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Maldonado, Lopez-Hernandez, et al. use a matched case-control study to compare E. coli-infected patients with or without sepsis. Their analysis shows that the ST69 clone is associated with risk of sepsis development, and certain genetic factors such as adhesion genes papC and fdeC were associated with a protective effect.

pH is a critical regulator of (bio)chemical processes and therefore tightly regulated in nature. Now, proteins have been shown to possess the functionality to drive pH gradients without requiring energy input or membrane enclosure but through condensation. Protein condensates can drive unique pH gradients that modulate biochemical activity in both living and artificial systems.

Short-lived halogens have a substantial indirect cooling effect on climate and this cooling effect has increased since pre-industrial times owing to anthropogenic amplification of natural halogen emissions.

De novo and inherited dominant variants in genes encoding U4 and U6 small nuclear RNAs are identified in individuals with retinitis pigmentosa. The variants cluster at nucleotide positions distinct from those implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Analysis of 20 chemical and morphological plant traits at diverse sites across 6 continents shows that the transition from semi-arid to arid zones is associated with an unexpected 88% increase in trait diversity.

Hiʻiaka is the largest moon of the distant dwarf planet Haumea. Here, the authors report the first multi-chord stellar occultations of Hiʻiaka, revealing its size, shape, and density, suggesting an origin from Haumea’s icy mantle.

Lifestyle interventions are promising tools for achieving healthy aging. Here, authors show how environmental enrichment can reverse multi-omic alterations associated with the aging process in the murine dorsal hippocampus.

NextBrain is an open source, probabilistic atlas of the entire human brain, assembled using artificial-intelligence-enabled registration and segmentation methods to reconstruct the multimodal serial histology of five human half brains, and which can be used to automatically segment brain MRI scans into 333 regions.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) frequency and risk factors vary considerably across regions and ancestries. Here, the authors conduct a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine mapping study of HNSCC subsites in cohorts from multiple continents, finding susceptibility and protective loci, gene-environment interactions, and gene variants related to immune response.

Directional, non-vesicular lipid transport is responsible for fast, species-selective lipid sorting into organelle membranes.

In people with severe brain injuries, stimulation restored consciousness by engaging a deep brain circuit for wakefulness—revealing a target that may also guide treatment in stroke and epilepsy.

Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has comparable anthropogenic and natural sources, complicating emission control. Increasing reactive chlorine has been proposed for mitigation. This study assesses the global environmental impacts of such proposal.

An investigation using various methods reports an association between adeno-associated virus 2 and paediatric hepatitis of unknown aetiology.

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.

Uechi et al. found that a small-molecule lipoamide dissolves stress granules (SGs) by targeting SFPQ, a redox-sensitive disordered SG protein, alleviating pathological phenotypes caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-associated FUS and TDP-43 mutants.

Milbank et al. show that specific targeting of AMPKα1 in SF1 neurons of the VMH through systemic injection of small extracellular vesicles causes weight loss via increased brown adipose tissue thermogenesis.

Here, the authors develop an AI tool called MindGlide that can extract key information from brain images acquired as part of the routine care of multiple-sclerosis patients to help interpret treatment effects, which previously required manual analysis.

Overexpression of c-MYC regulates tumor metabolism in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Here the authors identify ELOVL6, a fatty acid elongase regulated by c-MYC, as a potential therapeutic target of PDAC.

Analysis of 2,170 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Spain provides insights into transmission patterns and the effects of lockdown on the emergence of new variants.

Although many proteins function by toggling between distinct conformations, most structure predictors remain limited to a single static fold. Here, the authors test the performance of AlphaFold2, AlphaFold3, and recent variants on a dataset of autoinhibited proteins exhibiting at least two functionally distinct conformations, and show that AlphaFold2 fails to reproduce the experimental structures of many autoinhibited proteins, but that it can capture conformational diversity when using uniform multiple sequence alignment subsampling.

Chiea Chuen Khor, Tin Aung, Francesca Pasutto, Janey Wiggs and colleagues report a global genome-wide association study of exfoliation syndrome and a fine-mapping analysis of a previously identified disease-associated locus, LOXL1. They identify a rare protective variant in LOXL1 exclusive to the Japanese population and five new common variant susceptibility loci.

Phase separation of mixtures of oppositely charged polymers provides a simple and direct route to compartmentalisation via coacervation. Here authors demonstrate that a coacervate microenvironment supports RNA catalysis whilst selectively sequestering RNA based on length.

The adsorption of OH species is of paramount importance in many electrochemical reactions of interest and, so far, it is frequently assumed that it takes place at potentials higher than 0.55 V. Here the authors demonstrate OH is adsorbed at more negative potentials on the low coordinated Pt atoms by CO displacement experiments and Raman spectroscopy.

Extended exposure to breastfeeding in rodent pups protects them from diet-induced obesity in adulthood by increasing thermogenesis and energy expenditure. This is mediated by liver-derived FGF21 signalling to the lateral hypothalamic area.

The T cell response to SARS-CoV-2 is detected by a PCR assay on whole blood.

mRNAs associated with differentiated cells are already detected in adult neural stem cells. Here the authors show how intron detention prevents their translation, solving conflicts in fate decisions while priming stem cells for timely differentiation.

p53 regulates signalling pathways involved in metabolic homeostasis. Here the authors show that O-GlcNAcylation of p53 in the liver plays a key role in the physiological regulation of glucose homeostasis, potentially via controlling the expression of the gluconeogenic enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase.

Phase-separated compartments have long been proposed as precursors to cellular life. Now, it has been shown that RNA–peptide protocells are more robust when formed using shorter (rather than longer) peptides, and that peptide sequence determines the functional materials properties of these compartments.

Bruzos et al. analyze >6,800 samples of Cerastoderma edule, generate a reference genome and follow the evolution of bivalve transmissible neoplasia that infects them. They find two lineages that show genomic instability but also long-term tolerance.

Seed predation increases from the Arctic to the tropics, but it is unknown whether urbanization disrupts this latitudinal pattern. An experimental study conducted across the Americas shows that the latitudinal gradient in predation holds in urban areas, even though total seed predation is reduced.

Light and gibberellins (GA) regulate multiple aspects of plant development, and this paper is one of two studies that provide molecular insights into the connection between these pathways. Without GA, DELLA proteins (GA-signalling repressors) interact with PIFs (phytochrome-interacting proteins) and inhibit their binding to gene promoters. GA triggers degradation of DELLA proteins, thereby allowing PIFs to bind to their target promoters and regulate gene expression. These results reveal a signalling cascade that contributes to coordinated plant growth regulation by light and gibberellins.

Analysis of the spread of the 20E (EU1) variant of SARS-CoV-2 through Europe suggests that international travel and insufficient containment, rather than increased transmissibility, led to a resurgence of infections.

Artificial intelligence has become popular as a cancer classification tool, but there is distrust of such systems due to their lack of transparency. Here, the authors develop an explainable AI system which produces text- and region-based explanations alongside its classifications which was assessed using clinicians’ diagnostic accuracy, diagnostic confidence, and their trust in the system.