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One common cause of vision loss after retinal detachment surgery is retinal scarring. Here the authors demonstrate that a bio-functional polymer can prevent retinal scarring by suppression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition and hyper-proliferation of retinal pigment epithelial cells.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

This overview of the ENCODE project outlines the data accumulated so far, revealing that 80% of the human genome now has at least one biochemical function assigned to it; the newly identified functional elements should aid the interpretation of results of genome-wide association studies, as many correspond to sites of association with human disease.

Filamin C is a key actin-binding protein involved in cardiomyopathies and musculoskeletal disorders. Here, Wang et al reveal that it interacts with the heat shock protein HSPB7 under biomechanical stress, forming a stable hetero-dimer which is regulated by phosphorylation.

The demand for soft robots urges the development of new light-responsive materials for remotely powered actuation. Here, Wie et al. show directional motion over centimeter scales using azobenzene-functionalized liquid crystalline polymer films upon continuous radiation from ultraviolet to visible light.

Vaccines against the WA1 SARS-CoV2 strain confer protection against other variants. However, the mechanisms underlying cross-protection are not fully understood. Here, the authors develop a method for rapid analysis of single B cells from patient samples and show that infection with a variant elicits convergent, public B cell responses to other variants.

Using well-calibrated statistical methods the authors jointly analyze Undiagnosed Diseases Network genomes, identifying known and novel disease genes. Software is publicly available to support future cross-cohort rare disease discovery efforts.

Panzeri et al. use a Trim28^+/D9 mouse model with intrinsic developmental heterogeneity to show that ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ developmental morphs exhibit different timing, type and severity of cancer, linked to a relevant DNA hypomethylation signature.

Singlet fission may one day allow solar cells to produce two excited electrons with one photon. Now, by comparison of the time-resolved photoluminescence and sensitized triplet–triplet annihilation of a tetracene derivative, it has been shown that—contrary to previous reports—the excimer state is a trap, and not a necessary intermediate for singlet fission.

Combined data from three large studies, with a total sample size of around 50,000 individuals, indicate that many previous studies linking the brain to complex phenotypes have been statistically underpowered, producing inflated and irreproducible effects.

This study combines lattice light sheet microscopy and single molecule imaging to study protein dynamics and chromatin structure in live cells. The authors describe how nucleosomes and proteins move and are organised in relation to chromatin density.

Galsky and colleagues report the results of a phase 1 clinical trial of anti-programmed cell death protein 1 ligand 1 atezolizumab in combination with PGV001, a personalized neoantigen vaccine, in participants with urothelial cancer.

On the basis of data from >329,000 migratory birds, this study presents multispecies migratory connectivity as a parameter representing exposure to global change and shows that connections between breeding regions in Canada and non-breeding regions in South America are at greatest risk from global change.

A detailed parcellation (map) of the human cerebral cortex has been obtained by integrating multi-modal imaging data, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the resulting freely available resources will enable detailed comparative studies of the human brain in health, ageing and disease.

Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCE) exhibit shape transformation when subjected to various stimuli, but the achievable thickness of LCE films is limited. Here the authors demonstrate arbitrarily thick LCE films that are continuous in composition and maintain the director orientation, prescribed into the material.

Genomic studies often lack representation from diverse populations, limiting equitable insights. Here, the authors show that the BIG Initiative captures extensive genetic diversity and reveals ancestry-linked health disparities in a community-based Mid-South cohort.

Here, the authors show in a cohort of people with HIV, COVID mRNA vaccination is followed by a transient boost in a particular profile of HIV-specific T-cell responses and a corresponding decrease in residual HIV RNA – suggesting productive immune engagement with infected cells.

Here the authors reveal that a neomorphic mutation in chromatin protein SMCHD1 enhances SMCHD1-mediated gene silencing, including at the FSHD disease-relevant locus, while depleting SMCHD1-mediated chromatin interactions, suggesting these SMCHD1 functions are unlinked.

Lei et al. systematically characterized the epistasis among natural mutations in the neuraminidase of human influenza H3N2 virus, which provide insights into the biophysical constraints that shaped its evolution trajectory over the past half-century.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

We evaluated the use of chimeric antigen receptor-modified T cells targeting GD2 (GD2-CART) for H3K27M⁺ diffuse midline glioma (DMG), finding that intravenous administration of GD2-CART, followed by intracranial infusions, induced tumour regressions and neurological improvements in patients with H3K27M-mutant pontine or spinal DMG.

Mice lacking A Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase 9 (ADAM9) do not mount Type 1 interferon responses against encephalomyocarditis infection. Here, Bazzone et al show that ADAM9 regulates innate immune responses via by MDA5.

Goldenberg et al. show that we tend to overestimate the average intensity of a sequence of emotional expressions and that this is caused by increased memory for stronger expressions.

Cells form non-pathological amyloids to survive stressful conditions. Marijan et al. show that heat shock-induced aggregation is self-regulated by protein stability, with high-ordered motifs acting as thermo-switches that control amyloidogenesis.

Oligodendrocyte (OL) injury and loss is a pathologic hallmark of multiple sclerosis. Here, the authors show the presence of stress granules in OLs in multiple sclerosis lesions, and their in vitro studies in human OLs indicate that stress granules formation is a response to a combination of metabolic stress and pro-inflammatory conditions.

Spontaneous parthenogenesis in sunflower has been used to develop a scalable doubled haploid breeding system.

Wastewater surveillance is used to monitor pharmaceuticals related to respiratory diseases in parallel with four respiratory viruses. The results demonstrate the potential of pharmaceutical surveillance to assess emerging public health threats.

A superlattice structure of gold tetrahedra formed via a surface-promoted pathway is reported. The octo-diamond crystal is achiral, but exhibits bilayers of left- and right-handed chiral motifs with chiroptical plasmonic responses.

Despite being essential to organic chemistry, the curly arrow notation of reaction mechanisms has been treated with suspicion due to its unclear connection with quantum mechanics. Here, the authors show that analysis of wavefunction 'tiles' along a reaction coordinate reveals the electron motion depicted by curly arrows.

Greenland’s ice loss depends on propagation of mass loss from the marine glacier termini to the interior. An analysis of surface elevation change in 16 glacier catchments shows that the up-glacier extent of thinning is limited by glacier geometry.

Here the authors train multivariate logistic regression models on over 52,000 MTBC isolates to associate binary resistance phenotypes for 15 antitubercular drugs with variants extracted from candidate resistance genes, and generate a regression-based catalogue of resistance-associated mutations that achieves higher sensitivity on average than the gold standard with smaller average decreases in specificity and positive predictive value.

A review of observation-based evidence suggests that four interconnected Earth system tipping elements have moved towards their critical thresholds, highlighting the need for better monitoring and increased mitigation efforts.

Lu and colleagues show that signaling through the lactate receptor HCAR1 in colorectal tumor cells promotes the recruitment of immunosuppressive CCR2⁺ PMN-MDSCs and that inhibition of HCAR1 by reserpine augments the CD8⁺ T cell-mediated antitumor immune response.

In this phase 1 trial, treatment of patients with ER⁺HER2⁻ metastatic breast cancer with a selective catalytic inhibitor of the lysine acetyltransferase KAT6 shows a manageable safety profile and encouraging preliminary clinical efficacy.

Biological nitrogen fixation may impose stronger constraints on the carbon sink in natural terrestrial biomes and represent a larger source of agricultural nitrogen than is generally considered in analyses of the global nitrogen cycle.

The mechanism and extent to which transposons can alter the gene expression of their hosts is not well understood. This study finds that in the IS3 family of transposable elements in E.coli, de-novo promoter activity could evolve from single point mutations, most often from existing proto-promoter sequences.

Sustainable catalysts based on main-group elements, such as frustrated Lewis pairs, have emerged as alternatives to precious metal systems. Here the authors show that the charge-transfer band between P(mes)₃ and B(C₆F₅)₃ can be analyzed by supramolecular UV-vis spectroscopic techniques to provide the key thermodynamic parameter for the active encounter complex.

Carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli, carrying bla_NDM-5-IncX3 plasmids, can persist in chickens either under the presence of amoxicillin or without any antibiotic. Transcriptional regulator VirBR can promote transmission of IncX3 plasmid and persistence of bla_NDM-5 in zoonotic bacteria.