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Global Burden of Disease analysis found that in 2023, suboptimal diet was estimated to be responsible for 4 million deaths and 97 million morbidity burdens from ischemic heart disease.

High-latitude soils are future soil organic carbon loss hotspots, with losses dominated by particulate organic carbon (POC). The fraction of POC in total SOC (f_POC) is a key indicator, emphasizing the climate importance of preserving POC.

When 100 social and behavioural science claims were examined, 34% of reanalyses closely matched the original results, with 74% reaching the same conclusion, revealing limited robustness of single-path analyses and the need to address analytical uncertainty.

Climate warming alters plant lifecycles, but the extent of these shifts is also determined by plants’ inherent traits, not just climate.

A large-scale study on the replicability of claims from social and behavioural science journals reports that about half of the results replicate in the same patterns as the original study.

This study identifies extensive lateral interdigitations in the kidney’s ascending thin limb and demonstrates that Claudin-10b regulates both epithelial architecture and urine-concentrating function in this distinct nephron segment.

Covert mortality nodavirus, a pathogen previously known to cause important losses in shrimp aquaculture, is identified as being a potential causative agent of an emerging and severe ocular disease in humans, specifically presenting as persistent ocular hypertensive viral anterior uveitis.

A study of reproducibility in a stratified random sample of 600 papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 62 journals spanning the social and behavioural sciences finds higher reproducibility among more recent papers and papers from journals that require data sharing.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) biosynthetic enzymes have been reported to be oncogenic. Here, the authors show that NAPRT, a key enzyme in the deamidated NAD biosynthesis pathway, functions as a suppressor of colon inflammation and tumorigenesis by maintaining DNA repair capability.

Femtosecond laser pulse-induced coherent helicity switching of magnetic vortices in permalloy disks on picosecond timescales is reported.

The authors mapped the continental-scale fraction of age-dependent leaf area index and revealed a widespread increase in the fraction of photosynthetically efficient young leaves across the majority of Amazon rainforests over the past decades.

Androgen activity in the male embryonic hindbrain prolongs hindbrain differentiation in male individuals and drives sex differences in the incidence and prognosis of posterior fossa type A (PFA) ependymoma, an aggressive childhood brain tumour.

In this study, the authors examine the potential shared genetic vulnerability across externalizing traits related to substance use and to substance use disorders.

Analysis of FeTe films grown using molecular-beam epitaxy and annealed under a Te flux post-growth shows that stoichiometric FeTe is inherently a superconductor, contradicting the long-held view that it is an antiferromagnetic metal.

Bioactivity-guided isolation of specialized metabolites is an iterative process. Here, the authors demonstrate a native metabolomics approach that allows for fast screening of complex metabolite extracts against a protein of interest and simultaneous structure annotation.

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.

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.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

Longitudinal metatranscriptomics in a prospective cohort of 1,164 adults hospitalized for COVID-19 reveals that azithromycin offered no apparent anti-inflammatory benefit but enriched the respiratory microbiome with potential pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes.

It is unclear whether the harsh abiotic conditions of drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more so as native plant diversity declines and grazing pressure intensifies.

Smyth et al. demonstrate that a cellular inhibitor of apoptosis, cIAP2, exacerbates inflammation and cardiac injury after myocardial infarction and that its inhibition, either genetically or via Smac mimetics, offers a promising immunotherapeutic strategy to reduce post-MI damage and progression to heart failure.

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.

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it is not deterministic. Here, the authors show that common genetic variation changes how APOE-ε4 influences cognition.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

A meta-analysis of plant nuclear genomic data provides fundamental insights into the genomic nature of differences between plant species and informs future strategies for DNA-based identification of plants using nuclear genomes.

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.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

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.

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

Analysis of the somatic and transcriptomic profile of 123 acral melanoma samples from Mexican patients helps understand tumour origins and prognosis, and highlights the importance of including samples from diverse ancestries in cancer genomics studies.

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.

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.

The underlying regulatory mechanisms of of human cortical diversity remains poorly understood. Here, authors profiled human brain cells to study how they use different gene programs across cortical regions, revealing molecular rules and specific transcription factors that drive functional specialization of neurons in the brain

The longevity of leaves determines the overall duration of photosynthesis for plants. This study suggests that climate change drives leaf longevity convergence toward intermediate ranges, which, by altering leaf traits and enhancing photosynthetic capacity, strengthens ecosystem stability and is closely linked to vegetation diversity.

In this study, long-read RNA sequencing achieves accurate single-nucleotide polymorphism calling, haplotype phasing and allele-specific expression analysis.

Antscan is a publicly accessible database of synchrotron X-ray CT images of ants. The database covers almost 800 species from more than 200 genera and is coordinated with genome sequencing projects that will enable integrative analyses.

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.

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.

Neuroinflammation triggers DNA damage and subsequent parthanatos-mediated neuron death. Inhibiting parthanatos in a mouse model of autoimmune inflammation is neuroprotective and reduces disease-associated paralysis.