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Two studies report the application of high-throughput genome editing approaches to engineer many precise genetic variants and determine their functional impact in human and yeast cells.
A study in Nature describes RNA velocity, which is a computational method to derive dynamic gene expression information from static single-cell RNA sequencing data. It provides valuable insights into developmental trajectories of cells.
A study in Nature characterizes the genome of Denisova 11 and reveals her to be a first-generation offspring of Neanderthal and Denisovan parents, thereby providing direct evidence of genetic mixing between genetically distinct groups of archaic hominins.
Organoids are 3D structures derived from stem cells that recapitulate some key characteristics of real organs. The authors review recent progress in organoid derivation and applications and outline how advances in other disciplines might lead to more physiologically relevant organoids.
The repetitive nature of transposable elements (TEs) creates bioinformatic challenges that frequently result in them being disregarded (‘masked’) in analyses. As physiological and pathological roles for TEs become increasingly appreciated, this Review discusses bioinformatics tools dedicated to TE analysis, including for genomic annotation, TE classification, identifying polymorphisms and assessing likely functional impacts.
The genomes of East African cichlid fish have yielded new insights into adaptive radiation and suggest that specific genomic features underlie their propensity for explosive diversification. The author reviews these findings and the challenges of reconstructing the evolutionary history of rapidly diversifying clades.
In this Review, Sheth and Wang describe emerging synthetic biology approaches for using DNA as a memory device for recording cellular events, including the various methodological steps from detecting diverse signals, converting them into DNA alterations and reading out and interpreting the recorded information. Furthermore, they discuss potential applications as biotechnological and environmental biosensors.
