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Kappa-opioid receptors (KORs) influence pain and itch. Here, using cryoEM, spectroscopy, and cell tests, the authors show how specific amino acids shape KOR responses. These findings may guide development of pain treatments with fewer side effects.

Due to its ready availability and low cost, copper is an attractive metal for the homogeneous reduction of CO₂ to formate. However, although CO₂ can readily insert into copper hydrides to produce metal-bound formate, subsequent regeneration of the catalytic species with H₂ is more challenging. Here a dual strategy is used, whereby a copper hydride activates CO₂ and a Lewis pair heterolytically splits H₂, leading to dramatically improved performance.

Plant-specific Dof proteins simultaneously recognize AAAG nucleobases and a nearby minor groove, enabling directional expansion of the major groove for tandem sequence binding. This mode allows CDF1 to regulate the CONSTANS promoter in photoperiodic flowering.

A total of 1074 patients with a history of ischemic stroke enrolled in The Recurrent Stroke Prevention Clinical Outcome (RESPECT) Study were assigned to intensive blood pressure (BP) control group (blood pressure < 120/80 mmHg) or standard blood pressure control group (blood pressure < 140/90 mmHg) and were followed up for a mean of 3.9 years. Seventy-eight first recurrent strokes occurred, including 70 ischemic stroke and 8 intracerebral hemorrhage. Intensive treatment did not change annual risk of ischemic stroke (1.74% vs. 1.75%, P = 0.999), but markedly reduced risk of hemorrhagic stroke (0.00% vs. 0.39%, P = 0.005). Beneficial effect of intensive BP control were observed for risk of hemorrhagic stroke in the patients with a history of ischemic stroke.

The authors identify BPG4, a novel regulator of chloroplast development. BPG4 directly suppresses transcriptional activity of GLK to fine-tune photosynthesis associated nuclear gene expression, and regulates chloroplast development and homeostasis.

Chalcone synthase is the first committed enzyme in the plant flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, yet shows low product specificity in vitro. Here Waki et al. show that chalcone isomerase-like proteins bind to and reduce the catalytic promiscuity of chalcone synthase, ensuring efficient flavonoid production in planta.

Intracranial germ cell tumors (IGCTs) are rare brain tumors mainly diagnosed in children and young adults. Here, the authors conduct a genome-wide association study for IGCTs, identify a risk locus at BAK1, and characterize its functional consequences.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is classified as proneural (PN), neural, mesenchymal (MES) and classical GBM. Here the authors show that Wnt signalling, miR-125b and miR-20b establish a regulatory circuitry including FZD6 which distinguishes PN from the MES subtype.

More than 170 genetic loci have been linked to prostate cancer risk, primarily based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in European population. Here, the authors performed a GWAS on a Japanese cohort of prostate cancer patients, finding 12 new susceptibility loci, and identifying a polygenic risk for Japanese prostate cancer.

Access to quantum computers has been democratized by the availability of cloud services from commercial providers, but the numbers of qubits users can exploit have remained modest, limited by noise and errors. What are these qubits used for and what can we expect next?

Ribonucleotide reductase is essential to maintain the cellular pools of dNTPs, and its activity is controlled allosterically by ATP (activator) and dATP (inhibitor). Now crystal and EM structures of human and yeast ribonucleotide reductase 1 in complex with different nucleotides, together with mutagenesis and functional analysis, reveal how dATP binding induces hexamerization and consequence inhibition of the enzyme.

Radical polymerization of a metastable lactone intermediate — formed from carbon dioxide and butadiene using a palladium catalyst — produces a high-CO₂-content (29 wt%) polymer. This approach circumvents the thermodynamic and kinetic barriers typically associated with direct copolymerization of carbon dioxide and olefins, and can also be applied to one-pot co- and terpolymerization of carbon dioxide and 1,3-butadienes.

Combining mouse hepatocyte progenitors and cholangiocytes ex vivo, the authors form an organoid that can drain bile ex vivo and transport metabolites, as in the liver.

So far, monosubstituted carbenes have only been spectroscopically characterized at very low temperatures. Now, it has been shown that a bulky, chemically inert, amino substituent is enough to tame the intrinsic tendency of carbenes towards dimerization, enabling their isolation at room temperature.

Using more than 100 independent iPSC lines derived from patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the authors discovered loci associated with the neuronal production of amyloid β and confirmed their influence using RNA interference.

Hidewaki Nakagawa and colleagues identify three new genetic loci associated with prostate cancer in Japanese.

Minor structural inconsistencies in semiconducting copolymers lead to serious performance differences in devices. Here, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to quantify the monomer unit ratio in electron donor copolymers, and their structural deviations are linked to characteristics in organic photovoltaic devices.

Ultrafast optical excitation of a charge density wave leads to the formation of a metastable gapped state that synchronizes with the underlying correlated phase.

On 11 June 2009 the World Health Organization declared that the infections caused by a new strain of influenza A virus closely related to swine viruses had reached pandemic levels. Here, one of the first US isolates of the new swine-origin H1N1 influenza virus (S-OIV) is characterized, as well as several other S-OIV isolates, both in vitro and in vivo.

X-ray observations of the core of the Perseus cluster reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere in which the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of about 164 kilometres per second in the region 30–60 kiloparsecs from the central nucleus; turbulent pressure support in the gas is four per cent of the thermodynamic pressure, necessitating only a small correction to the total cluster mass determined from hydrostatic equilibrium.