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The Consortium on Asthma among African-ancestry Populations in the Americas (CAAPA) aims to better understand population genetics of the African diaspora. Here, it uses deeply sequenced whole-genomes to describe the impact of admixture and potential disease burden of deleterious variants.

Determining the nanostructure within complex composites may lead to greater understanding of their properties. Here, the authors demonstrate the application of X-ray atomic pair distribution function computed tomography to resolve the physicochemical properties of palladium nanoparticles on an alumina catalyst.

Elucidating how small molecules bind to DNA is crucial to bio-sensing and therapy applications. Two crystal structures now show the binding modes of a ‘light switch’ ruthenium complex — whose luminescence in solution increases in the presence of DNA — with oligonucleotide duplexes containing either TA/TA or AT/AT central steps, revealing a specific intercalation mode with the TA/TA species.

Accumulating evidence suggests that disruption of autophagy is associated with neurodegeneration. Here the authors show that Plekhg5 acts as a GEF for Rab26, a small GTPase that promotes the autophagy of synaptic vesicles in neurons; mice lacking Plekgh5 develop late-onset motoneuron degeneration.

Understanding spin dynamics in the cuprates is vital to understanding the origin high-temperature superconductivity. X-ray and neutron spectra obtained by Ishii et al.suggest that the spins in electron-doped cuprates are itinerant, in contrast to recent evidence that in hole-doped cuprates they are localized.

Personalized medicine requires accurate and ethnicity-optimized reference genome panels. Here, the Consortium on Asthma among African-ancestry Populations in the Americas (CAAPA) evaluates typical variant filters and existing genome databases against newly sequenced African-ancestry populations.

It is a common complaint that science journalists misrepresent genetics stories. The blame probably lies as much with geneticists themselves as with the reporters, and this article provides guidelines for getting the message across to journalists accurately.

This Review describes the luteal phase of natural menstrual cycles and in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles. The authors highlight the need for luteal phase support during IVF, outlining various luteal phase support regimens, mechanisms for luteal phase deficiency and potential biomarkers of endometrial receptivity.

Cell therapy requires sufficient amounts of therapeutic cells to be delivered to the injured tissue. Here the authors use magnetic iron nanoparticles conjugated with antibodies that bind therapeutic cells and cardiomyocytes to treat myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury in rats and show that targeting to the heart is enhanced upon local application of a magnetic field.

Amorphous mineral phases play important roles in the skeletons of many organisms, but the molecular basis for species-specific control is still under debate. The demonstration that energy-rich metabolites such as phosphoenolpyruvate stabilize amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) in crayfish inspires speculation about calcium minerals in emerging metabolisms.

Understanding phase transitions in electrodes under realistic conditions is important for future battery design. Here, the authors use synchrotron micro-beam diffraction to reveal the phase transition mechanism within individual particles of LiFePO₄, revealing a cycling rate transformation mechanism.

This Perspective reviews tools developed over the past five years in the macromolecular modeling, docking and design software Rosetta.

Determining—and defining—the size of an atomic nucleus is far from easy. First-principles calculations now provide accurate information on the neutron distribution of the neutron-rich ⁴⁸Ca nucleus—and constraints on the size of a neutron star.

dG•dT and rG•rU ‘wobble’ mispairs in DNA and RNA transiently form base pairs with Watson–Crick geometry via tautomerization and ionization with probabilities that correlate with misincorporation probabilities during replication and translation.

High resolution structural information for G protein-coupled receptors has so far been limited to rhodopsin; here a crystal structure of the β₂AR adrenaline receptor is presented.

‘In some mammals, matriarchal status can be conferred with androgens. Here, the authors identify effects of androgens that implicate androgen-mediated aggression in female sexual selection in meerkats and intergenerational transmission of masculinised phenotypes in the evolution of meerkat cooperative breeding.’

Disorder localizes electrons, which is usually detrimental to the onset of superconductivity. Here, Petrović et al. report a disorder-enhanced superconducting instability in quasi-one dimensional Na_2-dMo₆Se₆and suggest that this effect may originate from an intrinsically screened Coulomb repulsion.

Non-equilibrium systems with hidden states are relevant for biological systems such as molecular motors. Here the authors introduce a method for quantifying irreversibility in such a system by exploiting the fluctuations in the waiting times of time series data.

The streptococcal M1 protein can cause vascular leakage and tissue injury and these pathologies are dependent on its interaction with host fibrinogen and subsequent activation of neutrophils. This study presents the structural basis for this process.

Viral fusion proteins are required for the fusion of viral and host membranes for all enveloped viruses. The structure of the Baculovirus postfusion form of glycoprotein gp64, a class III fusion protein, explains its ability to fuse with many different cell types, and structural comparisons suggest that all three classes of fusion proteins may be more closely related than previously thought.

The standard view of the genome is that the two DNA strands are linked by Watson–Crick base pairing. Some deviations from this canonical pairing have been observed when DNA is bound to a ligand. This paper now shows that naked DNA itself can transiently adopt a Hoogsteen base-pairing arrangement. This excited state base pairing provides a means to expand the chemistry and structure of DNA, and has implications for the binding of proteins to and repair of DNA.

READ is a new crystallographic approach to visualize conformational ensembles of heterogeneous and dynamic molecules. READ is applied here to structurally characterize the various folding states of client Im7 bound to chaperone Spy.

Subtilase SUB1, a proteolytic enzyme required for the exit of malarial parasites from host cells, represents a promising target for anti-malarial drugs. Here, Giganti et al. report the structure of PlasmodiumSUB1 and identify an essential domain involved in calcium-dependent activation of the enzyme.

Single-cell technologies have unveiled a complex understanding of NK cells that has led to variations in nomenclature and inconsistencies across the scientific literature. Here, Vivier and colleagues used these technologies to dissect the heterogeneity of NK cells, revealing three prominent NK cell subsets in healthy human blood.

A Néel-type skyrmion lattice is found to be formed in the lacunar spinel GaV₄S₈—a polar magnetic semiconductor with rhombohedral symmetry and easy axis anisotropy.

Molecular dynamics simulations for seven members of the Src kinase family have now revealed a conserved step-wise deactivation process, potentially druggable intermediate states, and quantitatively similar thermodynamics and kinetics across the entire family.

As silica melts are believed to be important components of the Earth’s mantle, their structure should determine many of its properties. Here, the authors identify two crystalline modifications of SiO₂, whose local structures closely resemble those of known melts, providing a structural model for their atomic ordering at the nanoscale.

Bone tissue engineering involves the development of viable bone substitutes that restore and maintain the function of bone tissue. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the rapidly progressing field of bone tissue engineering, describing the various approaches at the level of the scaffold, cells, and growth factors, and identifying the advantages and limitations of each approach.