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Simultaneous profiling of adenylated and non-adenylated RNAs reveals regulatory programs across diverse cell types.

Large-effect variants in autism remain elusive. Here, the authors use long-read sequencing to assemble phased genomes for 189 individuals, identifying pathogenic variants in TBL1XR1, MECP2, and SYNGAP1, plus nine candidate structural variants missed by short-read methods.

Researchers induced ploidy reduction in human oocytes generated by somatic cell nuclear transfer, enabling fertilization and embryo development with integrated somatic and sperm chromosomes, highlighting a proof-of-concept for in vitro gametogenesis.

Deconvolution methods infer levels of immune infiltration from bulk expression of tumour samples. Here, authors assess 6 published and 22 community-contributed methods via a DREAM Challenge using in vitro and in silico transcriptional profiles of admixed cancer and healthy immune cells.

The analysis of the energy spectrum of 36 million tritium β-decay electrons recorded in 259 measurement days within the last 40 eV below the endpoint challenges the Neutrino-4 claim.

Heart failure can be caused by cardiac fibroblasts replacing myocytes. Here, the authors use functional genomic data from fibroblasts, genetic signals enriched in people with heart disease, and gene perturbation analyses to link disease-associated regulatory elements to protein-coding genes.

An initial draft of the human pangenome is presented and made publicly available by the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium; the draft contains 94 de novo haplotype assemblies from 47 ancestrally diverse individuals.

Analysis of whole-genome sequence data from 3,474 families finds an excess of private, likely gene-disrupting variants in individuals with autism. These variants are under purifying selection and suggest candidate genes not previously associated with autism.

Dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria produce saxitoxin (STX) congeners that block voltage-gated sodium channels. Here authors show how amphibians may sequester STX congeners using a ‘lock and key’ mode, expanding the understanding of toxic sponge action.

Somatic small variants in cancer genomes are identified in both short-read and long-read data.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Different functional variants in ADH1B (and elsewhere) in Europeans and Africans strongly affect risk for alcohol dependence. Dependence only partly genetically correlates with consumption, with strong correlations to other psychiatric disorders.

As the wild blue yonder beckons and labs and classrooms empty, Nature's regular reviewers share their holiday reads.

Reliable detection of mutations below 0.5% variant allele frequency remains a key challenge for circulating tumor DNA sequencing assays.

Lipson et al. profile the yeast transcriptome using single-molecule sequencing. This approach avoids the inherent biases of the digestion, ligation and amplification steps in alternative methods based on microarrays or other sequencing technologies.

Changes in ECM are of predictive value in pancreatic and colorectal cancer prognosis. Here, the authors perform a pan-cancer analysis and find a subset of ECM genes that is linked to TGF-β signalling signature and is correlated with immunotherapy failure.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Somatic mutations have been reported in pancreatic adenocarcinomas. Here, Sausen et al. identify further mutations and find that mutations in the chromatin modifying gene, MLL, are associated with increased survival, and that the presence of circulating tumour DNA in the serum of patients is associated with poor survival.

Variable autoencoders offer an alternative way to interrogate metabolomic data and identify meaningful, non-linear relationships.

Telomerase reverse-trancriptase promoter mutations have been recently found in human melanomas. Here, Nault et al.identify telomerase reverse-trancriptase promoter mutations as the most frequent somatic genetic alterations in hepatocellular carcinomas and as the first mutation identified in cirrhotic preneoplastic lesions.

A diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 experts in COVID-19 response from 112 countries provides health and social policy actions to address inadequacies in the pandemic response and help to bring this public health threat to an end.

Rare loss-of-function mutations in SETD1A are associated with schizophrenia, but how SETD1A haploinsufficiency leads to disease phenotypes remains unknown. Here, authors show that SETD1A regulates genes at common schizophrenia risk loci regulating genomic stability and synaptic function.

An expert-elicitation process identifies current methodological barriers for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, and how technological and procedural development of robotic and autonomous systems may contribute to overcoming these challenges.

The Asian black-spined toad is a widespread, poisonous, invasive amphibian. Here, the authors use genomic and DNA-barcoding data from this toad to document its complex evolutionary history, two distinct species, and potential historic dispersal assisted by humans.

HiFi genome sequencing accesses DNA methylation and nucleotide variation in long sequence reads. Here, the authors apply this approach in a rare disease cohort to identify DNA hypermethylation linked to genetic variants including rare disease alleles.

Ni, Wei, Vona and colleagues use human brain organoids to dissect patient AIRIM variants associated with neurodevelopmental features. A subset of variants impaired ribosome production and protein synthesis, and delayed radial glial cell specification.

Mosaic copy number gains arising from an extra parentally derived chromosome 1q allele are found in brain tissue from five individuals with focal epilepsy. These copy number gains are strongly enriched in astrocytes, indicating somatic rescue in other tissues during development.

Conditional genetic knockout is achieved in the rat by using zinc-finger nucleases to place loxP sites at specific genomic locations and introducing Cre recombinase under the control of a native promoter.