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An optogenetic tool called Opto-OGT has been developed that enables researchers to probe pathways involving modifications with O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) such as OGT, mTOR and AMPK signaling with high spatiotemporal precision. The method is based on fusing a photosensitive cryptochrome protein to an O-GlcNAc transferase and enables OGT to be reversibly activated with blue light.

A typology of four perspectives on loss and damage is developed based on the study of actor perspectives, including interviews with stakeholders in research, practice, and policy. This may help with navigation of this necessarily ambiguous territory.

The influence of internet search algorithms on users’ beliefs and behaviours remains understudied. This study finds that nationwide climate concern predicted the emotional content of Google Image Search outputs, which subsequently influenced users’ climate concern and support for climate policy.

Vaccination against COVID-19 has shown activation of different immune cell types. Here the authors characterise the immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine using longitudinal CyTOF single cell approaches to characterise antigen specific B and T-cell responses promoted by this vaccine.

Complete blood count indices are tightly regulated around setpoints for decades in healthy adults, and represent a deep phenotype providing opportunities for investigating differential disease risks, improving clinical care and advancing precision medicine.

Over half the world’s rivers dry periodically, yet little is known about the biological communities in dry riverbeds. This study examines biodiversity across 84 non-perennial rivers in 19 countries using DNA metabarcoding. It finds that nutrient availability, climate and biotic interactions influence the biodiversity of these dry environments.

An analysis of the Drosophila connectome yields all cell types intrinsic to the optic lobe, and their rules of connectivity.

SCIFER detects clonal selection in whole-genome sequencing data using a population genetics model. Applied to a range of somatic tissues, SCIFER quantifies stem cell dynamics and infers clonal ages and sizes without requiring knowledge of driver events.

Living crystallisation-driven self-assembly is a useful method in the construction of uniform polymer microstructures, but visualising this process generally requires labelling. Here, the authors use interferometric scattering microscopy for observe real-time growth of individual fibres and platelets.

A role for long non-coding RNA Leat1 in male urogenital development, acting by regulating the function of its neighboring gene EfnB2.

Phosphatase enzymes are challenging to study due to a lack of specific inhibitors. Here, authors develop a chemical-genetic system to inhibit and characterize a major Ser/Thr phosphatase complex, and suggest this strategy, termed directSLiMs, could be used to inhibit other “undruggable” enzymes.

Plasma turbulence is the main driver to deteriorate the performance of fusion power plants. This work presents an unprecedented comparison of plasma turbulence between experiment and simulation, proving that the gyrokinetic model GENE reached a high level of maturity to predict core turbulence.

The small cell size of bacteria is a key hurdle in studying condensates. To address this challenge, the authors develop an experimental framework to assess bacterial condensates based on how they form, dissolve, tune shape and size, and transition between material states.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a potentially serious liver disease with a substantial burden worldwide. In this Consensus Statement, a global multidisciplinary group of experts develop consensus statements and recommendations addressing a broad range of topics on NAFLD to raise awareness and spur action.

Antibiotic resistance is biologically driven by antibiotic use but other social, environmental, demographic, economic and behavioural factors also contribute. Here, the authors conduct a cross-sectional study to identify risk factors jointly associated with multidrug resistant urinary tract infection in East Africa.

AKT inhibitors synergize with agents that suppress the histone methyltransferase EZH2 and promote robust tumour regression in multiple triple-negative breast cancer models in vivo by triggering an involution-like process.

Perinatal traits such as birth weight are influenced partly by indirect maternal genetic effects, i.e. mediated through the intrauterine environment. Here the authors present a method to increase the power of locus discovery in genome-wide association studies of these traits.

Observationally, lower birthweight is a risk factor for cardiometabolic disease. Using Mendelian Randomization, the authors investigate whether maternal genetic factors that lower offspring birthweight also increase offspring cardiometabolic risk and show that the observational correlation is unlikely to be due to the intrauterine environment.

Exploring the molecular consequences of exposing mice to social stress, Lyons et al. identify that hippocampal and cortical neurons acquire features of senescence, identifying a mechanism through which the social environment may contribute to aging.

Here, the authors report the development of a genetic platform for mRNA-LNP vaccines that encodes the two major influenza virus glycoprotein genes into a single mRNA molecule. They show that this approach is generalizable to diverse influenza virus strains and is immunogenic and protective in mouse and ferret models of influenza disease.

This study shows that conserving approximately half of global land area through protection or sustainable management could provide 90% of ten of nature’s contributions to people and could meet representation targets for 26,709 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. This finding supports recent commitments to conserve at least 30% of global lands and waters by 2030.

In this work the authors provide a computational workflow for the parallel, from scratch, design of proteins to rapidly explore the shape diversity of protein folds.

Associations between of omega-3 fatty acids and mortality are not clear. Here the authors report that, based on a pooled analysis of 17 prospective cohort studies, higher blood omega-3 fatty acid levels correlate with lower risk of all-cause mortality.

The intrinsically disordered acidic activation domain (AD) of the yeast transcription factor Gal4 acts through binding to the Med15 subunit of the Mediator complex. Here, the authors show that Gal4 interacts with Med15 through an identical fuzzy binding mechanism as Gcn4 AD, which has a different sequence, revealing a common sequence-independent mechanism for AD-Mediator binding. In contrast, Gal4 AD binds to the Gal80 repressor as a structured polypeptide, which strongly suggests that the structured binding partner dictates the type of protein–protein interaction for an intrinsically disordered protein.

Osimo et al. developed two models to predict the risk of treatment-resistant schizophrenia in patients with a first-episode psychosis using blood-based biomarkers and sociodemographic data routinely collected at psychosis onset in psychosis early intervention services in the United Kingdom. They used clozapine treatment as a proxy for treatment-resistant schizophrenia using data from 785 patients for model development and 1,110 patients for external validation.

In this paper the authors show that the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa migrates between the gut and lungs of an ICU patient, and that differential evolutionary responses to antibiotic treatment occur in these organs.

Adult forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are of a polygenic nature, but paediatric and very early onset (VEO) IBD also occur as monogenic forms. Here, using whole exome sequencing, the authors explore both the monogenic and polygenic contribution to VEO-IBD and characterize a rare somatic mosaic VEO-IBD patient.

Across many North American forests, recent years with exceptional area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees. Nevertheless, abundant evidence suggests that the severity of contemporary wildfire is unprecedented in its adverse impacts on forests and humans.

Uncontrolled TLR signaling results in excessive inflammation. Arthur and colleagues show that the kinases MSK1 and MSK2 orchestrate a feedback loop involving interleukin 10 and the phosphatase DUSP1 to control TLR4 signaling.

The posterolateral cortical amygdala and other connected brain regions have a key role in mediating the transition from investigative to aggressive behaviour in male mice.

The US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub produced medium to long term projections based on different epidemic scenarios. In this study, the authors evaluate 14 rounds of projections by comparing them to the epidemic trajectories that occurred, and discuss lessons learned for future similar projects.

In this longitudinal ultra-high field neuroimaging study, Zsido et al. show the shared dynamics between the ovarian hormone fluctuations across the menstrual cycle and structural plasticity within the medial temporal lobe.

Relevant features of T cell repertoire in human cancer remain to be delineated. Here the authors show, by TCR sequencing in a large cohort of lung cancer patients, that while a majority of T cell clones are shared between tumor and adjacent lung tissue, less frequent tumor-unique T cell clones correlate with worse prognosis.

The NFκB signalling pathway is regulated through the formation of transcription factor dimers but mechanisms controlling their formation are poorly understood. Here, Tsui et al. report that IκBb is a positive regulator of Rel-NFκB dimer formation, using in vitro and in vivoexperiments and mathematical modelling.

Reconstruction of neuronal morphology imaged by brightfield microscopy remains a challenge. Here, authors show gene expression correlates of laminar innervation on transcriptomically defined cortical populations by developing a method for automation.

Here, the authors show that elevating fiber intake in humans alters their gut microbiota, which, upon transplantation into mice, enhances intestinal mucus function, and identify a crucial role played by the commensal bacterium Blautia and its fermentation products.

A NutNet experiment in 57 grasslands across six continents shows that when herbivores are excluded from grasslands with a long coevolutionary history of grazing plant diversity is reduced, while in grasslands without a long grazing history the evolutionary history of the plant species regulates the response of plant diversity.

Biological uptake in the surface and release in the deep ocean contribute to oceanic nickel distribution, including the residual surface Ni pool, according to culture experiments, field data and global biogeochemical circulation modelling

Sea-level rise represents a threat to intertidal oyster reefs and knowledge of their growth rates is needed to quantify the threat. This study presents direct measurements of intertidal oyster reef growth and develops an empirical model of reef accretion. The authors show that previous measurements underestimate growth—the reefs studied here seem able to keep up with projected sea-level rise.

An analysis of 52 million births in 26 countries shows small reductions in preterm birth during the first to third months of lockdown. Further research is needed to examine causal pathways.

Kodali, Proietti et al. report that increased numbers of P-bodies in leukaemia cells account for sequestration and prevention of tumour-suppressive mRNAs from being translated, which could be targeted as a potential intervention in myeloid leukaemia.

Knockout studies using CRISPR–Cas9 identify PCDH10 as a selective host cellular receptor for western equine encephalitis virus.

Researchers in both countries are feeling the effects of a string of missile attacks exchanged between them.

Individuals over eighty years of age are less likely to mount a good immune response against SARS-CoV-2 (measured by neutralization titres) after the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, but achieve good neutralization after the second dose.

In this Viewpoint article, Nature Reviews Immunology invites 18 experts to discuss the nature of T cell exhaustion. How should T cell exhaustion be defined and what are the developmental relationships between exhausted T cell subsets? The contributors share their thoughts on key recent developments in the field.