viable therapeutic approach.

A single MRI scan can provide reliable estimates of human lifetime brain atrophy, helping overcome lifespan data collection challenges. This may enhance genetic studies of late-life neurodegeneration and reveal new insights into its underlying mechanisms.

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.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The biosynthesis of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) involves binding of the N-terminal leader region of precursor peptides to peptide modifying enzymes and subsequent modification of the C-terminal core. Here, the authors describe the intermolecular protein-protein interactions that guide the post translational modification of atypically large and structured RiPP precursor peptides.

Mechanisms that regulate epithelial bending mainly link to cell shape changes, for example, the formation of wedge shaped cells. Here, the authors identify a different cell behaviour in the salivary glands and teeth where initial invagination arises by a coordinated vertical cell movement.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes (T2D) identifies more than 600 T2D-associated loci; integrating physiological trait and single-cell chromatin accessibility data at these loci sheds light on heterogeneity within the T2D phenotype.

Decarbonization is essential to achieving climate goals, but myopic decarbonization policies that ignore co-pollutants may leave Black and high-poverty communities with 26-34% higher PM_2.5 exposure over the energy transition.

Toxin B (TcdB) is a major exotoxin responsible for diseases associated with C. difficile infection. Here, Tian et al. show that several TcdB subtypes do not recognize the established FZD receptors, and identify a different host protein (TFPI) as a receptor for subtypes TcdB4 and TcdB10.

Ultrasound examination significantly relies on manual operation, which has significant downsides. The authors present UltraBot, a carotid ultrasound robot capable of automated scanning, measurement, and plaque screening, and build an embodied foundation model using deep learning for intelligent, high-precision ultrasound.

Together with a companion paper, molecular details of immune responses in a pig-to-human xenotransplantation are identified through dense longitudinal multi-omics profiling of the xenograft and the host recipient, across the 61-day procedure.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

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.

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.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

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.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

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.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Studies in mice show that observational fear learning is encoded by neurons in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in a manner that is distinct from the encoding of fear learned by direct experience.

Genome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in ancestrally diverse populations implicate candidate causal genes and mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes. Trans-ancestry genetic risk scores enhance transferability across populations.

Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are major pathogens. Here the authors screen 480 structural families of natural products to find compounds that kill Caenorhabditis elegans specifically when they require rhodoquinone (RQ)-dependent metabolism: they identify several classes of compounds and show some compounds kill adult STHs.

Reduced fitness of the tumor microenvironment is mediated by a long non-coding RNA expressed in tumors.