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Quantifying whether different populations share similar effect sizes of common causal variants is vital to understand the genetic basis of disease and build better prediction models. A new study proposes a method leveraging admixture to estimate the correlation of causal genetic variants and finds they are largely similar across ancestry backgrounds.
This analysis of individuals of admixed genetic ancestries suggests that complex trait causal variant effect sizes are, by and large, similar across ancestries, and discusses the implications for the study of these and other diverse populations.
We introduce molecular and cellular criteria — based on morphology, ploidy, CpG island methylation and immune infiltration — that improve the characterization of malignant pleural mesothelioma. These criteria reveal adaptation strategies that are adopted by tumor cells and offer new possibilities for classification and clinical management.
Meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for endometriosis identify 49 distinct association signals. Fine-mapping of causal variants explores functional effects across various tissues. Genetic correlations between endometriosis and other pain conditions are also highlighted.
Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses and systematic variant-to-gene mapping strategies implicate new genes and pathways influencing lung function and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk.
Transitional liver progenitor cells (TLPCs), which derive from biliary epithelial cells (BECs), differentiate into hepatocytes after serious liver damage. Notch and WNT/β-catenin signaling regulate BEC-to-TLPC and TLPC-to-hepatocyte conversions, respectively.
Premalignant stromal cells from women with germline BRCA1 mutations exhibit increased expression of secreted factors regulating epithelial homeostasis in a paracrine fashion. These secreted factors, such as MMP3, promote premalignant epithelial changes including elevated proliferation and altered differentiation of a subpopulation of luminal progenitor cells.
Targeted sequencing finds a higher burden of rare protein-truncating variants in constrained genes among schizophrenia cases of diverse ancestries. Meta-analyses with existing datasets show that this excess burden is consistent across five ancestral populations.
A cross-ancestry genomic and transcriptomic cohort of gastric cancer highlights significantly mutated genes and mutational signatures, some of which are ancestry-specific.
Current risk assessment and treatment strategies for venous thromboembolism (VTE) consider genetic factors only in a limited way. New work shows a more pervasive role of common variants in VTE risk, inspiring genetic predictors that surpass and complement individual clinical risk factors and monogenic thrombophilia testing.
Immune dN/dS is the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous mutations in the MHC-bound immunopeptidome. Application of immune dN/dS to cancer datasets shows that it distinguishes immune evasion and escape and predicts response to immunotherapies.
The canonical BRG1/BRM-associated factor (cBAF) complex is recruited by HNF1A/B to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) enhancers, promoting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Inhibition of the catalytic activity of SMARCA4 precludes ACE2 expression and reduces susceptibility to SARS-CoV-1 and major SARS-CoV-2 variants.
The expression of murine endogenous retrovirus-L (MERVL) is transiently upregulated at the two-cell stage in mouse embryos, coinciding with zygotic genome activation and the acquisition of totipotency; however, its role in embryogenesis remains elusive. We show that nuclear expression of MERVL is required for accurate regulation of the host transcriptome and chromatin state during preimplantation development.