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A new auxin sensor is used to reveal complex dynamic patterns of hormone distribution in development.

Genetic redundancy is a problem when studying auxin in flowering plants. The minimal auxin response system in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha allows a detailed and thorough probing of the specificity of auxin response factors in planta.

This technique allows functional imaging of neurons in head-fixed Drosophila while the fly walks on an air-supported ball. Using a genetically encoded calcium sensor, the activity of motion-sensitive neurons in the fly optic lobe was recorded while the flies were presented with visual stimuli. Activity in these cells correlated with robust optomotor behavior in the walking flies.

Alzheimer’s disease is heterogeneous in its neuroimaging and clinical phenotypes. Here the authors present a semi-supervised deep learning method, Smile-GAN, to show four neurodegenerative patterns and two progression pathways providing prognostic and clinical information.

A laser–plasma accelerator delivering 5-MeV electrons at kHz repetition rate is demonstrated. It is achieved in the laser-wakefield-acceleration regime by using a multi-mJ laser system delivering near-single-cycle laser pulses of 3.4-fs duration.

This study finds that sST2 is a disease-causing factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Higher sST2 levels impair microglial Aβ clearance in APOE4⁺ female individuals. A genetic variant, rs1921622, is associated with a reduction in sST2 level and protects against AD in APOE4⁺ female individuals.

Analysis of a near-chromosomal genome assembly and transcriptome profiling of the Indian cobra identifies genes expressed in the venom glands. These data should help develop a new antivenom.

Plants defend themselves against attackers by producing bioactive secondary metabolites such as triterpene saponins; here, the endoplasmic-reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) system is shown to control the activity of HMGR, the rate-limiting enzyme in the supply of the terpene precursor isopentenyl diphosphate, thereby preventing unrestrained saponin production and ensuring the integrity of plant development.

Soil-borne Agrobacterium tumefaciens can transform plants by transferring part of its DNA, which subsequently integrates into the host genome. This study reveals how the 5′ end of this bacterial DNA becomes stably attached to plant genomic DNA.

Tau accumulation is associated with disease progression in Alzheimer’s disease. Here the authors use resting state fMRI and tau-PET to demonstrate that baseline connectivity in Alzheimer's disease is associated with tau spreading.

Alzheimer’s disease has been associated with increased structural brain aging. Here the authors describe a model that predicts brain aging from resting state functional connectivity data, and demonstrate this is accelerated in individuals with pre-clinical familial Alzheimer’s disease.

Systematic characterization of longitudinal tau variability in human Alzheimer’s disease using an unbiased subtyping algorithm reveals four trajectories of tau deposition with distinct clinical features.

Inhibition of histone and DNA methyltransferase activity enhances sensitivity to platinum-based and immunotherapy in a novel transgenic mouse model of metastatic bladder cancer.

A randomized trial in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 showed no benefit and potentially increased harm associated with the use of convalescent plasma, with subgroup analyses suggesting that the antibody profile in donor plasma is critical in determining clinical outcomes.

The KL-VS haplotype of the Klotho gene has been associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Here the authors show an association between the KL-VS haplotype and amyloid-dependent tau accumulation using PET data.

This study demonstrates that inserted transgene sequences in the Aedes aegypti genome can be pre-programmed to remove themselves and restore a formerly disrupted target gene through the in cis activity of homing endonucleases.

The interplay between amyloid and tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease is still not well understood. Here, the authors show that amyloid-related increased in soluble p-tau is related to subsequent accumulation of tau aggregates and cognitive decline in early stage of the disease.

There exist only a handful of methods to engineer reproductive barriers in eukaryotes. Here the authors use CRISPR to engineer multiple barriers in D. melanogaster and model their spread.

Very-high-energy γ-rays observed ten hours after the prompt emission of the γ-ray burst 180720B can be attributed to either an inverse Compton or an extreme synchrotron process.

Fully enclosed, controlled-environment growth chambers can accelerate plant development. Such ‘speed breeding’ reduces generation times to accelerate crop breeding and research programmes, and can integrate with other modern crop breeding technologies.

Dynamic proteolipid nanoassemblies at the plasma membrane of colonocytes serve as Wnt signaling hubs. Here, the authors find a role for mutant APC in colorectal cancer in the dysregulation of plasma membrane sterol homeostasis.

Plant primary and secondary cell walls have distinct features and functions. Now, scientists have successfully replaced the secondary cell wall in Arabidopsis xylem fibres with a thick primary cell wall by specifically overexpressing AP2/ERF transcription factors.

Arul Chinnaiyan and colleagues report that the long noncoding RNA SChLAP1 is overexpressed in a subset of prostate cancers and predicts poor outcome. Mechanistically, they show that SChLAP1 promotes invasiveness and metastasis and antagonizes the functions of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex.

The BIN1 SNP rs744373 is associated with higher CSF tau and phosphorylated tau levels. Here the authors show, using PET imaging, that this SNP is associated with tau accumulation in the brain as well as impaired memory in older individuals without dementia.

Whether Alzheimer’s disease originates in basal forebrain or entorhinal cortex remains highly debated. Here the authors use structural magnetic resonance data from a longitudinal sample of participants stratified by cerebrospinal biomarker and clinical diagnosis to show that tissue volume changes appear earlier in the basal forebrain than in the entorhinal cortex.

In higher animals and plants, the processes of growth and patterning are coordinated. In this study, the authors study patterning in Arabidopsis root and show that two key regulators of root organ patterning directly control the transcription of specific components of the cell-cycle machinery. This study provides a direct link between developmental regulators, components of the cell-cycle machinery and organ patterning.

Neurons and oligodendrocytes differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) of patients with inherited TLR3 and UNC-93B deficiencies are found to be more susceptible to infection by HSV-1 than control cells because they fail to induce a normal interferon response, whereas neural stem cells and astrocytes are not susceptible.

New tools for plant biotechnology are emerging, including synthetic promoters, 'tunable' transcription factors, genome-editing tools and site-specific recombinases. These tools promise to expand the range of plant biotechnology applications, especially when integrated with approaches for manipulating large DNA constructs.

Progressive diseases tend to be heterogeneous in their underlying aetiology mechanism, disease manifestation, and disease time course. Here, Young and colleagues devise a computational method to account for both phenotypic heterogeneity and temporal heterogeneity, and demonstrate it using two neurodegenerative disease cohorts.

Observations of teraelectronvolt-energy γ-rays starting about one minute after the γ-ray burst GRB 190114C reveal a distinct component of the afterglow emission with power comparable to the synchrotron emission.

Late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) is a complex multi-factorial disorder. Here, the authors perform a data-driven analysis of LOAD progression, including multimodal brain imaging, plasma and CSF biomarkers, and find vascular dysfunction is among the earliest and strongest altered events.