Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 122, Number 13
This Week in PNAS
Science and Culture
Commentaries
Perspective
Recent findings show that stereotyped movement sequences (habits) need the cortex
in the learning phase, but after learning, the cortex can be inactivated, and the
movement still be performed flawlessly. The motor program is dependent on the sensorimotor
...
Letters
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Physical Sciences
Applied Physical Sciences
Friction forces are essential for cell movement, yet they also trigger numerous active
cellular responses, complicating their measurement in vivo. Here, we introduce a synthetic
model designed to measure friction forces between biomimetic membranes and ...
Magnetically responsive, mechanically flexible microstructures are desirable for applications
ranging from smart sensors to remote-controlled actuation for surgery or robotics.
Embedding magnetic nanoparticles into a thin matrix of elastic material ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
The origin of eukaryotes represents one of the most significant events in evolution
since it allowed the posterior emergence of multicellular organisms. Yet, it remains
unclear how existing regulatory mechanisms of gene activity were transformed to allow
...
Chemistry
Liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) has been achieved in various cytomimetic (protocell)
models, but controlling molecular condensation using noninert crowders to systematically
alter protocell function remains challenging. Intracellular ATP levels ...
Designing the solid–electrolyte interphase (SEI) is critical for stable, fast-charging,
low-temperature Li-ion batteries. Fostering a “fluorinated interphase,” SEI enriched
with LiF, has become a popular design strategy. Although LiF possesses low Li-ion
...
Macrocyclic peptides have emerged as promising drug candidates, filling the gap between
small molecules and large biomolecules in drug discovery. The antiapoptotic protein
myeloid cell leukemia 1 (MCL1) is crucial for numerous cancers, yet it presents ...
The translocation of bacteria from intestinal tracts into blood vessels and distal
organs plays pivotal roles in the pathogenesis of numerous severe diseases. Intravital
monitoring of bacterial translocation, however, is not yet feasible, which greatly
...
Computer Sciences
AI systems have attained superhuman performance across various domains. If the hidden
knowledge encoded in these highly capable systems can be leveraged, human knowledge
and performance can be advanced. Yet, this internal knowledge is difficult to ...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Climate change is intricately influencing the accumulation of neurotoxic methylmercury
(MeHg) in human food webs, potentially leading to uneven exposure risks across regions.
Here, we reveal that climate change will elevate MeHg risks in China, with ...
Current emissions trends will likely deplete a 1.5 °C consistent carbon budget around
the year 2030, resulting in at least a temporary exceedance, or overshoot. To clarify
responsibilities for this budget exceedance, we consider “net-zero carbon debt,” a
...
Organic molecules preserved in ancient Martian rocks provide a critical record of
the past habitability of Mars and could be chemical biosignatures. Experiments conducted
by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument onboard the Curiosity rover have ...
The Twomey effect brightens clouds by increasing aerosol concentrations, which activates
more droplets and decreases cloud supersaturation in response to more competition
for water vapor. To quantify this competition response, we used marine low cloud ...
Physics
Symmetry properties of the order parameter are among the most fundamental characteristics
of a superconductor. UTe2, which was found to feature an exceedingly large upper critical field and striking
reentrant behavior at low temperatures, is widely ...
Statistics
A fundamental problem in machine learning is to understand how neural networks make
accurate predictions, while seemingly bypassing the curse of dimensionality. A possible
explanation is that common training algorithms for neural networks implicitly ...
Sustainability Science
Climate change is intricately influencing the accumulation of neurotoxic methylmercury
(MeHg) in human food webs, potentially leading to uneven exposure risks across regions.
Here, we reveal that climate change will elevate MeHg risks in China, with ...
Current emissions trends will likely deplete a 1.5 °C consistent carbon budget around
the year 2030, resulting in at least a temporary exceedance, or overshoot. To clarify
responsibilities for this budget exceedance, we consider “net-zero carbon debt,” a
...
Social Sciences
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
AI systems have attained superhuman performance across various domains. If the hidden
knowledge encoded in these highly capable systems can be leveraged, human knowledge
and performance can be advanced. Yet, this internal knowledge is difficult to ...
We find evidence of belief in belief—intuitive preferences for religious belief over atheism, even among atheist participants—across
eight comparatively secular countries. Religion is a cross-cultural human universal,
yet explicit markers of religiosity ...
When talking to other people, we naturally form impressions based not only on what
they say but also on how they say it—e.g., how confident they sound. In modern life,
however, the sounds of voices are often determined not only by intrinsic qualities
(...
Information search platforms, from Google to AI-assisted search engines, have transformed
information access but may fail to promote a shared factual foundation. We demonstrate
that the combination of users’ prior beliefs influencing their search terms ...
In response to the alarming recent decline in US math achievement, we conducted a
national megastudy in which 140,461 elementary school teachers who collectively taught
2,992,027 students were randomly assigned to receive a variety of behaviorally ...
Religious leaders shape the attitudes and beliefs of their congregations. In a nationally
representative sample of U.S. religious leaders (N = 1,600), the majority of which were of a Christian faith, we find that nearly 90%
believe in anthropogenic ...
Biological Sciences
Biochemistry
Liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) has been achieved in various cytomimetic (protocell)
models, but controlling molecular condensation using noninert crowders to systematically
alter protocell function remains challenging. Intracellular ATP levels ...
Myelodysplastic syndromes and other cancers are often associated with mutations in
the U2 snRNP protein SF3B1. Common SF3B1 mutations, including K700E, disrupt SF3B1
interaction with the protein SUGP1 and induce aberrant activation of alternative 3′
...
There is considerable interest in the targeted degradation of proteins implicated
in human disease. The use of sequence-specific proteases for this purpose is severely
limited by the difficulty in engineering the numerous enzyme–substrate interactions
...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Why are jellyfish round? Animals get their shapes as they develop. After development,
however, how animals keep their shapes is less understood. Moon jellies respond to
perturbations to body shape, such as being halved or quartered, by reorganizing ...
Phase separation is one possible mechanism governing the selective cellular enrichment
of biomolecular constituents for processes such as transcriptional activation, mRNA
regulation, and immune signaling. Phase separation is mediated by multivalent ...
In native extracellular matrices (ECM), cells utilize matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)
to degrade and remodel their microenvironment. Accordingly, synthetic matrices have
been engineered to permit MMP-mediated cleavage, facilitating cell spreading, ...
The mechanism determining the preferential stimulation of one heterotrimeric G protein
signaling pathway over another by a ligand remains undetermined. By reporting the
cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structure of the parathyroid hormone (PTH)
...
The amino acid sequence of the tryptophan-rich sensory proteins (TSPO) is substantially
conserved throughout all kingdoms of life. Human mitochondrial TSPO1 (HsTSPO1) binds to porphyrins and steroids, although its interactions with these molecules
remains ...
Cell Biology
3-Phosphoinositides (3-PIs), phosphatidylinositol (3,4) bisphosphate [PI(3,4)P2] and phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5) trisphosphate (PIP3), are important lipid second messengers in the Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase (PI3K)/Akt
signaling pathway, which is crucial ...
F-box and WD repeat domain-containing 7 (FBXW7) is a tumor suppressor that targets
various oncoproteins for degradation, but its role in modulating cancer-associated
fibroblasts (CAFs) in the tumor microenvironment remains elusive. Here, we report
that ...
Ecology
Silicon-induced responses play a key role in plant defense against herbivory, though
the underlying mechanisms remain underexplored. In this study, we examined how mesoporous
silica nanoparticles (MSNs) affect tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) defense against ...
Evolution
The origin of eukaryotes represents one of the most significant events in evolution
since it allowed the posterior emergence of multicellular organisms. Yet, it remains
unclear how existing regulatory mechanisms of gene activity were transformed to allow
...
The origin of birds represents a pivotal transition in vertebrate evolution, marked
by significant changes in both brain size and feeding biomechanics. The evolution
of the avian skull involved dramatic modifications, such as a segmented palate and
the ...
Mass extinctions are rare but catastrophic events that profoundly disrupt biodiversity.
Widely accepted consequences of mass extinctions, such as biodiversity loss and the
appearance of temporary “disaster taxa,” imply that species–area relationships (...
Genetics
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of infant mortality. We analyzed
de novo mutations (DNMs) and very rare transmitted/unphased damaging variants in 248
prespecified genes in 11,555 CHD probands. The results identified 60 genes with a
...
Immunology and Inflammation
GWAS have identified tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) variants in multiple inflammatory disorders,
specifically a protective hypomorphic TYK2 allele (P1104A) in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Impaired TYK2 signaling within the central nervous system (CNS) may impart ...
Interferons (IFNs, types I-III) have pleiotropic functions in promoting antiviral
and antitumor responses, as well as in modulating inflammation. Dissecting the signaling
mechanisms elicited by different IFNs is therefore critical to understand their ...
We investigated the role of Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid cells 2 (TREM2)
in myelin regeneration in the brain. TREM2 is a receptor that activates microglia,
which are crucial for clearing myelin debris and promoting remyelination. Previous
...
Microbiology
The translocation of bacteria from intestinal tracts into blood vessels and distal
organs plays pivotal roles in the pathogenesis of numerous severe diseases. Intravital
monitoring of bacterial translocation, however, is not yet feasible, which greatly
...
Antibiotic resistance, especially in multidrug-resistant ESKAPE pathogens, remains
a worldwide problem. Combination antimicrobial therapies may be an important strategy
to overcome resistance and broaden the spectrum of existing antibiotics. However,
this ...
Glucose is the preferred carbon source of most studied microorganisms. However, we
now report that glucose loses preferred status when the intracellular pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium experiences cytoplasmic magnesium (Mg2+) starvation. ...
The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) depletes nonself RNAs through recognition
of their elevated CpG dinucleotide content. CpG dinucleotides are sparse in most endogenous
mammalian mRNAs, but a subset might potentially be modulated by ZAP. While CpG ...
Dengue, caused by the dengue virus (DENV), presents a significant public health challenge
with limited effective treatments. NITD-688 is a potent panserotype DENV inhibitor
currently in Phase II clinical trials. However, its mechanism of action is not ...
Neuroscience
Stimulant drugs that boost dopamine, like methylphenidate (MP), enhance attention
and are effective treatments for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Yet there is large individual variation in attentional capacity and response to MP.
It is ...
The visual system can process diverse stimuli and make the decision to execute appropriate
behaviors, but it remains unclear where and how this transformation takes place. Innate
visually evoked behaviors such as hunting, freezing, and escape are thought ...
Neurons display unique shapes and establish intricate networks, which may differ between
sexes. In complex organisms, studying sex differences in structure and function of
individual neurons is difficult. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites ...
The search for an answer to Bernstein’s degrees of freedom problem has propelled a
large portion of research studies in human motor control over the past six decades.
Different theories have been developed to explain how humans might use their incredibly
...
Perceptual judgments of the environment emerge from the concerted activity of neural
populations in decision-making areas downstream of the sensory cortex. When the sensory
input is ambiguous, perceptual judgments can be biased by prior expectations ...
Feeding behavior is controlled by various neural networks in the brain that are involved
in different feeding phases: Food procurement, consumption, and termination. However,
the specific neural circuits controlling the food consumption phase remain ...
The hierarchical view of the ventral object recognition pathway is primarily based
on feedforward mechanisms, starting from a fixed basis set of object primitives and
ending on a representation of whole objects in the inferotemporal cortex. Here, we
...
Physiology
Disruptions of circadian rhythms are widespread in modern society and lead to accelerated
and worsened symptoms of metabolic syndrome. In healthy mice, the circadian clock
factor BMAL1 is required for skeletal muscle function and metabolism. However, the
...
Andersen–Tawil syndrome (ATS) is an ion channelopathy with variable penetrance for
the triad of periodic paralysis, arrhythmia, and dysmorphia. Dominant-negative mutations
of KCNJ2 encoding the Kir2.1 potassium channel subunit are found in 60% of ATS ...
Neuropeptide signaling systems are key regulators of physiological and behavioral
processes in animals. However, the evolutionary history of some neuropeptides originally
discovered in vertebrates is unknown. The peptide bombesin (BN) was first isolated
...
Plant Biology
F-type ATP synthase (F1FO) catalyzes proton motive force-driven ATP synthesis in mitochondria, chloroplasts,
and bacteria. Different from the mitochondrial and bacterial enzymes, F1FO from photosynthetic organisms have evolved diverse structural and ...
Plant hydraulic dysfunction by embolism formation can impair photosynthesis, growth,
and reproduction and, in severe cases, lead to death. Embolism reversal, or “refilling,”
is a hypothesized adaptive process in which xylem functionality is rapidly and ...
Diversification of plant hydraulic architecture and stomatal function coincides with
radical changes in the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 400 my. Due to shared stomatal
anatomy with the earliest land plants, bryophyte stomatal behavior may provide ...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
We find evidence of belief in belief—intuitive preferences for religious belief over atheism, even among atheist participants—across
eight comparatively secular countries. Religion is a cross-cultural human universal,
yet explicit markers of religiosity ...
Several influential theories have proposed that interoceptive signals, sent from the
body to the brain, contribute to neural processes that coordinate complex behaviors.
We altered the physiological state of the body using compounds that have minimal ...
Corrections
SI Corrections
Cover image: Pictured is a stained cross-section of a barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) stem. Jared J. Stewart et al. used microcomputed tomography to characterize how intact barnyard grass reverses drought-induced gas bubbles, or embolism, blocking the transport of water in xylem conduits, which can lead to dysfunction or death. The authors documented the process of embolism formation during exposure to acute drought and the complete recovery of xylem functioning within 24 hours after rewatering. Understanding embolism resistance and recovery across plant species could help improve agricultural productivity and forest management. See the article by Stewart et al. e2420618122. Image credit: Jared J. Stewart and Brendan S. Allen.
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