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The replication of the two chromosomes in the bacterium Vibrio cholerae is coordinated through the binding of initiator protein RctB to a checkpoint sequence, crtS. Here, Niault et al. study RctB binding dynamics across the V. cholerae cell cycle to shed light into the underlying mechanisms.

Using functional MRI, the authors tracked memory recovery over a decade after epilepsy surgery, revealing key brain changes in spared medial temporal structures and contralateral regions, highlighting neural mechanisms behind sustained improvement.

A candidate gene, cg2, is implicated in resistance to chloroquine in Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites, but the mechanism of resistance remains unclear.

The interplay between amyloid and tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease is still not well understood. Here, the authors show that amyloid-related increased in soluble p-tau is related to subsequent accumulation of tau aggregates and cognitive decline in early stage of the disease.

The expansion of a material in one or more directions under increasing hydrostatic pressure is a phenomenon known as negative linear compressibility. The demonstration that zinc dicyanoaurate exhibits an unusually large negative linear compressibility opens up possibilities for designing other materials with comparable properties.

A genomic analysis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) samples with matched ipsilateral invasive breast cancer recurring later shows that around 18% of tumors were unrelated to the DCIS, and had distinct clonal origins.

A mitochondrial actin wave fragments mitochondria. Here, the authors find that the wave produces force that is resisted by mitochondrial tethering, inducing fission, with subsequent fusion promoting mitochondrial content mixing and mitochondrial homeostasis.

In this non-comparative trial, patients with BRAF^V600-mutant resectable melanoma received either pembrolizumab alone, a sequential combination of pembrolizumab, dabrafenib and trametinib, or a concurrent combination thereof, showing encouraging clinical response rates in the concurrent therapy arm and awaiting longer follow-up.

Coffee consumption is associated with the presence and abundance of a specific member of the human gut microbiome, Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus, and changes to the plasma metabolome.

Alzheimer’s disease is heterogeneous in its neuroimaging and clinical phenotypes. Here the authors present a semi-supervised deep learning method, Smile-GAN, to show four neurodegenerative patterns and two progression pathways providing prognostic and clinical information.

Conducting a simulated turtlegrass herbivory experiment across 650 experimental plots and 13 seagrass meadows, the authors show that the negative effects of herbivory increase with latitude, driven by low levels of light insolation at high latitudes.

In this study, the authors report that a bat influenza A (H9N2) virus shows receptor binding features similar to avian influenza viruses, efficiently infects ex-vivo human respiratory cells and replicates in the lungs of mice and upper respiratory tract of ferrets following airborne transmission.

Right-sided colorectal cancer (rCRC) has a different mutational spectrum to the left-sided counterpart. Here the authors develop a mouse model of rCRC that recapitulates human BRAF-mutant rCRC and show that loss of TGFβ-receptor signalling and inflammation induce the development of colonic tumours with a foetal-like phenotype.

Sonic Hedgehog medulloblastoma (Shh-MB) comprises four subtypes each with distinct clinical traits. Here the authors characterize the genome, transcriptome, and methylome of Shh-MB subtypes, revealing a complex fusion landscape and the molecular convergence of MYCN and cAMP signaling pathways.

The structures of amorphous MOFs are challenging to characterise. Here the authors use electron microscopy and pair distribution function methods, coupled with a polymerisation-based algorithm to determine the atomic structure of Fe-BTC, demonstrating the power of this computational approach.

DNA analysis of 6 individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years, and of 28 previously published ancient individuals, provides genetic evidence supporting hypotheses of increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene.

Integrated data, including 100 human genomes from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods show that two major population turnovers occurred over just 1,000 years in Neolithic Denmark, resulting in dramatic changes in the genes, diet and physical appearance of the local people, as well as the landscape in which they lived.

Despite several decades of research that has revealed roles in the development and progression of many solid tumours, clinical translation of research targeting epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) has thus far been limited. In this Review, the authors provide a summary of the role of EMT in cancer development and progression in the context of this lack of clinical translation, summarize the current status of direct or indirect EMT-modulating agents in clinical development, and highlight the major barriers to the development of EMT-related clinical interventions.

Genome-wide analysis identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder, allowing for comparisons of shared genes and pathways with other psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and depression.

Pediatric brain cancers are lethal malignancies driven by less-differentiated stem-like cells. Here the authors show that these cells exhibit distinct mitochondrial metabolism programs with targetable vulnerabilities.

In this study the authors identify a possible link between the gene FAM222A and brain atrophy. The protein it encodes is found to accumulate in plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease, and functional analysis suggests it interacts with amyloid-beta.

Tau accumulation is associated with disease progression in Alzheimer’s disease. Here the authors use resting state fMRI and tau-PET to demonstrate that baseline connectivity in Alzheimer's disease is associated with tau spreading.

A study examines the diversity of extrachromosomal DNA elements in cancer, and provides details on the frequency and origin of extrachromosomal DNA and its role in the development of different types of cancer.

This very large genome-wide association study identifies hundreds of new genetic variants influencing adult height in at least 180 loci enriched for genes involved in skeletal growth defects. The results show that the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant, that many loci have multiple independently associated variants and that associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes.

USP30 has been proposed to regulate mitophagy, a relevant Parkinson’s disease mechanism. Here, the authors show that Usp30 knockout mice and USP30 inhibitors like MTX115325 demonstrate neuroprotective responses in an alpha-synuclein mouse model of Parkinson’s disease.

A characteristic of costal-pelagic fishes is their large population size fluctuations, yet the drivers remain elusive. Here, the authors analyze a 45-year timeseries of nitrogen stable isotopes measured in larvae of Northern Anchovy and find that high energy transfer efficiency from the base of the food web up to young larvae confers high survival and recruitment to the adult population.

Evolution of human H3N2 influenza has limited the specificity of hemagglutinin to a subset of glycan receptors, which brings challenges. By glyco-engineering cell lines, authors show the importance of extended glycan receptors for growth of recent H3N2 viruses and relevance to their production for vaccines.

Iron is crucial for marine photosynthesis, but observational constraints on the magnitude of key iron cycle processes are lacking. Here the authors use a range of observational data sets to demonstrate that the balance between iron re-supply and removal in the subsurface controls upper ocean iron limitation.

Evidence synthesized from 252 large-herbivore exclusion studies suggests that herbivore-induced change in dominance, independent of site productivity or precipitation, best predicts herbivore effects on biodiversity in grassland and savannah sites.

Tarpey et al. carry out a large-scale systematic sequencing of the majority of X-chromosome coding exons from 208 families with multiple individuals with mental retardation and a pattern of transmission compatible with X linkage in order to identify XLMR-causative mutations. They find several mutations that appear to be causative in loci already known to be involved in XLMR, as well as new data about those loci, and make inferences about the role of the different classes of variants in these diseases.

The genetic variance that predicts educational attainment or intelligence test performance predicts individual-level voter turnout in a nationally representative sample and among people with psychiatric conditions, such as depression.

For many neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) risk genes, the significance for mutational burden is unestablished. Here, the authors sequence 125 candidate NDD genes in over 16,000 NDD cases; case-control mutational burden analysis identifies 48 genes with a significant burden of severe ultra-rare mutations.

Mannan, a component of yeast cell walls, is shown to be a viable food source for Bacteroides thetaiotamicron, a dominant member of the gut microbiota, which catabolizes the mannan ‘selfishly’—countering the general assumption that multiple members of the gut microbiota take a role in, and benefit from, polysaccharide catabolism.

Sun et al. showed that transient overturning circulation responses, involving interactions between the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific, dominate global nutrient redistribution and biological productivity changes in a warming climate on centennial time scales.

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 genome of the grey short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica has been sequenced and analyzed, giving a first peek at a marsupial's genetic code. Of particular interest are the genetics of the immune system, which has been studied as a model for humans, and of the X chromosome for historical reasons.

Here the authors identify 33 individuals with a dominant neurodevelopmental disorder due to heterozygous missense or loss-of-function variants in the gene encoding Densin-180, a scaffold protein present at postsynaptic sites in neurons of the central nervous system.

Germline pseudogenes have an important role in human evolution. Here, the authors analyse sequencing data from 660 cancer samples and find evidence for the formation of somatically acquired pseudogenes, a new class of mutation, which may contribute to cancer development.

Our knowledge of life in the Carboniferous Period is largely restricted to low-lying wetlands dated to 315–310 million years ago. Here, the authors present an older Lagerstätte on an alluvial fan 320–318 million years ago, preserving a diverse ecosystem of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and plant-insect interactions.

Flap Endonuclease 1 is a DNA replication and repair enzyme indispensable for maintaining genomic stability. Here the authors provide mechanistic details on how FEN1 selects for 5′-flaps and promotes catalysis to avoid large-scale repeat expansion by a process termed ‘phosphate steering’.

Lean body mass is a highly heritable trait and is associated with various health conditions. Here, Kiel and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for whole body lean body mass and find five novel genetic loci to be significantly associated.

How genetic variation contributes to brain morphology is still poorly understood. Here Chenet al. combine brain imaging with single-nucleotide polymorphism data to discover that a substantial degree of cortical variation is derived from underlying genetic differences.