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  • Nanoparticle therapy continues to be an attractive avenue of targeted and personalised therapies. A molecular nano-conjugate developed by Zeng et al. effectively targets cancer cells and aids in their diagnosis, therapy, and also optimises innate immune responses.

    • Sharmistha Chatterjee
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Despite ample investigation on cis-regulatory alterations in evolution, the contribution of these effects to environmental adaptation is poorly understood. Ballinger and colleagues dissected the cis- and trans-regulatory impact on gene expression associated with the adaptation of house mice to temperate and tropical climates, highlighting potential mechanisms acting at a short evolutionary timescale.

    • Christina Paliou
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • The physical properties of the cells and proteins surrounding a tumor play a crucial role in determining the spread of the cancer. How they change cancer cells to suppress the immune response against them is an interesting question addressed in a recent study from Liu et al., which describes how increased stiffness of the tissue around the tumor decreases the amount of a protein—cyclic GMP-AMP synthase—in cancer cells, ultimately blocking the immune response to cancer.

    • Joel P. Joseph
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • As a monogamous species, the prairie vole is a common model for social neuroscience. Gustison and colleagues mapped a whole-brain histological atlas of the prairie vole and used this atlas to identify a neural network of pair-bonding behaviour. The study reveals coordinated neural networks in mated pairs and highlights the influence of social bonding on neural processing in the adult prairie vole brain.

    • Lindsey T. Thurston
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Nanopores have the potential to revolutionize the field of protein sequencing, but due to the biochemical complexity of polypeptide sequences, they have remained mostly theoretical. In recent work, Sauciuc et al. engineer the protein nanopore CytK to produce an electroosmotic force capable of translocating unfolded polypeptides regardless of their charge distributions, an important step toward single-file protein nanopore sequencing.

    • Jelle van der Hilst
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Plant organs shift their directional growth in response to environmental stimuli through tropisms. Arabidopsis roots exhibit positive hydrotropism (towards water) and negative phototropism (away from light). In a recent study, Pang and colleagues demonstrated that root phototropism is regulated by the activity of two proteins in the elongation zone that also play essential roles in hydrotropism.

    • Hannah Vahldick
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • The cerebellum is more than just motor control: over the past 30 years, the notion that the “little brain” participates in cognitive functions and emotional response has grown to encompass social-related behaviors. Chao et al. bring to light the role of the cerebellar vermis in orchestrating a specific component of social memory in mice.

    • Viviane M. Saito
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Retinal degenerative diseases are often multifaceted and difficult to treat, instead requiring more targeted or personalized therapeutic solutions. Recent work by Liu et al. reveals one such pipeline to engineer extracellular vesicles that can selectively reduce the spread of retinal inflammation and prevent the progression of vision loss in rodent models of retinal degeneration. This approach is representative of a new wave of precision medicines with the potential to treat these otherwise incurable diseases.

    • Yvette Wooff
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Dr. Rui Seabra studies the thermal landscapes of rocky shores across the world and how environmental complexity drives species’ distributions and vulnerability to global warming. He co-leads the Coupled Coastal Temperature and Biodiversity Observation Network (CCTBON), a network aimed at monitoring patterns of rocky shore temperatures and biodiversity patterns across the Atlantic Ocean. In this Q&A we discuss the challenges of biodiversity research at the global scale.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Analysis of the association between Altmetric scores and the gender of first and last authors of articles published in top cardiovascular research journals shows that women receive on average less attention for their work.

    • Marc J. Lerchenmueller
    • Leo Schmallenbach
    • Carolin Lerchenmüller
    CommentOpen Access
  • Dr. Chris Wallace is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, Director of Research, and Principal Investigator in the Department of Medicine and a Programme Leader in the MRC Biostatistics Unit (BSU) at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Guillermo Reales is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Wallace’s group, where he recently co-authored a Comment evaluating the impact of sharing summary statistics on average citation rates of genome-wide association studies (GWASs). In this Q&A, we discussed the inspiration for their recent analysis on GWAS summary statistics, the importance of open data, and potential barriers or paths to data sharing in genomics.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Although liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) has been extensively studied in various cellular and organismal contexts, the link between functional influence of a genetic mutation and LLPS with respect to human diseases is poorly understood. A recent article by Mensah et al. looks at a rare genetic disease to identify a frameshift mutation, which triggered aberrant phase separation and nucleolar dysregulation, linking genetic variants to a dysregulation of biomolecular condensates.

    • Sumangal Roychowdhury
    • Krishnananda Chattopadhyay
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • March 31st marks Transgender Day of Visibility, an opportunity to celebrate and elevate the achievements of the transgender community. As part of our annual celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility, we reached out to Leland Graber and Dr. Ezra Kottler, two early-career transgender biologists who shared their own experiences and perspectives on improving support systems for the transgender research community.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Although we have come a long way in breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health conditions, we still have a long way to go. Here we speak to Dr Anna Schueth - a postdoc and passionate advocate whose blogs and other efforts are leading the way in changing academia towards a direction that will allow everyone to thrive as their authentic selves and to get the support they need.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Behavioral results suggest that learning by trial-and-error (i.e., reinforcement learning) relies on a teaching signal, the prediction error, which quantifies the difference between the obtained and the expected reward. Evidence suggests that distinct cortico-striatal circuits are recruited to encode better-than-expected (positive prediction error) and worst-than-expected (negative prediction error) outcomes. A recent study by Villano et al.1 provides evidence for differential networks that underlie learning from positive and negative prediction errors in humans using real-life behavioral data. More specifically, they found that university students are more likely to update beliefs concerning grade expectations following positive rather than negative prediction errors.

    • Henri Vandendriessche
    • Stefano Palminteri
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • A review of citation rates from genomic studies in the GWAS Catalog suggests that sharing summary statistics results, on average, in ~81.8% more citations, highlighting a benefit of publicly sharing GWAS summary statistics.

    • Guillermo Reales
    • Chris Wallace
    CommentOpen Access
  • Cilia assembly and function require intraflagellar transport (IFT), a mechanism that uses “trains” to transport cargoes into and out of cilia. While much has been learned about IFT in the past decades, IFT train assembly, loading of cargo and transport regulation have remained poorly understood. In a recent study, Hesketh, Mukhopadhyay and colleagues obtained the complete structure of the IFT-A complex, a key element of IFT trains. By modelling IFT-A into anterograde trains and performing structure-guided mutagenesis, the authors uncover how the IFT-A complex polymerizes and forms carriages to accomplish its distinctive functions.

    • Francisco Gonçalves-Santos
    • Maria J. G. De-Castro
    • Tiago J. Dantas
    Research HighlightOpen Access