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Escalating phosphorus pollution and depleting reserves necessitate sustainable control and recovery strategies. Here the authors develop a microbially enhanced La–Zr-loaded basalt system that achieves over 90% phosphorus removal and recovery, promoting a circular economy and reducing ecological impacts, offering an economically superior alternative to traditional chemical methods.

The existence of a long-lived, prethermal regime in many-body systems with tunable heating rates, driven by structured random protocols, is observed using a 78-qubit superconducting quantum processor.

The 4D Nucleome Project demonstrates the use of genomic assays and computational methods to measure genome folding and then predict genomic structure from DNA sequence, facilitating the discovery of potential effects of genetic variants, including variants associated with disease, on genome structure and function.

Application of multiancestry and ensemble-based approaches yields improved polygenic risk prediction models for breast cancer and its subtypes among women of African ancestry.

Here, the authors report an exome-wide association study for multi-organ imaging traits by leveraging recent bioinformatic tools such as AlphaMissense. The identified signals elucidate the genetic effects from rare variants on human organs and their connections to complex diseases

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.

SARST2 enables rapid exploration of protein structure space. In minutes, it scans the 214-million-entry AlphaFold Database on a personal computer, revealing homologs with higher accuracy and lower memory/disk usage than leading methods.

Repeat-associated non-AUG (RAN) translation contributes to the pathogenic mechanism of several microsatellite expansion diseases. Here the authors delineate the different steps involved in recruiting the ribosome to initiate G₄C₂ RAN translation to produce poly-Glycine Alanine, poly-Glycine Proline, and poly-Glycine Arginine repeats.

Hexanucleotide GGGGCC repeat expansion in C9ORF72 is the most frequent cause of both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Here the authors show that (GGGGCC) _n translation can initiate without a 5′-cap, and this cap-independent translation is upregulated by stress mediated through eIF2α phosphorylation.

In this study, authors evaluate mass tuberculosis (TB) screening data from 183,808 elderly individuals in China, finding that abnormal chest X-rays significantly increase TB risk.

Cell function depends on both its molecular identity and spatial context, but these are often hard to disentangle. Here, authors present DECIPHER, a scalable deep learning model that separates these factors to reveal cell-environment interactions across tissues.

Grid cells do not maintain a stable pattern during a self-motion-based task, but track animal movement in multiple local reference frames and reanchor to task-relevant objects, thus estimating local rather than global position.

Cutaneous tuberculosis is an infectious disease associated with extracellular matrix remodeling and granuloma-driven fibrosis. Here, the authors present an in vitro model of this disease using skin organoids infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and describe infection-induced alterations in specific pathways and cell populations.

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is aggressive with limited therapeutic options. Here, authors find that loss of CRACD induces neuroendocrine plasticity and immune evasion and suggest manipulating the CRACD-EZH2-MHC-I axis as a potential therapeutic strategy for SCLC.

Installation of difluoroalkyl groups while also imparting stereochemical information is mostly only possible with organocatalytic methods that activate carbonyls. Here the authors show a method to perform an difluoroallylation of hydrazones, forming a masked amine stereocenter, via palladium- and N-heterocyclic-carbene catalysis.

A mechano-intelligent transmission mechanism based on the slipknot delivers precise force signals for clinical practice and robotic operations such as minimally invasive surgery and tendon-driven robotics.

Microbubble interfaces exhibit unique chemical reactivity. Here, the authors visualize catalyst-free hydroxyl radical generation at nitrogen microbubbles, enabling pollutant degradation and sustainable nitrogen fixation under mild conditions.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene)’s (PVDF-TrFE) piezoelectricity can be enhanced by annealing, however current annealing methods are slow. Here, the authors perform ultra-fast flash annealing of PVDF-TrFE to achieve a high piezoelectricity.

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) has an incompletely understood mechanistic basis. Here the authors use gain- and loss-of-function mouse models to show that that E3 ligase TRIM7 in hepatocyte promotes MASH pathogenesis via DUSP10 ubiquitination.

In patients with metastatic osteosarcoma who have progressed on first-line chemotherapy, the prognosis is poor. Here, the authors report a phase II randomized clinical trial comparing the combination of apatinib (multi tyrosine kinase inhibitor) and chemotherapy (ifosfamide and etoposide) against chemotherapy alone in patients with relapsed or refractory metastatic osteosarcoma.

CRISPR-CasRx effectively reduces ALS- and FTD-causing C9orf72 sense and antisense repeat derived RNAs and proteins in cell lines, patient iPSC-neurons and two independent mouse models of C9orf72 repeat expansion.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide gene–smoking interaction study identifies 13 new loci associated with serum lipids.

The oxygen evolution reaction enables many clean energy technologies, but most acid-unstable catalysts still block deployment. Here the authors report a temperature dependent mechanistic evolution in RhRu3Ox that links reaction pathways to stability, enabling durable acidic water electrolysis.

The authors present a simplified-architecture radar that uses information metasurfaces for direct generation and dechirp compression of radar signals in the RF domain, enabling full-chain reconfigurability without using extensive RF hardware and high-speed digitization.

Integration of multiomics data with functional analysis of pancreatic tissues from individuals with early-stage type 2 diabetes indicates that the genetic risk converges on RFX6, which regulates chromatin architecture at multiple risk loci.

Editor’s summary_NCOMMS-19-41732B The anterior pituitary gland controls body growth and reproduction but how early development is dynamically regulated is unclear. Here, the authors use scRNA-seq of human fetal pituitaries to identify different developmental routes and state transitions of five hormone-producing cell lineages, and a hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal state of pituitary stem cells.

The proposed basal magma ocean within the early Earth may have been contaminated by oxides exsolved from the core that can explain seismic velocity anomalies observed in the lowermost mantle, according to thermodynamic and geodynamic modelling.

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

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.

Melinda Mills, Nicola Barban, Harold Snieder, Marcel den Hoed and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of data from over 300,000 individuals for age at first birth and number of children ever born. They identify 12 significant loci that associate with these traits, providing insights into the genetic basis of human reproductive behavior.

Crosstalk between the brain and CLNs is critical in brain pathologies. Here, the authors show in a mouse model that extravasated erythrocytes following SAH are degraded by cathepsin S of medullary LECs in CLNs, which plays an important role in SAH pathology.

Trained and validated on multimodal data from 14.5 million images from multicountry datasets, a foundation model is shown to increase diagnostic and referral accuracy of clinicians when used as an assistant in a trial involving 16 ophthalmologists and 668 patients.

Structural variations (SV) contribute to inter-individual variability. Here, the authors describe a first-generation multi-ancestry Asian SV catalogue containing 73,035 SVs from 8392 Singaporeans to provide insights into Asian SV diversity.

A new form of momentum-selective electron energy-loss spectroscopy enables the element-resolved imaging of frequency- and symmetry-dependent vibrational anisotropies with atomic resolution.

Akincilar, Fidan et al. report a conserved role for telomerase reverse transcriptase in regulating inflammation via the cGAS–STING nucleic acid-sensing pathway in myeloid cells, independent of its telomerase activity.

Modulating mitochondrial NAD⁺ levels by changing the expression of the mitochondrial NAD⁺ transporter, SLC25A51, Mukherjee et al. demonstrate that mitochondrial, rather than cytosolic or nuclear, NAD⁺ levels are a key determinant of the rate of liver regeneration.

To overcome limitations of previous genome-wide association studies of coronary artery disease, this study incorporates a cohort of individuals containing large fractions of Black and Hispanic individuals to provide a wider view of the genetic landscape of this disease.

The authors conducted a comprehensive exome-wide association analysis on eight sleep-related traits. The researchers identified 22 new genes associated with various aspects of sleep, such as chronotype, daytime sleepiness, daytime napping, snoring and sleep apnoea, highlighting the importance of large-scale genomic studies in unravelling the genetic basis of sleep-related traits.

Snakes have many characteristics that distinguish them from their relatives. Here, Yin et al. sequence the genome of the five-pacer viper, Deinagkistrodon acutus, and use comparative genomic analyses to elucidate the evolution of transposable elements, developmental genes and sex chromosomes in snakes.

Embryonic stem cells are characterized by self-renewaland pluripotency. Here, the authors show an affordable, efficient, and stable replacement for LIF in mESC cultivation.

Chromosome-level genome assemblies of migratory and desert locusts, coupled with epigenomic profiling of migratory locusts, reveal chromatin dynamics underlying polyphenism and X-linked dosage compensation following autosomal gene translocation.

Gene drive technology could be a valuable tool to control pest populations, but efficiency in many species is too low to achieve significant population suppression. Here, authors propose a two-target gene drive design to address this challenge, which they model and test in Drosophila melanogaster.

Knowledge about the fate control of GABAergic neuron subtypes during development and pathogenesis is limited. Here authors reveal Foxg1 regulates transcriptional programs that direct lineage bifurcation.

Experiments and simulations suggest monovalent salts destabilize DNA/RNA because of overcharging. These findings challenge views that overcharging requires multivalent ions, with implications for nanomaterials, nanotechnology, and biophysics.

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.

It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.