Browse Articles

Two new papers in Nature report copy-number-based classification systems across cancer types that provide routes for personalized therapy.

A report in Cell takes single-cell CRISPR screens to genome scale and demonstrates how the transcriptional phenotypes can be used to resolve gene functions.

Molecular measures of biological ageing based on high-throughput omics technologies are enabling the quantitative characterization of ageing. The authors review how epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and other omics data can be harnessed using machine learning to build ‘ageing clocks’.

In this Comment, the authors highlight caveats about using African ethnicities as population categories in genomics research and emphasize the need for an Africa-oriented humanities research agenda to inform genomics research.

In this Review, Kim and Kingston discuss the compositional and mechanistic diversity of Polycomb repressive complexes (PRCs) and how their context-dependent formation may be required for proper epigenetic regulation in development.

tRNA function and gene expression profiles are dynamically regulated by post-transcriptional tRNA modifications. Here, Orellana et al. discuss the canonical role of tRNAs in mRNA translation, focusing on alterations in tRNA abundance or function implicated in human diseases.

Somatic mutations accumulate with age in the genome of healthy individuals. Franco and Eriksson posit that recent sequencing data indicate a functional role for this increased mutational load in ageing and age-associated diseases.

In this Editorial, we reflect on the field’s responsibility around the potential uses and abuses of genetics and genomics research.

In this Journal Club, Itay Tirosh highlights a 2011 publication by Gupta et al., which showed that cells undergo frequent stochastic transitions between distinct states in breast cancer cell lines.

Gegenhuber et al. now show that, in mice, a neonatal surge in oestradiol activates oestrogen receptor-α to drive a sustained male-typical gene expression programme that determines brain sexual differentiation.

Dupont and Wickström review the current understanding of how mechanical forces regulate chromatin state and gene expression and discuss the importance of this mechanosensitive gene regulation to physiology and disease.

To mark the bicentenary of Gregor Mendel’s birth, the authors reflect on progress in the application of genetics and genomics to delivering a cure for sickle cell disease, a classic Mendelian disorder.

Commemorating the 200th birthday of Gregor Mendel, Kim Nasmyth reflects on Mendel’s life and legacy and how his work has shaped and defined the field of modern genetics.

A new study presents GLUE (graph-linked unified embedding), a generalizable computational framework for integrating unpaired single-cell multi-omics data and for inferring regulatory interactions.

A recent study reports the development of Stereo-seq (spatial enhanced resolution omics-sequencing) and its application to generate a spatiotemporal transcriptomic atlas of mouse organogenesis.

Gene loss is followed by the rapid emergence of new phenotypes owing to compensatory evolution, finds a recent study using experimental evolution of budding yeast lineages.

Levo et al. used quantitative single-cell live imaging to analyse the transcriptional dynamics of fly paralogues separated by long genomic distances, to determine whether they are co-regulated.

Publicly available sequencing data can be used as external common controls for rare variant analyses but cautious sample ascertainment and processing is needed to avoid bias and confounding. The authors review opportunities and challenges for the robust use of common controls in genetic studies, including study design, infrastructure and quality control considerations.

Lillian Musila highlights a paper by Quick et al., which reported the use of portable nanopore sequencing for on-site, real-time genomic surveillance during the 2014–2016 Ebola virus epidemic.

Elizabeth Mason recalls a seminal study by Raj et al., who used single-molecule approaches to expose principles governing how genes in a network cooperate to buffer perturbation while maintaining essential cellular functions.