Current Issue | PLOS Biology

This collection of comment, review and opinion articles focuses on how recent technological advancements in omics approaches (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics etc.) have enhanced our understanding of the mechanisms governing tumor progression across spatial and temporal scales, from tumorigenesis to metastatic dissemination. The articles cover diverse topics such as how single-cell and spatial omics approaches have shed light on the evolution of cancer clones and revealed the complexities of the crosstalk between cancer cells and the tumor microenvironment, how cellular metabolism is rewired to meet the demands of the tumor, and the mechanisms of metastatic spread to distant organs. The image shows immunofluorescence staining of human bone metastases sections showing cancer cells marked by CK8/CK19 (red), macrophages labeled with CD68 (green), and nuclei counterstained with DAPI (blue).

Image Credit: Yujiao Han and Yibin Kang, Princeton University

Editorial

Unveiling cancer crosstalk: Mapping complexity across time and space

Yibin Kang

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003326

Essays

Applying multilevel selection to understand cancer evolution and progression

Lucie Laplane, Anaïs Lamoureux, Harley I. Richker, Gissel Marquez Alcaraz, Angelo Fortunato, Zachary Shaffer, Athena Aktipis, Paul S. Mischel, Anya Plutynski, Jeffrey P. Townsend, Carlo C. Maley

PLOS Biology: published July 18, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003290

Masters of adaptation: How cancer and immune cell plasticity mediates tumor progression

Sheera R. Rosenbaum, Kaiah M. Fields, Heide L. Ford

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003301

Decoding metastatic microenvironments through single-cell omics reveals new insights into niche dynamics and tumor evolution

Fengshuo Liu, Xiang H.-F. Zhang

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003299

Bi-directional metabolic reprogramming between cancer cells and T cells reshapes the anti-tumor immune response

Yajing Qiu, Yihan Xu, Xinyuan Ding, Congcong Zhao, Hongcheng Cheng, Guideng Li

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003284

Perspectives

Can the tumor neural niche be targeted to re-program cancer?

Erica K. Sloan, Joo Sang Lee

PLOS Biology: published July 21, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003266

Challenges and opportunities for the next generation of computational tumor models

Lance L. Munn, Rakesh K. Jain

PLOS Biology: published July 23, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003269

TiME for a change: The tumor microenvironment as the missing piece in cancer therapeutics

Jeremy Mo, Hanyun Zhang, Alexander Swarbrick

PLOS Biology: published July 24, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003276

Omics datasets can bridge the gap between tumor biology and patient care

Ji-Ting Huang, Lei-Jie Dai, Ding Ma, Zhi-Ming Shao

PLOS Biology: published July 28, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003279

Primers

A functional approach reveals cross-system bottom-up control on coral reefs

Sterling B. Tebbett, Scott D. Ling

PLOS Biology: published July 9, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003251

Neural activity patterns stabilize during wakefulness and conscious experience

Simon van Gaal

PLOS Biology: published July 11, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003252

H3K4me2 marks the enhancer: Enhancer logic in the zebrafish embryo

Noura Maziak, Juan M. Vaquerizas

PLOS Biology: published July 11, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003257

Research Articles

Nutrient connectivity via seabirds enhances dynamic measures of coral reef ecosystem function

Cassandra E. Benkwitt, Anna Zora, Ameer Ebrahim, Rodney Govinden, Ines D. Lange, Sean Evans, Melissa Schulze, Emma Cotton, Lucie Bennett, Nicholas A. J. Graham

PLOS Biology: published July 8, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003222

Mutation bias alters the distribution of fitness effects of mutations

Mrudula Sane, Shazia Parveen, Deepa Agashe

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003282

Degradation of extracellular polymeric substances shapes microbial community diversity

Sammy Pontrelli, Kian Bigovic Villi, Andreas Sichert, Julian Trouillon, Adriano Rutz, Zachary C. Landry, Simon H. Rüdisser, Roman Stocker, Uwe Sauer

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003287

Reward expectation yields distinct effects on sensory processing and decision making in the human brain

Ankita Sengupta, Devarajan Sridharan

PLOS Biology: published July 7, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003234

Goal-directed navigation in humans and deep reinforcement learning agents relies on an adaptive mix of vector-based and transition-based strategies

Denis C. L. Lan, Laurence T. Hunt, Christopher Summerfield

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003296

Sensory and motor contents are prioritized dynamically in working memory

Irene Echeverria-Altuna, Sage E. P. Boettcher, Freek van Ede, Anna C. Nobre

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003273

The human medial temporal lobe represents memory items in their ordinal position in both declarative and motor memory domains

Ainsley Temudo, Nina Dolfen, Bradley R. King, Genevieve Albouy

PLOS Biology: published July 7, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003267

Functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling modulate the enhancement effect of neurostimulation on mathematical learning

George Zacharopoulos, Masoumeh Dehghani, Beatrix Krause-Sorio, Jamie Near, Roi Cohen Kadosh

PLOS Biology: published July 1, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003200

Natural sounds can be reconstructed from human neuroimaging data using deep neural network representation

Jong-Yun Park, Mitsuaki Tsukamoto, Misato Tanaka, Yukiyasu Kamitani

PLOS Biology: published July 23, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003293

Regulation of working memory switches from striatal dopamine D2-receptor to D1-receptor neurons under high cognitive load

Xing-jun Chen, Fei Li, Xinyue Zhao, Long Chen, Jin Xue, Zhimo Yao, Zuobin Gan, Xiaoyue Lian, Zhenghao Liu, Luyao Tong, Qingshan Yan, Linan Qiu, Qin Wang, Jiang-fan Chen, Zhihui Li

PLOS Biology: published July 24, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003289

Long-term musical training can protect against age-related upregulation of neural activity in speech-in-noise perception

Lei Zhang, Bernhard Ross, Yi Du, Claude Alain

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003247

Layers of the monkey visual cortex are selectively modulated during electrical stimulation

Sangjun Lee, Zhihe Zhao, Ivan Alekseichuk, Jimin Park, Sina Shirinpour, Gary Linn, Charles E. Schroeder, Arnaud Y. Falchier, Alexander Opitz

PLOS Biology: published July 7, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003278

The locus coeruleus influences behavior by coordinating effective integration of fear memories and sensory input

Haoyu Duan, Tianyu Wang, Xinyang Zhang, Dan Xia, Zeyi Wang, Tsz Hei Fong, Tianxiang Li, Rongzhen Yan, Yang Zhan, Yulong Li, Wen-Jun Gao, Qiang Zhou

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003272

Behavioral inflexibility through overtraining is mediated by reduced mGluR1/5 signaling capacity in the dorsolateral striatum

Vincent Paget-Blanc, Anna Cavaccini, Alessandra Longaretti, Luca Nava, Massimo Trusel, Anna Rocchi, Maria Pennuto, Elena Marcello, Fabrizio Gardoni, Barbara Greco, Raffaella Tonini

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003288

Personalised regional modelling predicts tau progression in the human brain

Pavanjit Chaggar, Jacob W. Vogel, Alexa Pichet Binette, Travis B. Thompson, Olof Strandberg, Niklas Mattsson-Carlgren, Linda Karlsson, Erik Stomrud, Saad Jbabdi, Stefano Magon, Gregory Klein, with the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Oskar Hansson, Alain Goriely

PLOS Biology: published July 21, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003241

Mapping cerebral blood perfusion and its links to multi-scale brain organization across the human lifespan

Asa Farahani, Zhen-Qi Liu, Eric G. Ceballos, Justine Y. Hansen, Karl Wennberg, Yashar Zeighami, Mahsa Dadar, Claudine J. Gauthier, Alain Dagher, Bratislav Misic

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003277

Lineage trajectories and fate determinants of postnatal neural stem cells and ependymal cells in the developing ventricular zone

Jianqun Zheng, Yawen Chen, Yukun Hu, Yujian Zhu, Jie Lin, Manlin Xu, Yunlong Zhang, Weihong Song, Xi Chen

PLOS Biology: published July 30, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003318

Sox5 controls the establishment of quiescence in neural stem cells during postnatal development

Cristina Medina-Menéndez, Paula Tirado-Melendro, Lingling Li, Pilar Rodríguez-Martín, Elena Melgarejo-de la Peña, Mario Díaz-García, María Valdés-Bescós, Rafael López-Sansegundo, Aixa V. Morales

PLOS Biology: published July 28, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002654

CCDC66 regulation of cytoskeleton and cilia stability is important for signaling and epithelial organization

Jovana Deretic, Seyma Cengiz-Emek, Ece Seyrek, Elif Nur Firat-Karalar

PLOS Biology: published July 29, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003313

H3K4me2 distinguishes a distinct class of enhancers during the maternal-to-zygotic transition

Matthew D. Hurton, Jennifer M. Miller, Miler T. Lee

PLOS Biology: published July 10, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003239

Enhancing thymic function improves T-cell reconstitution and immune responses in aged mice

Abigail Morales-Sánchez, Marieke Lavaert, Melanie S. Vacchio, Gustavo Ulises Martinez-Ruiz, Daniel Egbase, Yongge Zhao, Ross Lake, Masaki Ishikawa, Fatima Zohra Braikia, Dragana Jankovic, Ranjan Sen, Rémy Bosselut, Avinash Bhandoola, Jennifer E. Cowan

PLOS Biology: published July 28, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003283

Group B Streptococci lyse endothelial cells to infect the brain in a zebrafish meningitis model

Sumedha Ravishankar, Samantha M. Tuohey, Nicole O. Ramos, Satoshi Uchiyama, Megan I. Hayes, Kalisa Kang, Victor Nizet, Cressida A. Madigan

PLOS Biology: published July 3, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003236

Plasma membrane remodeling in GM2 gangliosidoses drives synaptic dysfunction

Alex S. Nicholson, David A. Priestman, Robin Antrobus, James C. Williamson, Reuben Bush, Shannon J. McKie, Henry G. Barrow, Emily Smith, Kostantin Dobrenis, Nicholas A. Bright, Frances M. Platt, Janet E. Deane

PLOS Biology: published July 3, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003265

Mediator complex subunit MED23 dampens antiviral innate immunity by restricting RIG-I expression

De-fei Xiong, Yi-yang Zhang, Zhi-chao Wang, Yuan-ming Zheng, Han-qing Zhang, Gang Wang

PLOS Biology: published July 24, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003294

Loss of Pol III repressor Maf1 in neurons promotes longevity by preventing the age-related decline in 5S rRNA and translation

Bowen Xu, Alexander Hull, Olivia N. M. Hill, Naja Kobal, Enric Ureña, Linda Partridge, Nazif Alic

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003250

Influenza A virus induces PI4P production at the endoplasmic reticulum in an ATG16L1-dependent manner to promote the egress of viral ribonucleoproteins

Carla Alemany, Juliane Da Graça, Quentin Giai Gianetto, Maud Dupont, Sylvain Paisant, Thibaut Douché, Catherine Isel, Cédric Delevoye, Lydia Danglot, Mariette Matondo, Etienne Morel, Jean-Baptiste Brault, Nadia Naffakh

PLOS Biology: published July 16, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002958

A protein-specific priority code in presequences determines the efficiency of mitochondrial protein import

Saskia Rödl, Yasmin Hoffman, Felix Jung, Annika Egeler, Annika Nutz, Oliver Šimončík, Martin Jung, Markus Räschle, Petr Muller, Zuzana Storchová, Timo Mühlhaus, Johannes M. Herrmann

PLOS Biology: published July 21, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003298

Legionella effector LpPIP recruits protein phosphatase 1 to the mitochondria to induce dephosphorylation of outer membrane proteins

Kai-Qi Yek, Evie R. Hodgson, Ching-Seng Ang, Catherine S. Palmer, Ann E. Frazier, Hayley J. Newton, Diana Stojanovski

PLOS Biology: published July 23, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003261

Systematic screen uncovers regulator contributions to chemical cues in Escherichia coli

Christoph Binsfeld, Roberto Olayo-Alarcon, Lucía Pérez Jiménez, Morgane Wartel, Mara Stadler, André Mateus, Christian Müller, Ana Rita Brochado

PLOS Biology: published July 22, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003260

Structural elucidation of the haptoglobin–hemoglobin clearance mechanism by macrophage scavenger receptor CD163

Ching-Shin Huang, Hui Wang, Joshua B. R. White, Oksana Degtjarik, Cindy Huynh, Kristoffer Brannstrom, Mark T. Horn, Stephen P. Muench, William S. Somers, Javier Chaparro-Riggers, Laura Lin, Lidia Mosyak

PLOS Biology: published July 11, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003264

Short Reports

Arthropod biodiversity loss from nitrogen deposition is buffered by natural and semi-natural habitats

Shunxiang Fan, Tim Newbold, Jan C. Axmacher, Charlotte L. Outhwaite, Yi Zou, Zhenrong Yu, Yunhui Liu

PLOS Biology: published July 22, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003285

A major trade-off between growth and defense in Arabidopsis thaliana can vanish in field conditions

Derek S. Lundberg, Sonja Kersten, Ezgi Mehmetoğlu Boz, Pratchaya Pramoj Na Ayutthaya, Wangsheng Zhu, Karin Poersch, Wei Yuan, Sophia Swartz, David Müller, Ilja Bezrukov, HARVEST TEAM, Detlef Weigel

PLOS Biology: published July 14, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003237

Penguins exploit tidal currents for efficient navigation and opportunistic foraging

Richard M. Gunner, Flavio Quintana, Mariano H. Tonini, Mark D. Holton, Ken Yoda, Margaret C. Crofoot, Rory P. Wilson

PLOS Biology: published July 17, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002981

Altered auditory feature discrimination in a rat model of Fragile X Syndrome

D. Walker Gauthier, Noelle James, Benjamin D. Auerbach

PLOS Biology: published July 1, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003248

Pseudomonas intra-genus competition determines the protective function of synthetic bacterial communities in Arabidopsis thaliana

Anton Amrhein, Mingxiao Zhang, Stéphane Hacquard, Anna Heintz-Buschart, Kathrin Wippel

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002882

Phase separation of a PKA type I regulatory subunit regulates β-cell function through cAMP compartmentalization

Ha Neul Lee, Julia C. Hardy, Emily H. Pool, Jin-Fan Zhang, Su Hyun Kim, William F. Buhl, Jessica G.H. Bruystens, Sohum Mehta, Susan S. Taylor, Jin Zhang

PLOS Biology: published July 24, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003262

Methods and Resources

A comparison of viral strategies and model systems to target norepinephrine neurons in the locus coeruleus reveals high variability in transgene expression patterns

Chantal Wissing, Lena S. Eschholz, Maxime Maheu, Kathrin Sauter, Fabio Morellini, J. Simon Wiegert, Alexander Dieter

PLOS Biology: published July 7, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003228

A toolkit for mapping cell identities in relation to neighbors reveals conserved patterning of neuromesodermal progenitor populations

Matthew French, Rosa P. Migueles, Alexandra Neaverson, Aishani Chakraborty, Tom Pettini, Benjamin Steventon, Erik Clark, J. Kim Dale, Guillaume Blin, Valerie Wilson, Sally Lowell

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003244

Highly accurate image registration for 3D multiplexed cyclic imaging using dense labeling in expandable tissue gels

Hyunwoo Kim, Joon-Goon Kim, Jueun Sim, Hoyeon Nam, In Cho, Hyejin Shin, Junyoung Kwon, Dae-Hyeon Song, Seoungbin Bae, Young-Gyu Yoon, Taeyun Ku, Jae-Byum Chang

PLOS Biology: published July 3, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003240

Cilia in the brain display region-dependent oscillations of length and orientation

Roudabeh Vakil Monfared, Sherif Abdelkarim, Pieter Derdeyn, Kiki Chen, Hanting Wu, Kenneth Leong, Tiffany Chang, Justine Lee, Sara Versales, Surya M. Nauli, Kevin Beier, Pierre Baldi, Amal Alachkar

PLOS Biology: published July 11, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003197

Nondisruptive inducible labeling of ER-membrane contact sites using the Lamin B receptor

Laura Downie, Nuria Ferrandiz, Elizabeth Courthold, Megan Jones, Stephen J. Royle

PLOS Biology: published July 10, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003249

A comprehensive atlas of full-length Arabidopsis eccDNA populations identifies their genomic origins and epigenetic regulation

Syed Shan-e-Ali Zaidi, Sara Shakir, Hanne De Kort, Devang Mehta, Vu Nguyen, Ruben Gutzat, Hervé Vanderschuren

PLOS Biology: published July 15, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003275

MEANtools integrates multi-omics data to identify metabolites and predict biosynthetic pathways

Kumar Saurabh Singh, Hernando Suarez Duran, Elena Del Pup, Olga Zafra Delgado, Saskia C. M. van Wees, Justin J. J. van der Hooft, Marnix H. Medema

PLOS Biology: published July 28, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003307

Preregistered Research Article

Wakefulness can be distinguished from general anesthesia and sleep in flies using a massive library of univariate time series analyses

Angus Leung, Ahmed Mahmoud, Travis Jeans, Ben D. Fulcher, Bruno van Swinderen, Naotsugu Tsuchiya

PLOS Biology: published July 10, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003217

Update Article

Cuticular collagens mediate cross-kingdom predator–prey interactions between trapping fungi and nematodes

Han-Wen Chang, Hung-Che Lin, Ching-Ting Yang, Rebecca J. Tay, Dao-Ming Chang, Yi-Chung Tung, Yen-Ping Hsueh

PLOS Biology: published July 1, 2025 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003178

This page is brought to you by Brian Golding (Golding@McMaster.CA) and is copied locally here to speed your access. To go to the original page (should you find something interesting or should you wish to follow links) click on Current Issue of PLoSBiology

July 2025

Cover

Unveiling cancer crosstalk across spatial and temporal scales

Editorial

Related Articles

Essays

Related Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Perspectives

Related Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Primers

Related Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Research Articles

Related Articles

Related Articles

Short Reports

Methods and Resources

Preregistered Research Article

Related Articles

Update Article

Related Articles

This page is brought to you by Brian Golding (Golding@McMaster.CA) and is copied locally here to speed your access. To go to the original page (should you find something interesting or should you wish to follow links) click on

Current Issue of PLoSBiology