Browse Articles

The arrival of action potentials at nerve terminals often leads to synchronous neurotransmitter release. Medrihan and colleagues use electrophysiology on mouse hippocampal neurons to show that the vesicle protein Synapsin II promotes GABAergic asynchronous release by interacting with calcium channels.

Glasses are solid when cold, but when mixed with the correct dye can be fluidized by light. Fang et al.show that each photon absorbed in an azobenzen-based molecule layer produces an efficient local heating up to 800 K to melt the glass but without altering the average temperature.

Dysregulation of centrosome size and number is frequently associated with cancer. Fogeron et al. construct a protein-interaction network to identify proteins that are relevant for centrosome abnormalities in cancer, and show that deregulation of LGALS3BP affects centrosomal biogenesis.

Inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatases, such as PIB5PA, terminate signalling downstream of phosophoinositide-3 kinase; however, their biological roles remain unclear. Here the authors report that PIB5PA has a tumour suppressive role in melanoma.

A number of methylome sequencing technologies depend on affinity purification of methylated DNA. Zhang et al. demonstrate a click-chemistry-based protocol for covalently labelling 5-methylcytosine residues with biotin, providing enhanced sensitivity and specificity compared with antibody-based enrichment.

Photo-stimulation can be used to control neuronal circuits, but current strategies lack optimal precision and resolution. Reutsky-Gefen et al. demonstrate a potential approach for vision restoration via holographically patterned, optogenetic stimulation of retinal ganglion cells, with temporal precision.

The use of III-V semiconductor nanowires can overcome the need for lattice matching in multi-junction solar cells, which restricts the choice of materials and their bandgaps. This work demonstrates efficient solar cells with GaAsP single nanowires with tunable bandgap and grown on low-cost Si substrates.

Laser-plasma accelerators can produce giga electronvolt energy electrons over centimetre scales, but their properties depend on the initial injection into the accelerator. Corde et al.study self-injection of electrons into the plasma wake and identify both transverse and longitudinal injection mechanisms.

It is thought that during the mid-Pliocene warm period the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) must have been stronger than today. Here, using proxy data compilation and simulation, Zhang et al.show that the two observations used to support stronger AMOC may not necessitate its increased strength.

Silicene is a silicon-based analogue of graphene, but with subtle and potentially useful differences. Wei-Feng Tsai and colleagues show that these differences could be exploited to build electrically-gated silicene devices that generate and control spin-polarized currents with near perfect efficiency.

Irradiation treatment for cancer therapy often causes irreparable damage to adult organs. Knox and colleagues study irradiated mouse submandibular salivary glands and find that restoring parasympathetic nerve function with the neurotrophic factor neurturin improves regeneration.

The recognition of viruses by synthetic materials is historically difficult. Here, a templating procedure using silica nanoparticles coated with organosilanes is used to form virus-imprinted particles, possessing both shape and chemical imprints, capable of virus recognition at picomolar concentrations.

Human cancer genomes often contain large amounts of single-nucleotide substitutions (SNS). Liu et al. catalogued SNS signatures across various cancer and normal genomes, demonstrating coordinative effects between replication timing and nuclear architecture on SNS patterns in cancer genomes.

Current pharmacokinetic models describe the distribution of drugs within tissues but usually lack single-cell resolution. Here Weissleder and colleagues visualize the subcellular distribution of an anticancer drug in real time in living animals and develop a model to extrapolate these findings to humans.

The motion of liquid drops on surfaces is governed by adhesion forces, but the microscopic mechanism is unclear. Paxson et al. image the dynamic distortion of the edge of a droplet as it moves across a surface, allowing them to predict the wetting ability of different hierarchically textured surfaces.

In many solution systems, nanometre-sized structural units are present before nucleation, but little is known about these pre-nucleation clusters. Habraken et al.show that, for the crystallization of calcium phosphate, these nanometre-sized units are calcium triphosphate complexes.

RNA detection is important in biomedical research and largely relies on the reverse transcription–PCR reaction. Zhao et al.report an isothermal reaction, which involves cleavage by a DNAzyme and signal amplification, to simultaneously amplify and detect RNA.

A link between smoking and the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease has been implicated in humans. In this study, transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease exposed to cigarette smoke display increased disease abnormalities in the brain, such as amyloidogenesis, neuroinflammation and tau phosphorylation.

Ryanodine receptors are calcium-release channels located in the membrane of the sarcoplasmic and endoplasmic reticulum. Kimlicka et al.compare pseudo-atomic models of the N-terminal area in the open and closed states and characterize the mutations in the N-terminal that disrupt channel opening.

Bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan is essential for viability and shape determination. Using high-resolution microscopy, Foster and colleagues elucidate the peptidoglycan architecture and insertion pattern in Escherichia coliand other Gram-negative bacteria, and propose a new model for cell wall elongation.