Articles

Stuart Ainsworth and colleagues characterized the coagulopathic activity of snake venom and demonstrated that certain monospecific antivenoms can neutralize procoagulant venoms from more than one species. This study suggests a possibility of developing broad-spectrum, toxin-targeting antivenoms to treat snakebite victims.

Johannes Cairns et al. show that spatial structure and predation shape the ways in which a low concentration of antibiotics alters the composition and diversity of bacterial community. This study suggests that ecological factors influence how antibiotic resistance spreads.

Tomochika Fujisawa et al. report transcriptome sequencing and demographic history analysis of periodical cicadas from three species groups within the genus Magicicada. They find evidence of gene flow between 13- and 17-year species despite the long-term maintenance of divergent life cycles, which may be controlled by unidentified genomic factors.

Takumi Tashima and colleagues provide structural insights into how collagen fibrils are shaped by Osteomodulin. Osteomodulin keeps a fast-binding equilibrium with the collagen fibrils to slow down its growth, promoting the formation of uniform, intact collagen fibrils.

Xaver Koenig et al. demonstrate the physiological activation of store-operated calcium entry in muscle, pointing to a role for this mechanism. The resulting influx of calcium into the cytoplasm is shaped by action potential frequency and calcium pump activity.

Karol Cichewicz and Jay Hirsh developed a free, open-source, cloud-based application called ShinyR-DAM for analyzing Drosophila activity, sleep and circadian rhythms. ShinyR-DAM allows users to analyze their data quickly in customizable ways, improving the productivity of researchers.

Erwin Gowree et al. use wind tunnel experiments with life-sized models of the Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) to investigate the aerodynamic basis for the bird’s complex aerobatics. They found that a vortex dominated flow enables the bird to perform high-speed maneouvres with minimal drag.

Fabien Pifferi et al. report survival and age-related brain atrophy data in grey mouse lemurs fed either a normal diet or a diet restricted in calories by 30%. They find that caloric restriction extended life span by 50% and decelerated brain white matter atrophy, but accelerated the loss of grey matter, in most of the cerebrum.

Johannes Thoma et al. overexpress outer membrane proteins (Omps) in Escherichia coli and collect the expelled outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) to study Omp assembly, folding and structure. They find that Omps in OMVs show different unfolding pathways compared to Omps reconstituted in artificial lipid membranes.

Ingrid Schmid and colleagues identified and evaluated the physiological degradation of chemical modification sites of trastuzumab. This study suggests that in vitro PBS incubation studies can be used to predict the protein degradation sites in vivo for critical quality attribute assessment.

HoangDinh Huynh and Yihong Wan investigate the role of the mTORC1 pathway during osteoclastogenesis and find that the cytokine RANKL inactivates mTORC1 via calcineurin-mediated dephosphorylation, leading to activation of NFATc1 by reducing its phosphorylation. These findings have implications for bone diseases and mTORC1/NFATc1 signaling.

Kim et al. report a study of implicit sensorimotor adaptation using task-irrelevant clamped visual feedback and find that learning is constrained primarily by the size of the error correction rather than sensitivity to error. The results present a challenge to current models of adaptation and suggest a new framework to guide new models of this process.

Giuseppe Narzisi et al. present Lancet, a genome-wide somatic variant caller using localized colored de Bruijn graphs. Comparisons using real and simulated data show that Lancet has improved accuracy for single nucleotide variants and indels compared to widely used methods MuTect2, LoFreq and Strelka2.

Brian Brown et al. report the results of the Zurquí All Diptera Biodiversity Inventory project, one of the largest efforts to date to directly assess species richness of a megadiverse order of insects. The authors identified 41,001 flies to 4332 species, including 73 of the world's 160 Diptera families.

Stella Hubbart et al. show that over-expression of the photoprotective protein gene psbS leads to enhanced canopy-level radiation use efficiency and grain yield in rice. The results demonstrate that alterations to photoprotection and light-harvesting processes could be used to improve yield in rice crops.

Takashi Baba and colleagues show that the steroidogenic cell-specific nuclear receptor Ad4BP/SF-1 targets cholesterogenic genes. Given that cholesterol is a precursor of the steroid hormones, this study suggests that Ad4BP/SF-1 regulates the synthesis of cholesterol to boost the production of steroids.

Takashi Hamaji et al. report genome assemblies for two volvocine green algae species spanning the transition from isogamy to anisogamy. Unexpectedly, they found that both species’ mating type loci (MT) are simple, suggesting their transition to anisogamy occurred without increased MT size and complexity.

Katie Davis et al. test the hypothesis that ecological traits are linked to diversification in caridean shrimps. They find that transitions from marine to freshwater habitats contributed to higher diversification rates, whereas symbiosis is associated with a slight decrease in diversification rates.

Deo Singh et al. use Fully Quantified Spectral Imaging-FRET to show that the EphA2 receptor forms dimers or higher order oligomers depending on the type of ligand, and that different ligands stabilize EphA2 dimers through distinct interfaces. These findings may explain how EphA2 activates diverse signaling pathways.

Aimee Deaton et al. identify a rare missense variant in the bile acid receptor gene NR1H4, which is associated with lower levels of total cholesterol in the Icelandic population. Hepatocytes expressing the missense variant showed altered expression of a small number of genes, with enrichment in lipid-related pathways.