Genetics articles from across Nature Portfolio

Adapting plant architecture to tolerate dense planting is an important strategy for enhancing maize yields. A newly identified mutant gene confers a ‘smart canopy’ architecture, with upright upper leaves, less-erect middle leaves and relatively flat lower leaves. Plants with this gene yield more grain under high-density planting than their wild-type counterparts do.

To understand the genetic basis of disease, it is essential to study diverse populations. We conducted the largest study to date of African men to evaluate the evolutionary genetics and causes of prostate cancer. Our findings reveal novel genetic associations, including those that were not observed in studies of non-African populations.

Bacteria in the gut have been shown to cause the severe side effects associated with treating blood diseases with genetically dissimilar, and thus immunologically incompatible, blood stem cells (allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation). An enzyme derived from viruses that infect these bacteria demonstrates potential for eradication therapy.

Here, the authors perform a rare-variant analysis of whole-genome sequence data that takes advantage of three global biobanks. They identify 29 novel rare variants associated with human height, and demonstrate an approach for identifying non-coding rare variants in regulatory regions with large effects from whole-genome sequencing data.

The genomic basis of local adaptation can contribute to predicting species’ future maladaptation. This study shows that local adaptation in European beech is genetically complex, with current analyses only skimming the surface of the encoded information, highlighting the need for bigger data.

In this largest whole-exome sequencing study of epilepsies to date, the Epi25 Collaborative identified extremely rare variants that confer risk for diverse epilepsy subtypes, highlighting roles in synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability.

Adapting plant architecture to tolerate dense planting is an important strategy for enhancing maize yields. A newly identified mutant gene confers a ‘smart canopy’ architecture, with upright upper leaves, less-erect middle leaves and relatively flat lower leaves. Plants with this gene yield more grain under high-density planting than their wild-type counterparts do.

To understand the genetic basis of disease, it is essential to study diverse populations. We conducted the largest study to date of African men to evaluate the evolutionary genetics and causes of prostate cancer. Our findings reveal novel genetic associations, including those that were not observed in studies of non-African populations.

Bacteria in the gut have been shown to cause the severe side effects associated with treating blood diseases with genetically dissimilar, and thus immunologically incompatible, blood stem cells (allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation). An enzyme derived from viruses that infect these bacteria demonstrates potential for eradication therapy.

Analyses of transcription and translation identify newly evolved genes and translated sequences (open reading frames) unique to hearts from human and non-human primates, suggesting that these genetic innovations might influence cardiac development and disease.

CRISPR screens in cell cultures reveal cancer dependencies yet often miss the metabolic nuances of tissues. In this Comment, Zuber and Palm highlight how modelling tumour-specific metabolic conditions can enhance our understanding of cancer biology and improve therapeutic discovery.

Bolognini et al. report evidence of positive selection for human amylase gene duplications associated with the agricultural revolution.