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Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are important for the stability and function of many therapeutic proteins. Here, the authors develop a high-throughput workflow combining cell-free gene expression with AlphaLISA to rapidly characterize and engineer PTMs on both proteins and peptides.

Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve 6 to 12 months after infection in patients who have recovered from COVID-19, increasing in potency and breadth with time.

CaBLAM is a bioluminescent genetically encoded calcium indicator that delivers high-contrast signals as shown in cell culture, in the in vivo mouse brain and in zebrafish larvae.

A unique Arp2/3 complex in malaria parasites enables DNA segregation during the rapid formation of male gametes by safeguarding the attachment of chromosomes to the mitotic spindle.

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.

Antibody discovery is bottlenecked by the individual expression and evaluation of antigen specific hits. Here, the authors build an antibody screening workflow leveraging cell-free protein synthesis that enables expression and evaluation of hundreds of antibody fragments in less than 24 h.

Releasing only males remains a major hurdle for mosquito genetic control. Here, authors develop a mosquito strain using CRISPR and a synthetic sex chromosome, producing dark males and yellow females that develop slower and lay desiccation-sensitive eggs, enabling easy separation and safe releases.

Heme is an abundant cofactor required by nearly all known organisms. Here, authors discover a cyanobacterial protein with a distinct Zn-mirror heme site, which may function to sense heme and regulate energy metabolism.

While machine learning shows promise in expanding protein engineering efforts, its potential is limited by the challenge of gathering large datasets of sequence-function relationships. Here, authors introduce a platform that integrates cell-free DNA assembly and gene expression to accelerate enzyme engineering.

Thousands of recombinant antibodies enriched for specificity against defined targets are assembled in multivalent mixtures with enhanced therapeutic activity.

Several different genetic strategies have been reported for the modification of polyketide synthases but the highly repetitive modular structure makes this difficult. Here the authors report on an adapted Cas9 reaction and Gibson assembly to edit a target region of the polyketide synthases gene in vitro.

Live-cell fluorescence microscopy and polymer simulations in human HCT116 cells show similar cohesin density, residence times and extrusion speed across multiple genomic regions.

The broad activity windows of current base editors pose a major challenge to their therapeutic application. Here, the authors established a generalizable re-engineering framework to narrow the activity windows of diverse base editors, streamlining the development of therapeutic base editing.

Glycosylation of human IgG antibodies in bacterial hosts has proven challenging. Here, the authors identify a bacterial enzyme enabling E. coli to glycosylate IgGs at native sites, thereby advancing therapeutic antibody development in this host.

Here the authors show thatMETTL9 enzyme sustains neural development in vertebrates by maintaining the secretory pathway, mainly independently of METTL9 catalytic activity. METTL9 loss in cells leads to Golgi fragmentation.

T cell receptors are identified in large-scale screening of T cell repertoires cloned from primary human T cells.

Subpopulations of Streptococcus pyogenes CRISPR mutants with overactive CRISPR–Cas activity wax and wane in response to phage infection pressure, enabling phage evasion without requiring a transient response in any one cell.

A study reports that the structural maturation of the matrix domain of the Gag protein of HIV-1 is induced by the proteolytic release and binding of the spacer peptide SP2.

In glioma, malignant synapses hijack mechanisms of synaptic plasticity to increase glutamate-dependent currents in tumour cells and the formation of neuron–glioma synapses, thereby promoting tumour proliferation and progression.

This Perspective proposes the Population Neuroscience-Dementia Syndemics Framework and model to develop knowledge of how multiple factors may interact to perpetuate inequities in dementia, especially for women in low- and middle-income countries.

Gene expression is imaged in deep tissues in mice using ultrasound.

Functional mutations identified in patients with androgen insensitivity syndrome, in the formin and actin nucleator DAAM2, uncover signal-regulated nuclear actin assembly at a steroid hormone receptor necessary for transcription.

The GlycoSCORES method, which involves cell-free protein expression and substrate-site profiling of glycosyltransferase enzymes by SAMDI–MS, enables the identification of glycosylation tags for glycoengineering efforts.

Somatic mutations in blood cells (CHIP) are linked to diseases like heart disease, but the mechanisms are unclear. Here, the authors show that different CHIP driver genes alter unique sets of plasma proteins, some of which are validated in mouse models.

The APC/C ubiquitylates histones to regulate gene expression in pluripotent cells. Here, the authors pair cryo-EM and biochemical and biophysical assays to show that instead of modifying nucleosome-incorporated histones, the APC/C ubiquitylates extranucleosomal histone complexes through a mechanism that bypasses canonical substrate degrons.

Here, Schwartz, Bravo, and Ahsan et al. show how multi-subunit fusion proteins are arranged around a crRNA in a type III CRISPR-Cas effector to cleave target RNA. Structures and molecular dynamics of this complex show three distinct active sites that can be used for programmable RNA cleavage.

The murine norovirus NTPase NS3 induces mitochondrial disruption, resulting in cell death, which is required for viral egress.

Spangler et al. used a substrate inhibitor covalent conjugate strategy to solve cryo-EM structures of nucleosomes in complex with the lysine demethylase KDM2, which demonstrates that KDM2A, but not its closely related paralog, KDM2B, anchors to the acidic patch to direct histone H3K36-specific demethylation.

Here the authors conduct a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of telomere length, used diverse approaches to identify genes underlying association signals, and experimentally validated POP5 and KBTBD6 as regulators of telomere length in human cells.

An orthogonal O-glycan biosynthesis system was engineered in Escherichia coli to support the production of glycoproteins displaying human mucin O-glycans, including Tn antigens, in living bacteria and in cell-free extracts.

Characterizing infection, pathogenesis and transmission of BANAL-52 and BANAL-236 in primary respiratory cells, mice and hamsters shows how viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 present a threat for spillover.

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.

MGAT1 is a glycosyltransferase critical for the synthesis and maturation of complex N-glycans. Here, the authors show that MGAT1 modulation of CD73 glycosylation and function regulates tumor immune response in triple-negative breast cancer.

Mutations in 5’ untranslated regions (UTRs) have a functional role in gene expression in cancer. Here, the authors develop a sequencing-based high throughput functional assay named PLUMAGE and show the effects of these mutations on gene expression and their association with clinical outcomes in prostate cancer.

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.

In neurons and other cells, contacts between organelles regulates function and subcellular organization, but the precise mechanisms and effects are unclear. Here the authors show that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) tubules in the soma of neurons regulate lysosome localization and function by regulating lysosomal fission, suggesting a role for ER – lysosome inter-organelle membrane contact sites in lysosomal axonal availability.

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.

Neurons form synapses onto glioma cells, and depolarization of glioma membranes promotes glioma growth in vivo, whereas blocking electrochemical signalling blocks tumour growth.

The use of allosteric transcription factors (aTFs) as biosensors has been constrained by their limited natural ligand repertoire. Here, the authors report a method to screen large libraries of aTF variants to develop biosensors with altered specificities to non-native ligands.

Laboratory and clinical strains of Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever virus use LDLR to bind and enter host cells in blood vessel organoids and mice. Infection can also occur through ApoE, possibly present on virus particles.

Constructing biosynthetic pathways to study and engineer glycoprotein structures is difficult. Here, the authors use GlycoPRIME, a cell-free workflow for mixing-and-matching glycosylation enzymes, to evaluate 37 putative glycosylation pathways and discover routes to 18 new glycoprotein structures

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.

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.

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.

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.