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Androgens have distinct roles in the brain, acting as immune-based tumour suppressors through neuroinflammation and neuroendocrine mechanisms.

This study shows that atmospheric desert dust keeps about twice as much infrared heat from escaping to space as climate models predict, highlighting that improving dust in models could sharpen weather forecasts and climate projections.

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).

Wastewater surveillance for disease outbreaks currently requires lab testing which causes delays. Here, authors develop ultra-sensitive quantum sensors enabling 2-hour near-source pathogen detection from raw wastewater with high sensitivity and specificity, creating a portable “lab-in-a-suitcase” system.

Exposome analyses across 34 countries showed that social exposures were associated with faster functional brain aging and physical exposures with faster structural brain aging.

CRISPR screening shows that claudin-4 is a receptor for the pro-carcinogenic B. fragilis toxin on colonic epithelial cells, and that this interaction promotes cleavage of E-cadherin, leading to epithelial barrier disruption and inflammation.

Genetic analyses in more than 15,000 individuals from across the Americas, including individuals with autism and family members, define the genetic landscape of autism in Latin American populations and identify significant overlap with other ancestries.

The precise mechanism of action of the antibiotic daptomycin is controversial. Here, Buttress et al. provide evidence for two independent antibacterial mechanisms: membrane depolarisation and inhibition of cell wall synthesis.

Here, the authors produce an updated termite classification with genomic scale analyses, highlighting thirteen family-level lineages and resilience of their classification to future termite research.

Mache, Kerber, et al. conduct nationwide integrated genomic, epidemiological, and virological surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants in Germany. They identify sequential variant replacements, age-specific infection patterns, clinical risk factors, and phenotypic evidence of continued adaptation to the human respiratory tract.

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it is not deterministic. Here, the authors show that common genetic variation changes how APOE-ε4 influences cognition.

150 years ago, guanidine was found to affect muscle function via unknown mechanisms. Here, Kavita et al. provide evidence that guanine-sensing RNAs are present in many eukaryotic transcripts relevant to Ca2+ signaling and neuromuscular function.

The authors have applied an eight-tissue rat multi-omic dataset to analyze the gene regulatory landscape of endurance exercise training, identifying tissue-specific regulatory patterns involved in muscle function, metabolism and immune response.

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.

Here, following a patient with severe acute Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection, the authors combine comprehensive isolate characterization from lung and gut samples (>100 isolates) and patient clinical data to provide insights into bacterial responses to antibiotic therapy.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

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

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

Bennu samples have abundant supernova stardust and clasts that are richer in presolar silicates and organics than other chondritic samples, suggesting that the protolith sampled material with a unique mixture of primordial components before undergoing heterogeneous aqueous alteration.

Owing to the presence of a valley degree of freedom, atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides show promise for room temperature valleytronic applications. Here, the authors use polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy to gain insight to the exciton-phonon coupling in charge tunable single layer MoS₂.

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.

A recently developed class of magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins are engineered to alter the properties of their response to magnetic fields and radio frequencies, enabling multimodal sensing of biological systems.

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.

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.

Living electrodes enable signalling into a microbial community, coordinating behaviour.

McGrail and colleagues report that high intratumoral bacteria abundance is associated with an immunosuppressive microenvironment and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

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.

Modeling analysis from the Global Dietary Database estimated that 70% of new global cases of type 2 diabetes are attributable to suboptimal intake of 11 dietary factors, with substantial differences in dietary risks across world regions and nations.

Ancient proteins in human dental calculus from sites across Mongolia spanning 5,000 years suggest dairy consumption on the eastern Eurasian steppe by circa 3000 bc, and the later emergence of horse milking at circa 1200 bc, concurrent with the first evidence for horse riding.

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.

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.

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.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here the authors provide an explanation for 95% of examined predicted loss of function variants found in disease-associated haploinsufficient genes in the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), underscoring the power of the presented analysis to minimize false assignments of disease risk.

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.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Mutations in the PBAF chromatin-remodeling complex cause various neurodevelopmental disorders. This study shows that PBAF shapes distinct motor neuron identities, revealing how its disruption impairs movement and offering insight into neurodevelopmental disorders caused by PBAF mutations.