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Practitioners in the field of single-cell omics are now faced with diverse options for analytical tools to process and integrate data from various molecular modalities. In an Expert Recommendation article, the authors provide guidance on robust single-cell data analysis, including choices of best-performing tools from benchmarking studies.
Two studies analysing ancient hunter-gatherer genomes report detailed insights into the history and interactions of West Eurasian hunter-gatherer groups and highlight the genetic replacement of entire Ice Age populations.
In this Review, the authors discuss the latest advances in profiling multiple molecular modalities from single cells, including genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic and proteomic information. They describe the diverse strategies for separately analysing different modalities, how the data can be computationally integrated, and approaches for obtaining spatially resolved data.
A paper in Science reports that circadian gene expression in humans is affected by sex and age, findings that might explain differential disease prevalence among these groups and have implications for treatment.
This Review discusses the importance of understanding the mechanisms by which specific allelic variants and allelic combinations cause disease for accurately diagnosing, treating and counselling individuals with genetic disorders.
Nandita Garud recalls two seminal papers by Hermisson and Pennings that provide a framework for understanding when adaptation should be gradual versus rapid.
A collection of articles in Nature describe insights into disease-associated genetic variants obtained from the genetically isolated Finnish population.
Julio Collado-Vides recalls two 2005 publications that provide a conceptual framework based on a statistical thermodynamics approach to quantitatively model the regulatory activity at promoters subject to regulation by multiple transcription factors.
In this Review, the authors discuss our latest understanding of evolutionary genetic changes that are specific to humans, which might endow uniquely human traits and capabilities. They describe how new cellular and molecular approaches are helping to decipher the functional implications of these human-specific changes.
This journal club by Elisa Oricchio highlights two studies published in 2012, which used chromatin conformation capture methods to detect the formation of self-interacting chromatin regions, known as topologically associating domains (TADs).
Magda Bienko highlights a landmark paper by Lieberman-Aiden et al., which in 2009 reported the development of high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C), revolutionizing the field of 3D genome biology.
Two studies have revealed that the characteristic distribution of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) — an RNA modification known to be functionally important for mRNA metabolism among other processes — in mRNA is shaped by the exon junction complex during splicing.
Environmental pollutants have been shown to disrupt molecular mechanisms underlying common complex diseases. The authors review the interplay of environmental stressors with the human genome and epigenome as well as other molecular processes, such as production of extracellular vesicles, epitranscriptomic changes and mitochondrial changes, through which the environment can exert its effects.
In this Review, Munir Pirmohamed provides an overview of the current state of the pharmacogenomics field, using examples of clinically relevant drug–gene associations, before outlining the steps needed for implementation of pharmacogenomics into clinical practice. The role of pharmacogenomics in drug discovery and development is also considered.
Two new studies in Nature Biotechnology describe cellular recording systems that incorporate time-resolved optical signals into self-assembling protein filaments.
In this Journal club, Meritxell Huch recalls a dogma postulated by Hayflick in 1961, that the capacity for propagating primary epithelial cells with normal ploidy is limited — a theory that persisted until the advent of organoid cultures.