Search

Functional characterization and modeling of a mimetic butterfly’s trichromatic visual system sheds light on the cues used for mate detection in the context of mimicry.

Male túngara frogs produce overlapping mating calls, which poses a challenge for the female frog to group and assign multiple auditory signals to the correct source. Farris and Ryan shows that, like humans, the female frogs compare and group signals using the smallest relative difference in call parameters.

Li et al. report a spatially decoupled heavy atom antenna strategy by integrating alkyl bromides into a hybridized local and charge-transfer scaffold, originated from benzothiadiazole acceptors, to create an organic scintillator with a short radiative lifetime of 3.42 ns and spatial resolution around 50 lp mm^-1.

Male túngara frogs living in urban environments have adjusted their mating calls in response to differing sexual and natural selection pressures. Males have more conspicuous calls, experience lower predation risk and attract more females than forest-dwelling conspecifics.

Here, the authors examine the mechanisms behind cheatgrass’s successful invasion of North American ecosystems. Their genetic analyses and common garden experiments demonstrate that multiple introductions and migrations facilitated cheatgrass local adaptation.

Using whole-genome data for single-nucleotide polymorphism and results from genome-wide association studies, the authors show that people’s preference for pairing with those with similar phenotypic traits has genetic causes and consequences.

The genomic organization and origin of the avenacin biosynthetic gene cluster remain unknown. Here, the authors assemble the genome of diploid oat Avena strigosa, reveal the structure and organization of the consecutive genes, characterize the last two missing pathway steps, and investigate the origin of the pathway in cereals.

Frogs are an ancient and ecologically diverse group of amphibians that include important model systems. This paper reports genome sequences of multiple frog species, revealing remarkable stability of frog chromosomes and centromeres, along with highly recombinogenic extended subtelomeres.

Studies of honest signaling have found an inconsistent relationship between carotenoid coloration and individual quality. Here, Weaver et al. compare dietary and biochemically converted carotenoid coloration using meta-analyses and show that converted carotenoids drive relationships with quality measures.

Ting and colleagues report the safety and efficacy of combined radiation and immunotherapy in a phase II trial on patients with MSS colorectal or pancreatic cancer and observe that disease control correlates with higher repetitive RNA transcription.

Pol ι forms Hoogsteen base pairs with the incoming nucleotide. Here, the authors use time-lapse X-ray crystallography to show that Hoogsten base pairing is maintained within the pol ι active site throughout the nucleotide incorporation reaction.

The goals, resources and design of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) programme are described, and analyses of rare variants detected in the first 53,831 samples provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history.

The genomes of two long-lived giant tortoises, including Lonesome George, reveal candidate genes and pathways associated with their development, gigantism and longevity.

Zhu et al. discover that in human brain there is widespread anatomic distribution of low-frequency somatic, mosaic L1 insertions, using deep whole-genome sequencing of neuronal and glial fractions and machine-learning analysis.

Roifman Syndrome is a rare disorder whose disease manifestations include growth retardation, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia and immunodeficiency. Here, the authors use whole-genome sequencing to discover that rare compound heterozygous variants disrupting the small nuclear RNA gene RNU4ATACcause Roifman Syndrome.

Biomphalaria glabrata is a fresh water snail that acts as a host for trematode Schistosoma mansoni that causes intestinal infection in human. This work describes the genome and transcriptome analyses from 12 different tissues of B glabrata, and identify genes for snail behavior and evolution.

It is said that you are what you eat. Diet can also determine how you sound and perhaps even what species you are — if you are one of Darwin's finches.

The epitranscriptome is fitness-relevant across Domains. Here, the authors map m⁵C in the model hyperthermophile, Thermococcus kodakarensis. The abundance and complexity of the m⁵C epitranscriptome in T. kodakarensis argues that m⁵C supports life in the extremes.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) uses a hybrid entry mechanism. Upon exposure to low pH, envelope glycoprotein E2 releases an internal loop into the host membrane. Here we show the amino terminal region is a critical determinant for membrane interaction, providing insights into the HCV entry mechanism.

Benchmarking of scATAC-seq protocols demonstrates the effects of data quality on downstream analyses.

The approximately 5-Gb tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) genome assembly provides a resource for analysing amniote evolution, and highlights the imperative for meaningful cultural engagement with Indigenous communities in genome-sequencing endeavours.

Michael Talkowski and colleagues analyze balanced chromosomal abnormalities in 273 individuals by whole-genome sequencing. Their findings suggest that sequence-level resolution improves prediction of clinical outcomes for balanced rearrangements and provides insight into pathogenic mechanisms such as altered gene regulation due to changes in chromosome topology.

Mating patterns in sticklebacks have been investigated for over fifty years. The latest studies show how a complex interplay between males, females and the environment can contribute to the formation of new species.

The courtship of satin bowerbirds is a complicated business. Different parts of a male's display appeal to females of different ages, so age-biased variation might underlie the evolution of these displays.

Studies of mouse and human IgA responses against Candida albicans and other common fungal species show that host adaptive immunity selects for fungal effectors that promote commensalism and prevent intestinal disease.

Liquid biopsy assays are important to prognosticate outcomes of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients treated with androgen receptor (AR) inhibitors. Here this group reports detecting circulating tumor DNA in limiting plasma cell-free DNA of mCRPC patients as prognostic marker of poor survival after AR treatment.

Heterosis can rapidly boost yield in crop species but development of hybrid-breeding systems for bread wheat remains a challenge. Here, Tucker et al. describe the molecular identification of the wheat Ms1 gene and discuss its potential for large-scale hybrid seed production in wheat.

Two draft sequences of Gossypium hirsutum, the most widely cultivated cotton species, provide insights into genome structure, genome rearrangement, gene evolution and cotton fiber biology.

This Opinion article argues that capturing phase information in human genomics studies is crucial for important aims such as understanding how genotype contributes to phenotypes. existing approaches for phasing will need to be improved in order to meet this goal.

Cumulative cultural evolution is ubiquitous in humans, but is rarely observed in non-human animals. Here, Williams et al. report elaboration of songs over several decades in Savannah sparrows, consistent with cumulative cultural evolution.

The potential use of circulating tumour DNA in classic Hodgkin lymphoma detection, classification and monitoring is defined.

Ancient DNA reveals genetic differences between stone-tool users and people associated with ceramic technology in the Caribbean and provides substantially lower estimates of population sizes in the region before European contact.

Many industrial organisms are the result of recent or ancient allopolypoidy events. Here the authors iteratively combine the genomes of six yeast species to generate a viable hybrid.

Many natural behaviours involve tracking of a target in space. Here, the authors describe a task to assess this behaviour in mice and use in vivo electrophysiology, calcium imaging, optogenetics, and chemogenetics to investigate the role of the striatum in target pursuit.

Michael Talkowski and colleagues examine karyotypically balanced genomic rearrangement landscapes in the germline at single-nucleotide resolution. They find predominant roles for complex reorganization and non-homologous repair in such 'chromothripsis' processes, suggesting a mechanism of template switching and blunt-end ligation.

Self-fertility evolved independently in three species of Caenorhabditis nematodes. Here, the authors show that different species of Caenorhabditishermaphrodites use either of two different pathways to activate sperm and that these pathways were redundant in ancestral males.

Defective DNA interstrand crosslink repair in Fanconi anaemia drives extensive genomic rearrangements, thereby substantially increasing the risk of cancer development.

Exome sequence data from 628,388 individuals was used to identify 24 risk loci in 40,208 carriers of clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and link them to other conditions including COVID-19, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Despite new treatment options, prognosis for patients with glioblastoma (GBM) remains poor. Here the authors report the clinical course of patients with GBM treated with a personalized neoantigen-derived peptide vaccine treated within the scope of an individual healing attempt.

The evolution of new sex chromosomes potentially generates reproductive isolation. Here, Bracewell et al. combine crossing experiments with population and functional genomics to characterize neo-sex chromosome evolution and incipient speciation in the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae.

Doil Choi and colleagues report the genome sequence of the hot pepper, Capsicum annuum, as well as the resequencing of two cultivated peppers and a wild species, Capsicum chinense. Comparative genomic analysis across Solanaceae provides insights into genome expansion, pungency, ripening and disease resistance in hot peppers.

Constructing a reference genome for quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) allows for genetic diversity during the evolution of sub-genomes in quinoa to be characterized and markers that may be used to develop sweet commercial varieties are identified.