Search

Adhirons are small antibody-like proteins which have been isolated against over 350 targets including Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever Virus and Influenza A Virus. These adhirons can be templates to discover small molecules modulating these targets.

Bats harbor diverse viruses but it’s less clear how they tolerate infection. Here, by characterizing innate immune responses in bat cells the authors show that IFN-beta signaling resists antagonistic activity by viruses and identify interferon stimulated genes with enhanced antiviral activity.

About a third of the sediment delivery of the Mekong River is shown to be associated with rainfall generated by tropical cyclones, suggesting that future delta stability will be strongly moderated by changes to tropical cyclone intensity, frequency and track.

An analysis of the impact of logging intensity on biodiversity in tropical forests in Sabah, Malaysia, identifies a threshold of tree biomass removal below which logged forests still have conservation value.

Antibodies that bind to both H1 and H3 influenza strains exist in the pre-vaccination serum repertoire of healthy adults; most vaccine-elicited clonotypes bind either H1 or H3 strains.

Molecular profiling of breast cancer in non-Caucasian populations remains underexplored. Here the authors report a high prevalence of HER2-subtypes and enriched immune score with improved survival and higher rates of TP53 somatic mutations with poorer survival in ER+ tumours in a Malaysian cohort.

Differential cross-reactivity to haemagglutinin of various influenza B viruses shows lineage-specific susceptibility that varies between birth cohorts and was determined by early exposure to specific strains.

Chimeric particles are formed when influenza A virus and respiratory syncytial virus coinfect lung cells in vitro.

In wildlife tagging, stress from capture and handling can alter post- release behavior and potentially study interpretations. This study of 42 mammal species shows that these effects diminish within 4–7 days, and quicker for animals in high human activity areas indicating adaptation to disturbance.

Immune recognition of Influenza B virus (IBV) is poorly understood. Here, Liu et al. use flow cytometry to characterize IBV-specific memory B cell responses following seasonal vaccination and show that elicited cross-reactive antibodies can protect against infection, providing a platform for vaccine design.

Mucosal Associated Invariant T cells have been implicated in response to bacterial pathogens. Here the authors show that in human viral infections, these cells are activated by IL-18 in cooperation with other pro-inflammatory cytokines, producing interferon gamma and granzyme B.

A national prospective study of patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 demonstrates global cognitive deficits at 1 year, associated with elevated brain injury markers and reduced gray matter volume.

Viral pathogens frequently target host cell antigen-processing pathways, including MHC-I–TAP peptide transporters, to evade host immunity. Blander and colleagues describe how MHC-I molecules can still cross-present antigen by re-routing ERGIC-resident MHC molecules to phagosomal vesicles, where phagolysosomal proteases act to shape the peptide repertoire for MHC-I presentation.

Epithelial cells are shown to scale via a shape distribution that is common to a number of different systems, suggesting that cell shape and shape variability are constrained through a relationship that is purely geometrical.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Similarities in cancers can be studied to interrogate their etiology. Here, the authors use genome-wide association study summary statistics from six cancer types based on 296,215 cases and 301,319 controls of European ancestry, showing that solid tumours arising from different tissues share a degree of common germline genetic basis.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Viral infection of the respiratory system induces exuberant fibroblast activity, resulting in extensive remodelling of the extracellular matrix and cytokine release, which promote immune cell infiltration of the affected area at the expense of respiratory function.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Post-international travel quarantine has been widely implemented to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but the impacts of such policies are unclear. Here, the authors used linked genomic and contact tracing data to assess the impacts of a 14-day quarantine on return to England in summer 2020.

COVID-19 can be associated with neurological complications. Here the authors show that markers of brain injury, but not immune markers, are elevated in the blood of patients with COVID-19 both early and months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in those with brain dysfunction or neurological diagnoses.

Genome-wide analyses identify common variants associated with 11 distinct neuropathology endophenotypes, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Non-human primates are important animal models for studying SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, Salguero et al. directly compare rhesus and cynomolgus macaques and show that both species represent COVID-19 disease of mild clinical cases, and provide a lung histopathology scoring system.

Paul Pharoah and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association study of ovarian cancer. They identify new susceptibility loci for different epithelial ovarian cancer histotypes and use integrated analyses of genes and regulatory features at each locus to predict candidate susceptibility genes, including OBFC1.

Douglas Easton, Per Hall and colleagues report meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for breast cancer, including 10,052 cases and 12,575 controls, followed by genotyping using the iCOGS array in an additional 52,675 cases and 49,436 controls from studies within the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). They identify 41 loci newly associated with susceptibility to breast cancer.

DNA repair in response to DSBs in the preimplantation embryo is hard to analyze. Here the authors show that over 25% of pre-existing heterozygous loci in control single blastomere samples appeared as homozygous after whole genome amplification, therefore, they validated gene editing seen in human embryos in ESCs.

A dataset of 16 plant traits sampled from 2,461 individual trees from 74 tropical forest sites around the world is used to show a strong link between climate and plant functional diversity and redundancy, with drier tropical forests likely being less able to respond to declines in water availability.

p114RhoGEF promotes RhoA activation at epithelial junctions. The junctional adaptor cingulin recruits p114RhoGEF to junctions, where it regulates junction formation through RhoA, Rock II and myosin II.

Oestrogen negative breast cancer is associated with a poor prognosis. In this study, the authors perform a meta-analysis of 11 breast cancer genome-wide association studies and identify four new loci associated with oestrogen negative breast cancer risk. These findings may aid in stratifying patients in the clinic.

CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing is used to induce a DNA repair response and correct a disease-causing heterozygous mutation in human embryos with reduced mosaicism and preferential repair using the wild-type copy of the gene.

A mutation in VRC01, a broadly neutralizing, HIV-1-specific antibody, confers enhanced binding to the neonatal Fc receptor, increasing the antibody half-life in the serum and localization in mucosal tissues, where it provides superior protection against rectal simian HIV-1 infection in macaques.

Interferon-inducible transmembrane (IFITM) protein 3 is shown to be an innate defence mechanism against viral infection in vivo; furthermore, a subset of the patients hospitalized during the H1N1 2009 pandemic carried a variant form of the IFITM3 gene.

Urbanization and economic development fuel demand for sand, used for concrete. This study finds that sediment loads are insufficient to replace the sand mined from the Mekong River delta, with mining rates high enough to make river banks unstable.

Stig Bojesen, Georgia Chenevix-Trench, Alison Dunning and colleagues report common variants at the TERT-CLPTM1L locus associated with mean telomere length measured in whole blood. They also identify associations at this locus to breast or ovarian cancer susceptibility and report functional studies in breast and ovarian cancer tissue and cell lines.

Invertebrates are key components in the ecological functioning of tropical forests. Here, Ewers et al. show that, compared to primary forest, logging halves the contribution of invertebrate species to several key ecosystem processes, including litter decomposition.

A region on chromosome 19p13 is associated with the risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. Here, the authors genotyped SNPs in this region in thousands of breast and ovarian cancer patients and identified SNPs associated with three genes, which were analysed with functional studies.

Antibodies elicited by vaccination with influenza vaccine produced in eggs bind more strongly to the egg-adapted vaccine strain than to wild-type circulating strains.

Previous studies identified an association between the 2q35 locus and breast cancer. Here, the authors show that a SNP at 2q35, rs4442975, is associated with oestrogen receptor positive disease and suggest that this effect is mediated through the downregulation of a known breast cancer gene, IGFBP5.

Most confirmed susceptibility variants for epithelial ovarian cancer lie in non-protein-coding sequences. Here Permuth-Wey and colleagues investigate variants in 3′ untranslated regions (UTRs) and uncover a new susceptibility locus.