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Genetics: Role of
mutation in fly-wing evolution
Analysis of wing
variation within and between fly species reveals an
unexpectedly slow evolutionary rate. Variations due to
mutation and interspecific differences are similar,
perhaps as a result of complex genetic
interactions.
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Neurobiology: A
bitter–sweet symphony
Information
about taste sensations, such as bitter or sweet, is
relayed from the mouse tongue to the brain through
taste-specific pathways. It emerges that semaphorin
proteins guide the wiring of these
pathways.
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Climate science:
Origins of Atlantic decadal swings
Temperature
variability in the North Atlantic Ocean is the result of
many competing physical processes, but the relative
roles of these processes is a source of contention.
Here, scientists present two perspectives on the
debate.
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New gliding
mammaliaforms from the Jurassic
Maiopatagium,
a haramiyid from the Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation
(around 160 million years ago) of China was specialised
for gliding with a patagium (wing membrane) and a fused
wishbone, reminiscent of that of birds.
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Identification of
essential genes for cancer immunotherapy
The
authors describe a two-cell-type CRISPR screen to
identify tumour-intrinsic genes that regulate the
sensitivity of cancer cells to effector T cell
function.
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Satellite-to-ground
quantum key distribution
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Rewiring the taste
system
Taste-receptor
cells use distinct semaphorins to guide wiring of the
peripheral taste system; targeted ectopic expression of
SEMA3A or SEMA7A leads to bitter neurons responding to
sweet tastes or sweet neurons responding to bitter
tastes.
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Chaotic dynamics in
nanoscale NbO2 Mott memristors for analogue
computing
A relaxation
oscillator incorporating nanoscale niobium dioxide
memristors that exhibit both a current- and a
temperature-controlled negative differential resistance
produces chaotic dynamics that aid biomimetic
computing.
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Electronic in-plane
symmetry breaking at field-tuned quantum criticality in
CeRhIn5
Electronic
nematicity is observed in a heavy-fermion
superconductor, CeRhIn5, suggesting a close
link between unconventional superconductivity and the
appearance of nematicity.
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mRNA 3′ uridylation
and poly(A) tail length sculpt the mammalian maternal
transcriptome
TUT4 and TUT7
mediate 3′ uridylation of mRNA transcripts,
preferentially those with short poly(A) tails; in the
absence of TUT4 and TUT7, oocytes cannot mature and
female mice are infertile.
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Structural insights
into ligand recognition by the lysophosphatidic acid
receptor LPA6
Determination of
the crystal structure of the zebrafish LPA6
receptor shows that the lipid ligand binds to an unusual
ligand-binding pocket in the receptor that is laterally
accessible through the membrane.
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m6A mRNA
methylation controls T cell homeostasis by targeting the
IL-7/STAT5/SOCS pathways
The authors
assess the role of N
6-methyladenosine in T cell development
and function, and show that RNA methylation controls T
cell homeostasis by regulating IL-7-mediated STAT5
activation.
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Genome-scale
activation screen identifies a lncRNA locus regulating a
gene neighbourhood
Long noncoding
RNAs are investigated using a CRISPR–Cas9 activation
screen and shown to confer BRAF inhibitor resistance on
melanoma cells through various local
mechanisms.
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An early modern human
presence in Sumatra 73,000–63,000 years ago
Morphological
analysis of teeth found at Lida Ajer shows that these
belong to Homo sapiens, indicating that modern
humans were in Sumatra between 73,000 and 63,000 years
ago.
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Mutation predicts 40
million years of fly wing evolution
A detailed
analysis of fly wing phenotypes reveals a strong
positive relationship between variation produced by
mutation, standing genetic variation, and evolutionary
rate over the past 40 million years.
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New evidence for
mammaliaform ear evolution and feeding adaptation in a
Jurassic ecosystem
The fossil of a
gliding mammal from the Tiaojishan Formation of China
displays many unique features of its ears, teeth and
tooth-replacement pattern, illustrating the great
diversity of stem mammals living in the Jurassic
period.
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Ground-to-satellite
quantum teleportation
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Communications Arising |
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Charles River has proudly partnered with
the EBD Group to provide the scientific program
for this year's BioPharm America Conference™. Be a part of this
two-day conference that aims to bridge the gap
between drug discovery and clinical application.
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Genetic origins of the
Minoans and Mycenaeans
New genome-wide
data for ancient, Bronze Age individuals, including
Minoans, Mycenaeans, and southwestern Anatolians, show
that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically very
similar yet distinct, supporting the idea of continuity
but not isolation in the history of populations of the
Aegean.
Iosif
Lazaridis, Alissa Mittnik, Nick Patterson et
al. |
High-temperature
crystallization of nanocrystals into three-dimensional
superlattices
A bottom-up
process to achieve rapid growth of micrometre-sized
three-dimensional nanocrystal superlattices during
colloidal synthesis at high temperatures is revealed by
in situ small-angle X-ray scattering; the process
is applicable to several colloidal
materials.
Liheng
Wu, Joshua J. Willis, Ian Salmon McKay et
al. |
Global patterns of
drought recovery
A global
analysis of gross primary productivity reveals that
drought recovery is driven by climate and carbon
cycling, with recovery longest in the tropics and high
northern latitudes, and with impacts increasing over the
twentieth century.
Christopher
R. Schwalm, William R. L. Anderegg, Anna M. Michalak
et al. |
Artificial light at
night as a new threat to pollination
The
pollination service provided by nocturnal flower
visitors is disrupted near streetlamps, which leads to a
reduced reproductive output of the plant that cannot be
compensated for by daytime pollinators; in addition, the
structure of combined nocturnal and diurnal pollination
networks facilitates the spread of the consequences of
disrupted night-time pollination to daytime
pollinators.
Eva
Knop, Leana Zoller, Remo Ryser et al.
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No large population of
unbound or wide-orbit Jupiter-mass planets
In an
analysis of a large sample of microlensing events, a few
suggest the existence of Earth-mass free-floating
planets, but only the expected number of Jupiter-mass
free-floating objects were detected.
Przemek
Mróz, Andrzej Udalski, Jan Skowron et
al. |
Enhanced sensitivity
at higher-order exceptional points
The response of
a ternary, parity–time-symmetric system that exhibits a
third-order exceptional point increases as a function of
the cube-root of induced perturbations.
Hossein
Hodaei, Absar U. Hassan, Steffen Wittek et
al. |
Derivation of
ground-state female ES cells maintaining gamete-derived
DNA methylation
Derivation of
female mouse embryonic stem cells under certain
conditions induces a loss of DNA methylation and erasure
of genomic imprints, which are not recovered and that
may contribute to observed impaired
development.
Masaki
Yagi, Satoshi Kishigami, Akito Tanaka et
al. |
Exceptional points
enhance sensing in an optical microcavity
Tuning
optical microcavities to exceptional points enhances
their ability to sense nanoscale objects, owing to the
topological features of exceptional
points.
Weijian
Chen, Şahin Kaya Özdemir, Guangming Zhao et
al. |
Higher-order
interactions stabilize dynamics in competitive network
models
Communities that
are very rich in species could persist thanks to the
stabilizing role of higher-order interactions, in which
the presence of a species influences the interaction
between other species.
Jacopo
Grilli, György Barabás, Matthew J. Michalska-Smith
et al. |
Metabolic control of
TH17 and induced Treg cell balance
by an epigenetic mechanism
Metabolic
changes in T cells can affect the genomic methylation
status of key transcription factors and regulate the
fate decision between induced regulatory T cells and T
helper 17 cells.
Tao
Xu, Kelly M. Stewart, Xiaohu Wang et al.
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Prolonged Mek1/2
suppression impairs the developmental potential of
embryonic stem cells
Long-term
culture of male embryonic stem cells in naive conditions
containing Mek1/2 and Gsk3a/b inhibitors leads to
irreversible changes in epigenetic and genomic stability
that compromise their in vivo developmental
potential.
Jiho
Choi, Aaron J. Huebner, Kendell Clement et
al. |
Tumours with class 3
BRAF mutants are sensitive to the inhibition of
activated RAS
Hypoactive BRAF
mutants bind more tightly than wild type to the upstream
regulator RAS, thus amplifying ERK signalling; tumours
expressing these mutants require coexistent mechanisms
for RAS activation to grow and are sensitive to their
inhibition.
Zhan
Yao, Rona Yaeger, Vanessa S. Rodrik-Outmezguine et
al. |
A Braf kinase-inactive
mutant induces lung adenocarcinoma
Kinase-inactive
Braf mutants can initiate the development of lung
adenocarcinoma in mice; co-expression of activated Kras
enhances tumour initiation and progression, and
wild-type Braf is required to sustain
tumorigenesis.
Patricia
Nieto, Chiara Ambrogio, Laura Esteban-Burgos et
al. |
Proteins evolve on the
edge of supramolecular self-assembly
Introducing a
single ‘sticky’ (hydrophobic) amino acid by point
mutation into symmetric protein complexes frequently
triggers their association into higher-order assemblies,
without affecting their native fold and
structure.
Hector
Garcia-Seisdedos, Charly Empereur-Mot, Nadav Elad et
al.
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