Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
As highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, digital solutions are becoming essential for the provision of clinical genetics services. However, as this Comment emphasizes, the use of digital tools alone can exacerbate genomic and technological disparities and must be balanced with the merits of face-to-face interactions.
Structural variants have proved difficult to characterize using traditional sequencing approaches. In two new studies in Cell, the authors demonstrate the use of pan-genome approaches to identify and explore the impact of structural variants in crop genomes and reveal variants linked to specific agronomic traits.
A new study in Nature Methods presents the ‘ZipSeq’ spatial transcriptomics approach, whereby patterned illumination is used to print barcodes onto chosen tissue regions.
Epigenetic clocks translate the DNA methylome into a biological age but usually work only within a species. Now, a study in Cell Systems reports a cross-species epigenetic clock that works across a number of mammals, including humans, dogs and mice.
A study in Nature analysing genome-wide variation in individuals from islands across Polynesia reports evidence of admixture with Native Americans related to Indigenous inhabitants of northern South America.
The capacity to regenerate tissue varies across different species and tissue types. The poor regenerative capacity of organs such as the heart and nervous system contributes to the aetiology of a number of serious diseases, including heart failure and Alzheimer disease. In this Review, Goldman and Poss discuss how genetic programmes of regeneration are regulated and how the control mechanisms might be adapted to treat human disease.
In this Review, several experts discuss progress in the decade since the development of transposon-based approaches for bacterial genetic screens. They describe how advances in both experimental technologies and analytical strategies are resulting in insights into diverse biological processes.
Wilkinson and colleagues discuss haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self-renewal in mice and humans. Experimental techniques for assaying HSC self-renewal are addressed, along with biological mechanisms regulating HSC self-renewal in vivo and ex vivo, and the therapeutic implications of this understanding.
The role of DNA methylation in genomic imprinting and X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) is well documented, but other imprinting mechanisms exist. Here, the authors review the role of oocyte-derived histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation in establishing autosomal imprinting and imprinted XCI.
