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One of the determinants of the neuronal subtype produced from retinal progenitor cells is their proliferative potential. Here the authors show that mTORC1 promotes progenitor cell cycle progression and hence accelerated development in mouse retina through induction of the immunoproteasome which enhances the degradation of cyclins.
Loss of fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) leads to fragile X syndrome, associated with cognitive dysfunction. Here the authors show that mice lacking FMRP show reduced hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive deficits, which can be rescued by reducing histone acetylation.
Cortical malformations have a variety of causes. Here the authors use transposon mutagenesis to insert mutations into neural stem cells in the developing mouse cortex to screen for new candidate genes for cortical malformation, and validate some targets in human brain tissue.
Melanoma patients harbouring BRAFV600E mutation generally develop resistance to targeted therapy. In this study, the authors demonstrate that SREBP-1-mediated induction of lipid biosynthesis contributes to therapy resistance in BRAF mutant melanoma.
Despite decades of research, the sequence of events leading to the deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise remains unclear. Menviel et al. show that Southern Ocean convection driven by intensified Southern Hemisphere westerlies during Heinrich stadial 1 can explain the abrupt pCO2 rise and changes in atmosphere and ocean carbon isotopes.
Mitochondrial DNA fragments are rapidly degraded when double strand breaks occur. Here the authors reveal that the exonuclease activity of polymerase gamma is important for efficient degradation of these fragments and to avoid formation of large deletions.
Fear memories are overcome only when it is ascertained that fearful responses are not appropriate. Here the authors demonstrate that activity in dopamine neurons is necessary to extinguish fear responses and two distinct dopamine neuron projections exert opposing effects on extinction learning.
Many factors are involved in end joining (EJ) repair of double strand breaks. Here the authors present a method to identify a chromosomal break repair event that requires classical non homologues end joining (C-NHEJ) using Cas9-based end joining tools, and define a role of CNHEJ factor XLF in repair.
Brain activity is driven, in part, by external stimuli and demands, but internal brain states also change over time. Here, the authors use a novel Bayesian algorithm to track dynamic transitions between hidden neural states in human brain activity and to relate brain dynamics with behavior.
Decision-making involves parallel information processing regarding what stimulus dimension to pay attention to and what action to take. Here, the authors show that vmPFC tracks the value of the attended attribute while dACC tracks the degree to which it is attended.
Some animals have multimodal locomotive capabilities to survive in different environments. Inspired by nature, Chen et al. build a centimeter-scaled robot that is capable of walking on water, underwater, on land, and transiting among all three, whose ‘feet’ break water by modifying surface tension.
The betweenness centrality is a metric commonly used in network analysis. Here the authors show that the distribution of this metric in urban street networks is invariant in the case of 97 cities. This invariance could affect network flows, dynamics and congestion management in cities.
The authors demonstrate a 3-tier mass spectrometry approach, including bottom-up and top-down proteomics, as well as native mass spectrometry to provide a detailed description of proteoforms, protein processing and post-translational modifications present within ribosomes from bacteria, plant, and human.
Mitochondrial populations in cells may consist of heteroplasmic mixtures of mtDNA types, and their evolution through development, aging and generations is central to genetic diseases. Here the authors dissect these population dynamics using a large mouse-based data set to characterise the dynamics of heteroplasmy mean and variance throughout life and across generations.
Adult-type granulosa cell tumors of the ovary (aGCTs) are rare and recurrence is difficult to treat. Here, the authors observe in aGCT a novel recurrent somatic truncating mutation of KMT2D, more frequent in recurrent aGCT, and also non-genetic loss of KMT2D expression.
In glioma STAT3 signaling contributes to gliomagenesis. Here, the authors show that Smad6 expression correlates with poor survival and is overexpressed in glioma cells, and regulates STAT3 activity via negatively regulating PIAS3.
Few structural isomers of colloids, with identical masses but different structures, have been identified. Here, the authors observe an interesting example of structural isomerism in a pair of semiconductor magic-size clusters, which reversibly transform between one another with first-order unimolecular reaction kinetics.
(3200) Phaethon is a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1983 that has large inclination and eccentricity. Here, the authors perform polarimetric observation of Phaethon over a wide range of solar phase angle and report that the asteroid exhibits a very strong linear polarization.
Identifying new compounds with intrinsically high conversion efficiency is the key to demonstrating next-generation thermoelectric modules. Here, Zhu et al. report the discovery of p-type ZrCoBi-based half Heuslers with thermoelectric conversion efficiency of 9% and large high-temperature stability.
Catabolizing lignin-derived aromatic compounds requires an aryl-O-demethylation step. Here the authors present the structures of GcoA and GcoB, a cytochrome P450-reductase pair that catalyzes aryl-O-demethylations and show that GcoA displays broad substrate specificity, which is of interest for biotechnology applications.