Search

How chronic stress causes cognitive rigidity remains unclear. Here, the authors show that stress disrupts error signals from the anterior insula to the prefrontal cortex that subserve decision-making, and targeting this pathway restores cognitive flexibility.

Au nanowires with an unconventional hexagonal close-packed (4H) phase stabilize the 4H-phase high-entropy alloys grown epitaxially on their surface through a facile chemical synthesis. The resulting core–shell nanostructures demonstrate promising overall water electrolysis performance.

Scalable fabrication of inverted perovskite solar cells is achieved through crystal-solvate (CSV) pre-seeding. The pre-seeded, nanostructured CSV layer suppresses morphological and electronic defects, allowing a cell efficiency of 26.13% and a 49.91 cm² mini-module efficiency of 23.15%.

Here, the authors identify distinct, autism-specific diet microbiome interactions, showing how unhealthy diets and synthetic emulsifiers drive dysbiosis. The findings pave the way for microbiome-aware dietary strategies for autism.

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.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have improved our understanding of the genetic basis of lung adenocarcinoma but known susceptibility variants explain only a small fraction of the familial risk. Here, the authors perform a two-stage GWAS and report 12 novel genetic loci associated with lung adenocarcinoma in East Asians.

Crystallizing the perovskite layer on thin tunnel oxide passivated contact silicon cells is challenging due to rapid heat transfer. Zhou et al. address this issue using a 2-mercaptobenzothiazole additive, achieving a tandem cell efficiency of 32.76%.

Here the authors reveal a study of 486,956 Han Chinese individuals showing that most people with genetic variants affecting drug response do not have the predicted adverse events, highlighting the challenges of implementing pharmacogenetics in clinical practice.

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

The use of a dimensionally graded 2D perovskite interface and passivation results in perovskite solar cells with very low photovoltage loss.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The primary challenge in commercializing perovskite solar cells stems from the fragile and moisture-sensitive nature of perovskite materials. Here, authors propose a multi-functional asynchronous cross-linking strategy and achieve high-performance and stable devices with mere 0.30 voltage deficit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Functional evolution expands the catalytic repertoire of biosynthetic enzymes. Here, the authors reveal that a tripartite enzyme complex has evolved to catalyze Friedel–Crafts acylation through neofunctionalization of a conserved thiolase architecture.

Structural and functional characterization of H7-reactive monoclonal neutralizing antibodies from donors naturally infected with H7N9 influenza virus reveals overlapping epitopes around the receptor binding site of haemagglutinin and antigenic change in virus lineages isolated in 2013/14 versus 2016/17, indicating a need to update H7N9 vaccines.

A biodegradable electronic bandage that applies pulsed and d.c. electrostimulation can accelerate the healing of intestinal wounds in mice via transfection of cells and stimulation-induced secretion of healing factor from those cells.

During acute HIV type 1 infection, a subset of γδ T cells that express Δ42PD1 are shown to home to the gut, where they activate innate immunity and inflammation through direct interaction of Δ42PD1 with Toll-like receptor 4. Blockade of this pathway reduces mucosal damage.

Qing Lan and colleagues report the results of a genome-wide association study of lung cancer in never-smoking women from Asia. They identify three new susceptibility loci and confirm three other previously reported associations.

Biobanks of genetic data have been primarily in European populations, which gives us an incomplete understanding of complex traits across populations. Here, the authors initiate the Westlake BioBank for Chinese (WBBC) pilot project with 4,535 whole genome sequences and 5,841 high-density genotypes from China, characterizing large-scale genomic variation in Chinese populations.

Morphology of organic thin film, including the in-plane and out-of-plane directions, plays a crucial role in determining the performance of organic solar cells, yet the characterisation is challenging for the out-of-plane direction. Here, the authors use GTSAXS to uncover the nanomorphology in this dimension, and show how it affects exciton dissociation and charge transfer.

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.

Analysis of mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) by using whole-genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancer samples across 38 cancer types identifies hypermutated mtDNA cases, frequent somatic nuclear transfer of mtDNA and high variability of mtDNA copy number in many cancers.

Efficient, large-scale genomic analysis is facilitated on the cloud by a computational tool with error-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities.

Virtual reality technologies need olfactory systems to improve human perception, but their bulky formats limit their practicality. Here, Liu et. al. report flexible and miniaturized odor generators with tunable odor concentration in close user proximity for immersive virtual reality applications.

Analysis of whole-genome sequencing data across 2,658 tumors spanning 38 cancer types shows that chromothripsis is pervasive, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types, contributing to oncogene amplification, gene inactivation and cancer genome evolution.

Gut microbiota has been reported to influence osteoporosis risk, but the individual species, and underlying mechanisms, remain largely unknown. Here, the authors identify Bacteroides vulgatus and serum valeric acid as potential targets for osteoporosis prevention/treatment.

Machine-assisted recognition of colorectal cancer has been mainly focused on supervised deep learning that suffers from a significant bottleneck of requiring massive amounts of labeled data. Here, the authors propose a semi-supervised model based on the mean teacher architecture that provides pathological predictions at both patch- and patient-levels.

Adolescence is a critical period for brain development, marked by heightened plasticity in the frontal dopamine circuit. Here, the authors show in mice that adolescent microglia respond to dopamine with increased surveillance to promote dopaminergic innervation.

Neovascular eye diseases cause blindness, but underlying drivers are unclear. Here, the authors show that PRL3 promotes pathological angiogenesis, and that targeting PRL3 with an antibody therapy could offer a new treatment for ocular neovascularization.

Confinement effects enable the design of intersubband polaritons (ISPs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs), but this type of light-matter excitations has been rarely explored in van der Waals materials. Here, the authors report the observation of hyperbolic ISPs in WO_x/WSe₂ QW heterostructures with electrically tunable dispersions.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Spatially nuanced policies are necessary for maximising co-benefits of carbon-emissions reduction from coal-fired power plants. Here the authors present an approach integrating costs of CO2 and air pollution emissions to better understand social costs of electricity generation from coal burning in China.