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Evolution: An avian
explosion
The genome
sequences of 198 bird species provide an unprecedented
combination of breadth and depth of data, and allow the
most robust resolution so far of the early evolutionary
relationships of modern birds.
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Biological techniques:
Kidney tissue grown from induced stem cells
Engineered human
cells that can give rise to every cell type have been
induced to generate structures that resemble an
embryonic kidney. This advance charts a course towards
growing transplantable kidneys in
culture.
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Cryo-electron
microscopy structure of the Slo2.2
Na+-activated K+
channel
The structure of
the full-length Slo2.2 Na+-activated
K+ channel is determined by cryo-electron
microscopy, revealing features that explain the high
conductance and gating mechanism of the Slo
K+ channel family.
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Projections from
neocortex mediate top-down control of memory
retrieval
Here, a sparse
neuronal projection from a part of the prefrontal
cortex, the anterior cingulate, to the hippocampus is
identified that, when activated, can elicit memory
retrieval in mice.
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Control of REM sleep
by ventral medulla GABAergic neurons
Activation of
GABAergic neurons in the ventral medulla can reliably
induce REM sleep and prolong the duration of REM
episodes in mice.
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Hedgehog actively
maintains adult lung quiescence and regulates repair and
regeneration
It is generally
thought that the quiescence of tissue is not actively
maintained, but rather a state reflecting the absence of
proliferative signal; here the authors find that
quiescence is actively maintained by paracrine hedgehog
signalling provided by the epithelium in the mouse adult
lung, and that hedgehog is dynamically regulated during
injury repair and resolution for proper restoration of
tissue homeostasis after injury.
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Alternative
transcription initiation leads to expression of a novel
ALK isoform in cancer
A novel ALK
transcript expressed in a subset of human cancers,
arising from a de novo alternative transcription
initiation site within the ALK gene, is
described; the ALK transcript encodes three
protein isoforms that stimulate tumorigenesis in
vivo in mouse models; resultant tumours are
sensitive to treatments with ALK inhibitors, indicating
a possible therapeutic avenue for patients expressing
these isoforms.
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A two-qubit logic gate
in silicon
A high-fidelity
two-qubit CNOT logic gate is presented, which is
realized by combining single- and two-qubit operations
with controlled phase operations in a quantum dot system
using the exchange interaction.
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Peptoid nanosheets
exhibit a new secondary-structure motif
Some
peptoids—synthetic structural relatives of
polypeptides—can assemble into two-dimensional
nanometre-scale sheets; simulations and experimental
measurements show that these nanosheets contain a motif
unique to peptoids, namely zigzag Σ-strands, which
interlock and enable the nanosheets to extend in two
dimensions only.
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The genetic
sex-determination system predicts adult sex ratios in
tetrapods
An analysis of
344 species of tetrapods (birds, mammals, reptiles and
amphibians) shows that taxa in which the female is
heterogametic tend to have a more male-biased sex ratio;
the mechanisms driving the association are unclear, but
sex-determination systems are likely to have important
consequences for the social behaviour and demography of
tetrapods.
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Kidney organoids from
human iPS cells contain multiple lineages and model
human nephrogenesis
The kidney
arises from two types of progenitors; here, the
signalling conditions that induce the production of
collecting ducts and functional nephrons from human
pluripotent stem cells are determined, and organoids
that recapitulate the functional regionalization of the
kidney are produced.
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A comprehensive
phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation
DNA sequencing
A phylogeny of
birds is presented from targeted genomic sequencing of
198 species of living birds representing all major avian
lineages; the results find five major clades forming
successive sister taxa to the rest of Neoaves and do not
support the recently proposed Neoavian clades of
Columbea and Passerea.
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Erratum: Arithmetic
and local circuitry underlying dopamine prediction
errors
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Erratum: A positional
Toll receptor code directs convergent extension in
Drosophila
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The effect of malaria
control on Plasmodium falciparum in Africa
between 2000 and 2015
In this study,
the authors present an analysis of the malaria burden in
sub-Saharan Africa between 2000 and 2015, and quantify
the effects of the interventions that have been
implemented to combat the disease; they find that the
prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum infection has
been reduced by 50% since 2000 and the incidence of
clinical disease by 40%, and that interventions have
averted approximately 663 million clinical cases since
2000, with insecticide-treated bed nets being the
largest contributor.
S.
Bhatt, D. J. Weiss, E. Cameron et al.
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HIV-1 Nef promotes
infection by excluding SERINC5 from virion
incorporation
The
transmembrane protein SERINC5 is identified as a potent
inhibitor of HIV-1 particle infectivity that is
counteracted by Nef; Nef redirects SERINC5 from the
plasma membrane to a Rab7-positive endosomal
compartment, thus excluding it from HIV-1 particles,
emphasizing the potential of SERINC5 as a potent
anti-retroviral factor.
Annachiara
Rosa, Ajit Chande, Serena Ziglio et al.
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SERINC3 and SERINC5
restrict HIV-1 infectivity and are counteracted by
Nef
The
transmembrane proteins SERINC3 and SERINC5 are
identified as new restriction factors for HIV-1
replication; this restriction is counteracted by Nef and
glycoGag, which prevent SERINC3 and SERINC5 from
becoming incorporated into HIV-1 virions and from
profoundly blocking HIV-1 infectivity, suggesting a
potential new therapeutic strategy for immunodeficiency
viruses.
Yoshiko
Usami, Yuanfei Wu, Heinrich G. Göttlinger |
Glycine receptor
mechanism elucidated by electron
cryo-microscopy
A
high-resolution electron cryo-microscopy structure of
the zebrafish α1 glycine receptor bound to agonists or
antagonists reveals the conformational changes that take
place when the channel transitions from closed to open
state.
Juan
Du, Wei Lü, Shenping Wu et al.
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The genomic landscape
of response to EGFR blockade in colorectal
cancer
The effect of
somatic genetic changes in colorectal cancer on
sensitivity to anti-EGFR antibody therapy is
analysed.
Andrea
Bertotti, Eniko Papp, Siân Jones et al.
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Crystal structure of
human glycine receptor-α3 bound to antagonist
strychnine
The X-ray
crystal structure of the human glycine receptor in the
presence of strychnine, an antagonist, reveals how
antagonist binding leads to closure of the channel
pore.
Xin
Huang, Hao Chen, Klaus Michelsen et al.
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Dilution of the cell
cycle inhibitor Whi5 controls budding-yeast cell
size
Saccharomyces
cerevisiae controls its cell size through the
differential size-dependency of the synthesis of the
cell cycle activator Cln3 relative to the cell cycle
inhibitor Whi5.
Kurt
M. Schmoller, J. J. Turner, M. Kõivomägi et
al. |
Mediator kinase
inhibition further activates super-enhancer-associated
genes in AML
A small-molecule
inhibitor of the Mediator-associated kinases CDK8 and
CDK19 inhibits growth of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML)
cells and induces upregulation of
super-enhancer-associated genes with tumour suppressor
and lineage-controlling functions; Mediator kinase
inhibition therefore represents a promising therapeutic
approach for AML.
Henry
E. Pelish, Brian B. Liau, Ioana I. Nitulescu et
al. |
Fast-moving features
in the debris disk around AU Microscopii
High-contrast
imaging of the nearby, young, active late-type star AU
Microscopii reveals five mysterious large-scale features
in the southeast side of its debris disk, moving away
from the star.
Anthony
Boccaletti, Christian Thalmann, Anne-Marie Lagrange
et al. |
Two-channel Kondo
effect and renormalization flow with macroscopic quantum
charge states
Zero-temperature
quantum phase transitions and their associated quantum
critical points are believed to underpin the exotic
finite-temperature behaviours of many strongly
correlated electronic systems, but identifying the
microscopic origins of these transitions can be
challenging and controversial; Iftikhar et al.
(see also the related paper by Keller et al.)
show how such behaviours can be engineered into
nanoelectronic quantum dots, which permit both precise
experimental control of the quantum critical behaviour
and its exact theoretical
characterization.
Z.
Iftikhar, S. Jezouin, A. Anthore et al.
|
Palaeomagnetic field
intensity variations suggest Mesoproterozoic inner-core
nucleation
Analysis of a
database of Precambrian palaeomagnetic intensity
measurements reveals a clear transition in the Earth’s
magnetic field that is probably the signature of the
inner core first forming, suggesting a modest value of
core thermal conductivity and supporting a simple
thermal evolution model for the Earth.
A.
J. Biggin, E. J. Piispa, L. J. Pesonen et
al. |
Plasticity-driven
individualization of olfactory coding in mushroom body
output neurons
Neuronal
representations of sensory stimuli tend to become sparse
and decorrelated, with different odours giving rise to
fewer neuronal spikes in rare neurons, as signal
processing moves up to higher brain layers; here
comprehensive recording from the Drosophila
olfactory processing centre finds instead some highly
correlated tuning curves that vary flexibly from animal
to animal.
Toshihide
Hige, Yoshinori Aso, Gerald M. Rubin et
al. |
Universal Fermi liquid
crossover and quantum criticality in a mesoscopic
system
Zero-temperature
quantum phase transitions and their associated quantum
critical points are believed to underpin the exotic
finite-temperature behaviours of many strongly
correlated electronic systems, but identifying the
microscopic origins of these transitions can be
challenging and controversial; Keller et al. (see
also the related paper by Iftikhar et al.) show
how such behaviours can be engineered into
nanoelectronic quantum dots, which permit both precise
experimental control of the quantum critical behaviour
and its exact theoretical
characterization.
A.
J. Keller, L. Peeters, C. P. Moca et al.
|
Identification of
carbohydrate anomers using ion mobility–mass
spectrometry
The branched
structure and stereoisomerism of carbohydrates make them
difficult to analyse; here, ion mobility–mass
spectrometry is used to distinguish unambiguously
between synthetic trisaccharides that differ in
connectivity or configuration.
J.
Hofmann, H. S. Hahm, P. H. Seeberger et
al. |
Sex‐specific
demography and generalization of the Trivers–Willard
theory
The
Trivers–Willard theory proposing that maternal condition
influences offspring sex ratio is extended by analysing
how differences in mortality rates, age‐specific
reproduction and life history tactics between males and
females may affect adaptive offspring sex ratio
adjustment in two systems.
Susanne
Schindler, Jean‐Michel Gaillard, André Grüning et
al. |
A novel locus of
resistance to severe malaria in a region of ancient
balancing selection
A multi-centre
genome-wide association study of severe malaria in
African children uncovers a new resistance locus close
to a cluster of genes encoding glycophorins, which are
receptors used by the malaria-causing parasite to invade
red blood cells.
Malaria
Genomic Epidemiology Network
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