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Functional tissue units (FTUs) form the basic building blocks of organs and are important for understanding and modeling their healthy physiological function and disease states. Here, the authors present a catalog of 22 anatomically based FTUs from 10 healthy human organs as part of an ongoing international effort to construct a Human Reference Atlas of all cells in the human body.

A luminescence cascade system achieves 500-fold higher intensity and 8-fold longer signal persistence than conventional bioluminescence assays, enabling reliable and effective use of bioluminescence for point-of-care diagnostics.

There is limited understanding of long-term antibody dynamics after Marburg virus infection. Here, Khurana et al report the antibody responses in Marburg virus disease survivors over five years and identify a conserved immunogen within the virus wing domain that could serve as a target for vaccine design.

The intravenous injection of neutrophils bearing discoidal polymer microscale ‘patches’ on their surfaces reduces tumour burden in mice owing to the patch-induced polarization of the neutrophils towards an antitumour phenotype.

Shi et al. report a sulfonation-dependent vulnerability of liver tumors expressing the sulfotransferase SULT1A1 by showing their sensitivity to the small molecule YC-1 and identifying structurally related compounds that can be modified by SULT1A1.

Here authors aim to understand the 5-HT_2AR coupling signature in response to different signaling probes and their physiological impacts using computational modeling, in vitro and in vivo experiments, and analysis of human brain tissue.

The authors provide a litmus test for the recognition mechanism of transiently binding proteins based on nuclear magnetic resonance and find a conformational selection binding mechanism through concentration-dependent kinetics of ubiquitin and SH3.

Barrett’s oesophagus is a precancerous intestinal metaplasia that can progress to oesophageal adenocarcinoma. In this study, the authors isolate and characterize human Barrett’s stem cells and identify a specific genomic pedigree that supports the potential role of these cells as precursors of oesophageal adenocarcinoma.

It is currently unclear if cell-free DNA samples from metastatic cancers are as informative as tissue ones for cancer profiling. Here the authors show that cell-free DNA samples from rapid autopsies capture clonal and subclonal alterations of metastatic tumours and reveal more driver alterations than single tissue samples.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common mental health problem. Here, the authors report a GWAS from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium in which they identify two risk loci in European ancestry and one locus in African ancestry individuals and find that PTSD is genetically correlated with several other psychiatric traits.

AQP5 is identified as a marker for pyloric stem cells in humans and mice, and stem cells in the AQP5⁺ compartment are shown to be a source of invasive gastric cancer in mouse models.

How DNA cytosine methylation affects gene expression inEscherichia coli is poorly understood. Here, the first genome-wide study of cytosine methylation in E. coliat single-base resolution reveals that cytosine methylation controls the expression of genes during the stationary growth phase.

A survey of species-level genes from 13,174 publicly available metagenomes shows that most species-level genes are specific to a single habitat, encode a small number of protein families and are under low positive (adaptive) pressure.

The delivery route and dose of the BCG vaccine profoundly alters the protective outcome after Mycobacterium tuberculosis challenge in non-human primates.

COVID-19 has impacted health systems unequally and widespread SARS-CoV-2 testing for community surveillance has been limited globally. This work in Malawi highlights how river and wastewater can be used to detect emerging SARS-CoV-2 waves, identify variants of concern, and provide an early warning system.

Behavioural, neurogenetic and molecular studies of circadian 24-hour rhythms in fruitflies kept in semi-confinement outdoors challenge our established laboratory-based views of the relative importance of sources of rhythmic entrainment, including temperature, photoperiod and moonlight, as well as the role of some of the underlying clock genes in regulating circadian behaviour in the wild.

Toll-like receptor 2 is activated by triacylated lipoproteins, but structural and functional studies now show that Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipoprotein LprG is a TLR2 agonist even when it is non-acylated. LprG contains a hydrophobic pocket to bind triacylated glycolipids and delivers them to TLR2, perhaps via CD14. In addition, LprG may serve as a glycolipid chaperone in cell wall assembly by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

This Viewpoint compares multicatheter brachytherapy with other forms of partial breast irradiation. As the forerunner of other ABPI techniques, interstitial brachytherapy has to its credit the best intermediate-term to long-term oncological and cosmetic results, and to its discredit some of the highest recurrence and complication rates. Enhancements to quality assurance and patient selection criteria could hold the key to best practice.

Urachal adenocarcinomas are rare primary adenocarcinomas of the bladder for which there is no current chemotherapy regimen. Mohile and co-authors report the case of a 67-year-old woman who was diagnosed with metastatic urachal adenocarcinoma and achieved complete remission of the disease after irinotecan, 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin therapy. The authors discuss the current management options for patients with urachal adenocarcinomas and emphasize the need to evaluate the role of newly discovered agents in the treatment of this disease.

Inositol phosphates are widely produced in animal and plant tissues. Luo and colleagues demonstrate that the inositol phosphate InsP7 modulates membrane translocation of the kinase Akt and downstream phosphatidylinositol-(3,4,5)-trisphosphate signaling in neutrophils.

This Resource describes data, code and tools developed for the Human Reference Atlas and the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program for building and navigating a multiscale human atlas.

Pediatric COVID-19 can be associated with subsequent multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), but how these pathologies are related or differ is unclear. Here the authors compare and contrast pediatric COVID-19 and MIS-C immunophenotypes using SARS-CoV-2 antibody fingerprinting proteomics.

A consortium reports the tripling of the number of genetic markers in Phase II of the International HapMap Project. This map of human genetic variation will continue to revolutionize discovery of susceptibility loci in common genetic diseases, and study of genes under selection in humans.

Gain-of-function mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) are among the most common genetic alterations in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHCC), a deadly cancer of the liver bile ducts; now mutant IDH is shown to block liver cell differentiation through the suppression of HNF-4α, a master regulator of hepatocyte identity and quiescence, leading to expansion of liver progenitor cells primed for progression to IHCC.

With a comprehensive analysis of sequencing data, DNA copy number, gene expression and DNA methylation in a large number of human glioblastomas, The Cancer Genome Atlas project initiative provides a broad overview of the genes and pathways that are altered in this cancer type.