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The Chinese tree shrew, Tupaia belangeri chinensis, has been proposed as a potential animal model in biomedical research and drug safety testing. This study presents the full genome of the Chinese tree shrew, identifying common features between the tree shrew and primates.

The genome sequences of 175 Ebola virus from five districts in Sierra Leone, collected during September–November 2014, show that the rate of virus evolution seems to be similar to that observed during previous outbreaks and that the genetic diversity of the virus has increased substantially, with the emergence of several novel lineages.

Using a gentle purification, authors isolated RyR1 coupled with S0 helix. Cryo-EM structures reveal that S0 enhances the conformational transitions in cooperation with Ca2 + /ATP, suggesting S0 is an essential component of RyR1.

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.

The variability in clinical outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection is partly due to deficiencies in production or response to type I interferons (IFN). Here, the authors describe a FIP200-dependent lysosomal degradation pathway, independent of canonical autophagy and type I IFN, that restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication, offering insights into critical COVID-19 pneumonia mechanisms.

A cryo-EM structure of amyloid fibrils formed in vitro with recombinant human PrP provides insights into fibril architecture and the potential role of disease mutations.

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.

The O-alkylation of tertiary alcohols with racemic tertiary electrophiles to access chiral hindered dialkyl ethers has remained elusive. Now this synthetic challenge has been accomplished by copper-catalysed C–O cross-coupling between tertiary haloamides and alcohols using designed ligands.

An annually resolved 3476-year tree-ring record from the Tibetan Plateau reveals severe 20^th century droughts and highlights the interplay between the Asian Monsoon and Westerlies. Droughts are often linked to the collapse of dynasties.

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.

FS8.1, a non-canonical GT-2 factor, controls the elongated fruit shape and crush resistance of processing tomatoes. This study provides a potential route to rapidly customize machine-harvestable fresh-market tomatoes without reducing quality values.

It is uncertain how much life expectancy of the Chinese population would improve under current and greater policy targets on lifestyle-based risk factors for chronic diseases and mortality behaviours. Here we report a simulation of how improvements in four risk factors, namely smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and diet, could affect mortality. We show that in the ideal scenario, that is, all people who currently smokers quit smoking, excessive alcohol userswas reduced to moderate intake, people under 65 increased moderate physical activity by one hour and those aged 65 and older increased by half an hour per day, and all participants ate 200 g more fresh fruits and 50 g more fish/seafood per day, life expectancy at age 30 would increase by 4.83 and 5.39 years for men and women, respectively. In a more moderate risk reduction scenario referred to as the practical scenario, where improvements in each lifestyle factor were approximately halved, the gains in life expectancy at age 30 could be half those of the ideal scenario. However, the validity of these estimates in practise may be influenced by population-wide adherence to lifestyle recommendations. Our findings suggest that the current policy targets set by the Healthy China Initiative could be adjusted dynamically, and a greater increase in life expectancy would be achieved.

The cereal endosperm constitutes most of the grain by volume. Here the authors use single-cell analysis of maize developing endosperm to decode gene regulatory networks that likely control endosperm growth and offer a framework for crop improvement.

This Article presents a single-molecule ‘synthesis by sensing’ approach that enables in situ stepwise generation of stereo- and regio-defined heteromeric nanopores to resolve structural and chiral differences of amino-acids in single peptide stereoisomers.

The conventional approach with applying self-assembled monolayer suffers from limited interface coverage and weaker dipole interactions. Here, authors employ ferroelectric molecule to construct a dipole layer, achieving certified efficiency of 25.36% for inverted perovskite solar cells.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

River floods that occur simultaneously in multiple locations can lead to higher damages than individual events. Here, the authors show that the likelihood of concurrent high river discharge has increased over the last decades.

Using globally consistent measurements and high-resolution modelling, this study finds that black carbon emissions are generally underestimated in the Global South.

A highly pH-resistant membrane was prepared by interfacial quaternization reaction, which shows the highest separation performance among analogous membranes and 70-days stability in concentrated acid/base. Meanwhile, Li2CO3 with purity of 99.1% was recovered from acid leachate of spent batteries.

Hematite is a promising material for photoelectrochemical water splitting, but its mechanisms are not well understood. Here, the authors report a detailed mechanism, identifying key reaction intermediates and highlighting the influence of solvent water and oxygen desorption on the reaction pathways.

P2X3 activation requires tightening the inner pocket of the head domain (IP-HD) following ATP binding. Here the authors demonstrate that targeting the IP-HD with allosteric small molecules presents a potential strategy for the development of therapeutics for refractory chronic cough without taste abnormalities.

Three structures of human SLC15A4 are presented in the outward-facing apo monomeric and dimeric states and the inward-facing TASL-bound state, revealing the molecular mechanism of SLC15A4-mediated TASL recruitment in human endolysosomal TLRs signalling.

Yaks have been subject to natural selection, human domestication and interspecific introgression during their evolution. Here, the authors have identified genomic structural variations and the linked genes involved in these processes in domestic yaks, to reveal new insight into genetic basis of phenotypic diversity.

The authors quantify terrestrial temperature evolution over the past 2 million years by fossil lipids preserved in an ancient lake in East Asia. They showed a long-term warming trend that diverges from the contemporaneous global sea surface cooling.

The synthesis of highly ordered intermetallic compound catalysts remains a challenge owing to the limited understanding of their formation mechanism under high-temperature conditions. Here the authors identify phase-transition-temperature-dependent evolution process in the synthesis of intermetallic Pt catalysts and propose a separate alloying/ordering annealing synthetic protocol.

Embryonic stem cell differentiation requires activation of lineage-specific genes. Here the authors show that the histone H2A deubiquitinase Usp16 is required for relieving ubiquitinated H2A-mediated silencing of lineage-specific genes and embryonic stem cell differentiation.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Hepatic expression of constitutively active glucagon receptor may have contributed to the glucose and lipid metabolism and the high metabolic rates that enabled the evolution of flight in birds.

Lattice-oxygen redox is pivotal for high oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity. Here, LiNiO₂, a unary 3d-transition metal oxide catalyst, exhibits superefficient activity during the OER due to the creation of double O 2p holes states, according to operando XAS, XRD, and Raman spectroscopy observations.

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.

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.

This Resource provides a multi-omic tissue atlas of aging in nonhuman primates.