Biological sciences

Monocytes recruited to skin infection are not involved in bacterial clearance but instead regulate local angiogenesis and healing.

Sequencing of individual human lymphocyte clones shows that they are highly prone to mutations, with higher burdens in memory cells than in naive cells arising from mutational processes associated with differentiation and tissue residency.

Copy number variations inferred from spatial transcriptomics data in benign and malignant tissue reveal clonal architecture at the organ-wide level.

A bacterial antiviral defence system generates a cyclic tri-adenylate that binds to a TIR–SAVED effector, inducing formation of a superhelical structure with adjacent TIR domains organizing into an active site, allowing NAD⁺ degradation.

Truncation of exon 18 of FGFR2 (FGFR2^ΔE18) is a potent driver mutation in mice and humans, and FGFR-targeted therapy should be considered for patients with cancer expressing stable FGFR2^ΔE18 variants.

Warmer spring temperatures affect the timing of stem diameter growth of temperate deciduous trees but have little effect on annual growth.

A synthetic cell-cell adhesion logic using swarming E. coli with 4 bits of information is introduced, enabling the programming of interfaces that combine to form universal tessellation patterns over a large scale.

A time-resolved high-resolution map of human cardiac remodelling after myocardial infarction, integrating single-cell transcriptomic, chromatin accessibility and spatial transcriptomic data, provides a valuable resource for the field.

Spatial and single-cell transcriptomic characterization of microglia in the mouse somatosensory cortex show that the state of these cells is determined by signals from diverse surrounding neurons.

Experiments in mice show that a LINE-1 transposable element, Lx9c11, has a functional role in immunity by negatively regulating the response to viral infection to protect the host from an over-reactive immune response.

The survival of southern boreal tree saplings decreases in response to even modest warming and reduced rainfall, which,together with species-specific growth responses, could lead to regeneration failure of currently dominant tree species.

A boreal conifer is advancing northwards into Arctic tundra, with this treeline advance facilitated by climate warming together with winter winds, deeper snow and increased soil nutrient availability.

Nutrient manipulation of low-phosphorus soil in an old growth Amazon rainforest shows that phosphorus availability drives forest productivity and is likely to limit the response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

Histone deacetylation at the onset of mitosis induces a chromatin-intrinsic phase transition that endows chromosomes with the physical characteristics necessary for their precise movement during cell division.

To understand the contribution of variants to transcript expression regulation, long-read transcriptome data are generated from the GTEx resource, and a new software package to perform allele-specific analysis is developed.

Using a combination of methods, the mechanism of the antibiotic teixobactin is revealed.

cis-RNA editing quantitative trait loci, which are associated with immunogenic double-stranded RNAs, underlie genome-wide association study variants in common autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

The nucleus-like compartment formed in bacteria during infection by jumbo phage 201phi2-1 is composed of the bacteriophage protein chimallin, which can self-assemble into closed compartments in vitro.

The visual network in mice develops in a modular manner with initial establishment of parallel modules followed by their concatenation.

BNSTpr^Esr1 activity is required to gate the transition from appetitive to consummatory male social behaviours towards both sexes, by controlling sex- and behaviour-specific representations in VMHvl and MPOA, respectively.

Biochemical and lipidomic analyses identify an anti-ferroptotic function of vitamin K and reveal ferroptosis suppressor protein 1 (FSP1) as the enzyme mediating warfarin-resistant vitamin K reduction in the canonical vitamin K cycle.

Inhibiting the asialoglycoprotein receptor ASGR1 increases cholesterol excretion to the bile and then faeces, providing a unique way to lower cholesterol, and therefore providing a safe and effective way to treat cardiovascular disease.

Systematic measurements of the interactions between proteins found on the surfaces of human leukocytes provides a global view of the way that immune cells are dynamically connected by receptors.

Mild cold exposure activates a substantial amount of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in a patient with cancer, reducing tumour-associated glucose uptake, and activation of BAT in mice inhibits the growth of tumours by decreasing blood glucose and impeding glycolysis-based metabolism in cancer cells.

OrganEx—an extracorporeal pulsatile-perfusion system with cytoprotective perfusate for porcine whole-body settings—preserved tissue integrity, decreased cell death and restored selected molecular and cellular processes across multiple vital organs after 1 h of warm ischaemia in pigs.

Retro-Cascorder, a system for time-ordered recording of transcriptional output, uses retrons as a tag to mediate DNA barcode acquisition in a CRISPR array.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the bacterial protein machinery that is involved in the production and function of nitrous oxide provide insight into the assembly pathway of this enzyme and the mechanisms of copper transport.

Experiments in mice show that although ketamine has positive reinforcement properties, which are driven by its action on the dopamine system, it does not induce the synaptic plasticity that is typically observed with addiction.

Examination of archaeological pottery residues and modern genes suggest that environmental conditions, subsistence economics and pathogen exposure may explain selection for lactase persistence better than prehistoric consumption of milk.

The PI3K–PANK4 axis regulates coenzyme A synthesis, the abundance of acetyl-CoA, and CoA-dependent processes such as lipid metabolism, and these regulatory mechanisms coordinate cellular CoA supplies with the demands of hormone and growth-factor-driven or oncogene-driven metabolism and growth.

The developing pelvis in birds revisits its dinosaurian state before transitioning to the characteristic avian form, providing evidence of terminal addition during evolution.

Overall, this study describes the molecular mechanism of a druggable pathway that recapitulates in cellular assays the immunomodulatory effects associated with Akkermansia muciniphila, a prominent member of the gut microbiota.

Experiments in mice alternating between a visual working memory task and a task that is independent of working memory provide insight into the neural representation of working memory and the distributed nature of its maintenance.

Cryptococcus neoformans secretes CPL1 protein, which induces alternative activation of macrophages via Toll-like receptor 4 in mice and is essential for fungal virulence.

Through structural analysis of the activation of bacterial STING, the molecular basis of STING filament formation and TIR effector domain activation in antiphage signalling is defined.

To measure selection on variants, whole-genome sequencing of approximately 150,000 individuals from the UK Biobank is used to rank sequence variants by their level of depletion.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the filamentous hydrogen-dependent CO₂ reductase (HDCR) enzyme from Thermoanaerobacter kivui, together with enzymatic analysis and in situ cryo-electron tomography, provides insight into the high catalytic activity of HDCR.