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Here, the authors investigate the interfacial charge/energy transfer dynamics in a WSe₂/graphene heterostructure. They unveil an energy transfer mechanism from WSe₂ to graphene mediated by an interfacial Meitner-Auger process, resulting in a transient hole distribution in the Dirac cone at energies larger than the photon energy of the optical excitation.

Human host-associated cellular products may act as induction agents for bacteriophages.

A previously uncharacterized microbial enzyme is responsible for the production of molecular hydrogen in the gut, which drives the growth of other bacteria and has implications for human health.

The morphology of organic solar cells is crucial to their performance but is difficult to measure. Using a variety of probes, Hedley et al.map the morphology of polymer-fullerene solar cells and find that elongated fibre-like polymer- and fullerene-rich domains are desirable for high performance.

High-depth sequencing of non-cancerous tissue from patients with metastatic cancer reveals single-base mutational signatures of alcohol, smoking and cancer treatments, and reveals how exogenous factors, including cancer therapies, affect somatic cell evolution.

Understanding the confinement and transport of excitons in low dimensional systems will aid the development of next generation photovoltaics. Via photophysical studies Ni et al. observe 'quantum cutting' in 0D metal-organic hybrid materials based on methylammonium bismuth halide (CH₃NH₃)3Bi₂I₉.

Here, Forster et al. compare 1354 cultured commensal strains (540 species) to 45,403 pathogen strains (12 species), identifying 64,188 MGE-mediated antibiotic resistance gene transfer events between the two groups, and show that 15 broad host range MGEs are able to transfer between phyla.

A plasmonic nanoscale construct serving as a customizable ‘add-on’ fluorescent label improves the signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range of a range of fluorescence-based bioassays.

A fourfold increase in the efficiency of a light-emitting device (LED) has been achieved by clever layering of phosphorescent and fluorescent materials in an organic device. Such organic LEDs are suitable for making flat and flexible displays that operate at low voltage and offer excellent contrast and viewing angle.

Dynamic behaviour in supramolecular systems is an important aspect of their functionality. Here, the authors use stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy to unveil structural diversity in self-assembled peptide amphiphile nanofibres, with potential relevance to biomedical applications.

The safety and efficacy of ribonucleoproteins for genome editing can be enhanced by formulations of lipid nanoparticles optimized for enhanced stability, delivery efficiency and editing potency of the protein complexes.

Dynamic covalent interactions have been employed to mediate molecular self-assembly reactions but often do not converge to a thermodynamic equilibrium and yield a mixture of kinetically trapped species. Here, the authors show a sequence-selective, dynamic covalent self-assembly process that mitigates kinetic trapping to afford biomimetic molecular ladders with covalent rungs.

Rudalska et al. describe a novel class of p38α inhibitors with increased target residence time. They explore the drugs’ specificity, pharmacokinetics and toxicity profile and show that they are efficacious in the context of colorectal cancer.

In this study, Uldrich and colleagues describe the crystal structure of the Vγ9Vδ2 T cell antigen receptor (TCR) interacting with BTN2A1 and demonstrate the existence of a second ligand that co-binds to a distinct epitope on Vγ9Vδ2 TCR. Using these data, the authors suggest a model of Vγ9Vδ2 TCR activation in which BTN2A1 and BTN3A1 are tethered to each other at the steady state, and must disengage to allow TCR binding.

Integrated multi-omic analyses using samples from the TRACERx study highlight cross-talk between DNA hypermethylation and genomic lesions in non-small cell lung cancer.

The contribution of central and peripheral channels of nuclear pores to transport of transmembrane proteins is unclear. Here the authors show that most inner nuclear membrane proteins use only peripheral channels, but some extend nuclear localization signals into the central channel for directed nuclear transport.

Gut microbes rely on nutrient exchange for survival, but these cross-feeding interactions remain poorly characterized. Here, Marcelino et al. present a metabolite-exchange scoring system derived from metagenome-scale metabolic models, designed to identify the potential microbial cross-feeding interactions most affected in human diseases.

Upon stimulation of receptors, NAADP is formed as calcium-mobilizing second messenger in many cells. Here, the authors develop MASTER-NAADP, a membrane-permeant precursor of NAADP, and characterize its biological activity.

α-Synuclein (αS) aggregation is a driver of several neurodegenerative disorders. Here, the authors identify a class of peptides that bind toxic αS oligomers and amyloid fibrils but not monomeric functional protein, and prevent further αS aggregation and associated cell damage.

We show the evolution of a case of EGFR mutant lung cancer treated with a combination of erlotinib, osimertinib, radiotherapy and a personalized neopeptide vaccine targeting somatic mutations, including EGFR exon 19 deletion.

A cell-based phenotypic screen identifying inhibitors of Notch signaling led to the discovery of NVS-ZP7-4, which blocks the activity of the zinc transporter SLC39a7 (ZIP7) and induces cell death through an ER stress mechanism.

The female bladder seems to harbor a poorly characterized indigenous microbiota. Here, the authors isolate and genome-sequence 149 bacterial strains from catheterized urine of 77 women, generating a culture collection representing two thirds of the bacterial diversity within the samples.

The extracellular matrix can affect cell behaviour both physically and biochemically. Here, the authors developed a substrate that is based on peptides and nucleic acids hybrids that can dynamically present signals upon demand which regulate cell adhesion and migration, thereby controlling cell organisation.

The effects of translation factors on ribosome dynamics help drive protein synthesis. The ribosome was previously shown to fluctuate between two coordinated structural states during elongation. The effects of release and ribosome recycling factors on this conformational equilibrium are now examined.

Efficiency roll-off in a wide range of TADF OLEDs is analysed and a figure of merit proposed for materials design to improve efficiency at high brightness, potentially expanding the range of applications of TADF materials.

Combination of epidemiology, preclinical models and ultradeep DNA profiling of clinical cohorts unpicks the inflammatory mechanism by which air pollution promotes lung cancer

A fluorescence-based approach defines new features of Cas9 that control the specificity of RNA-guided DNA cleavage in CRISPR genome editing technology.

A new engineered version of SpCas9, called HypaCas9, displays enhanced accuracy of editing without significant loss of efficiency at the desired target.

Brain tumours are difficult to treat because of their propensity to infiltrate brain tissue; here long processes, or tumour microtubes, extended by astrocytomas are shown to promote brain infiltration and to create an interconnected network that enables multicellular communication and that protects the tumours from radiotherapy-induced cell death, suggesting that disruption of the network could be a new therapeutic approach.

Immune lymphocyte estimation from nucleotide sequencing (ImmuneLENS) infers B cell and T cell fractions from whole-genome sequencing data. Applied to the 100,000 Genomes Project datasets, circulating T cell fraction provides sex-dependent and prognostic insights in patients.

Swanton and colleagues present a clonal expression signature, ORACLE, which, in combination with clinicopathological and molecular risk factors, can predict survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and they prospectively validate its prognostic value.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Systems-level modeling of the gut microbiota uncovers a candidate bacteriotherapy for Clostridium difficile.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loss of heterozygosity, allele-specific mutation and measurement of expression and repression (MHC Hammer) detects disruption to human leukocyte antigens due to mutations, loss of heterogeneity, altered gene expression or alternative splicing. Applied to lung and breast cancer datasets, the tool shows that these aberrations are common across cancer and can have clinical implications.

While many treatments for prostate cancer suppress the androgen receptor it becomes reactivated during disease progression. Here, the authors show that a KLF5 transcriptional programme is also activated during treatment and promotes migration and the appearance of a basal cell phenotype.

The known species repertoire of the collective human gut microbiota is substantially expanded with the discovery of 1,952 uncultured bacterial species that greatly improve classification of understudied African and South American samples.

This month's Genome Watch discusses the release of 1,003 bacterial and archaeal genomes, and describes how they could increase our understanding of the diversity of microbial biological functions and contribute to improved metagenomic analyses.

This month's Genome Watch discusses the detailed analysis of the human 'archaeome' from various body sites and highlights how current sequencing methods underestimate archaeal diversity and abundance.

A large bacterial strain collection and genome sequences will boost gut microbiome research.

In this Review, Miller and colleagues discuss the arsenal of effector proteins that salmonellae use to manipulate their animal hosts, in addition to the host response to these infections. The authors also discuss the challenges ahead for unravelling the mechanistic details of effector function.

Human infections with Campylobacter fetus are often assumed to be derived from livestock. Here, Iraola et al. provide evidence that healthy humans may act as carriers and dispersers, and C. fetus may have originated in humans as an intestinal pathobiont and then adapted as a livestock pathogen.

A longitudinal evolutionary analysis of 126 lung cancer patients with metastatic disease reveals the timing of metastatic divergence, modes of dissemination and the genomic events subject to selection during the metastatic transition.

Analyses of multiregional tumour samples from 421 patients with non-small cell lung cancer prospectively enrolled to the TRACERx study reveal determinants of tumour evolution and relationships between intratumour heterogeneity and clinical outcome.

Analyses of the TRACERx study unveil the relationship between tissue morphology, the underlying evolutionary genomic landscape, and clinical and anatomical relapse risk of lung adenocarcinomas.

Results of the TRACERx study shed new light into the association between body composition and body weight with survival in individuals with non-small cell lung cancer, and delineate potential biological processes and mediators contributing to the development of cancer-associated cachexia.