Search

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.

With rich, multi-layered baseline data and long-term follow-up through linkage, the HELIOS Study provides a resource to investigate the behavioural, environmental, genomic, and molecular factors impacting health in Asian populations.

Kinematic measurements of the Perseus galaxy cluster reveal two drivers of gas motions: a small-scale driver in the inner core associated with black-hole feedback and a large-scale driver in the outer core powered by mergers.

A complementary analysis of DESI DR2 distance measurements along with supernova and CMB data shows consistent, moderate evidence that dark energy changes over time rather than behaving as a simple cosmological constant.

Variants in the PSMC5 gene impair proteasome function and cellular homeostasis, altering brain development in children. This study reveals underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to this neurodevelopmental phenotype, and suggests therapeutic leads for neurodevelopmental proteasomopathies.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

Head motion is an artifact in structural and functional MRI signals, and some traits or groups are more strongly correlated with motion than others. Here the authors describe a method to attribute a motion impact score to specific trait-functional connectivity relationships.

Detection of ultracold molecules based on absorption imaging have inherent limitations. Here, the authors demonstrate spatially resolved detection of single ultracold 87Rb133Cs molecules in the bulk, extending recent microscopy developments from ultracold atoms to molecules.

DNA origami enables precise nanoscale self-assembly. Authors here show how programmable control of interactions and binding angles yields curved surfaces of diverse geometries, broadening the design space for synthetic nanostructures.

In a large multi-ethnic Asian cohort, associations between over 1,000 plasma metabolites and specific foods and beverages are made. These diet–metabolite relationships were used to accurately predict clinical phenotypes such as diabetes and hypertension.

Genome-wide analyses identify 30 independent loci associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder, highlighting genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders and implicating putative effector genes and cell types contributing to its etiology.

The authors reveal that, in fruit fly ovaries, the protein Rhino is guided to specific regions of the genome by a combination of two histone modifications, enhancing understanding of how cells protect their DNA from harmful virus-like elements.

An optical detection and analysis platform quantifies aggregate density, distribution and size in fluorescently labelled post-mortem human brain tissue.

mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

3D higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) exhibit 1D hinge states depending on extrinsic sample details, while intrinsic features of HOTIs remain unknown. Here, K.S. Lin et al. introduce the framework of spin-resolved topology to show that helical HOTIs can realize a doubled axion insulator phase with nontrivial partial axion angles.

Fundamental biophysical principles that govern particle inclusion in or exclusion from condensates are discovered, wherein arbitrarily large particles controllably partition into condensates given sufficiently strong condensate-particle interactions.

The SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid (N) protein serves multiple roles in the viral lifecycle. Phosphorylation toggles N between these roles by altering N’s conformation, its material properties when phase separated with RNA, and its membrane interactions.

Glioblastoma—the deadliest form of brain cancer—alters the calvarial bone and its marrow components, pushing it toward producing more myeloid cells and contributing to an immunosuppressive environment.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

In response to COVID-19, many states have implemented social distancing orders, but the effect of these orders on population mobility has not been fully quantified. Here, the authors use data from the US to show that state-level social distancing orders substantially reduced mobility and limited the spread of disease.

The flow features of cell monolayers depend on cellular interactions. Now four different types of cell monolayer are shown to exhibit robust conformal invariance that belongs to the percolation universality class.

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

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.

This study shows that brain connectivity changes in Huntington’s disease begin decades before symptoms, shifting from hyper- to hypoconnectivity, with links to specific neurotransmitter systems specially in granular and infragranular cortical layers.

A dynamic interconversion of three nickel states in lithium nickel oxide is demonstrated using evidence from x-ray spectroscopic data and first-principles calculations, which explains many physical properties of this and similar materials.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

The mechanisms controlling the formation of cellular adhesions are not fully understood. Here, the authors use single molecule tracking and super-resolution imaging to show that the actin cytoskeleton regulates integrin diffusion in the developing Drosophila embryo.

Using data from a single time point, passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate (PACER) estimates the fitness of common driver mutations that lead to clonal haematopoiesis and identifies TCL1A activation as a mediator of clonal expansion.

A genomic constraint map for the human genome constructed using data from 76,156 human genomes from the Genome Aggregation Database shows that non-coding constrained regions are enriched for regulatory elements and variants associated with complex diseases and traits.

The authors report resonant soft x-ray scattering and polarimetry measurements on epitaxial thin films of La3Ni2O7. They find a diagonal bicollinear double spin stripe order, with no evidence of charge modulation.

COVID-19 can be associated with neurological complications. Here the authors show that markers of brain injury, but not immune markers, are elevated in the blood of patients with COVID-19 both early and months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in those with brain dysfunction or neurological diagnoses.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective HIV prevention measure but identifying those most at risk to target for treatment is challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate that non-selective PrEP distribution outperforms targeted strategies when use is not consistent, and/or prevalence of untreated HIV is high.

Sequencing data from two large-scale studies show that most of the genetic variation influencing the risk of type 2 diabetes involves common alleles and is found in regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies, clarifying the genetic architecture of this disease.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

It is unclear why different antibiotics vary in their ability to shorten treatment of tuberculosis. Here, the authors show that a measure based on ribosomal RNA synthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis correlates with treatment shortening in culture, in mice and in human studies.

FUT10 and FUT11, originally annotated as α1,3-fucosyltransferases, are actually protein O-fucosyltransferases participating in a non-canonical ER quality control pathway for EMI domain-containing protein secretion.

This study develops a wide-ranging index to assess the many factors that contribute to the health and benefits of the oceans, and the scores for all costal nations are assessed.

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.

KRAS is commonly mutated at codon 12 in several cancer types, offering a unique opportunity for the development of neoantigen-targeted immunotherapy. Here the authors present a pipeline for the prediction, identification and validation of HLA class-I restricted mutant KRAS G12 peptides, leading to the generation of mutant KRAS-specific T cell receptors for adoptive T cell immunotherapy.

A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-mapping analyses highlight the importance of genes involved in synaptic processes.

Two halting mechanisms, ‘walk-OFF’ and ‘brake’, are shown to be engaged by distinct neural circuits in Drosophila, in a context dependent manner.

A dataset of 3D images from more than 200,000 human induced pluripotent stem cells is used to develop a framework to analyse cell shape and the location and organization of major intracellular structures.