Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 122, Number 30
This Week in PNAS
Core Concepts
Retrospective
Joanne Chory (1955–2024) was a pioneering biologist whose research transformed our
understanding of plant growth and development. Her groundbreaking work, based on many
clever genetic screens, established a complete signaling pathway for brassinosteroids,
...
Profile
Working at the interface between numerics and applied analysis, Caltech mathematician
Thomas Hou has solved challenging problems concerning fluid dynamics and other multiscale
systems. His research has applications in materials science, biomedical ...
View related content:
Singularity formation in 3D Euler equations with smooth initial data and boundary
Commentaries
Perspective
Since their discoveries in the 1960s as a family of proteins produced by cells in
response to stress, molecular chaperones are increasingly recognized as major regulators
of cellular homeostasis in health and disease. Among the heat shock protein 70 ...
Letter
Brief Reports
Cellular DNA is wrapped about an octamer composed of four histone proteins forming
the fundamental unit of chromatin structure, the nucleosome core particle (NCP). The
intrinsically disordered tails of the histones serve as scaffolds for binding an array
...
Global forests provide key ecosystem services, from climate regulation to biodiversity
habitat, but are under increasing pressure from the combined impacts of climate and
land use change. Here, we show that forest disturbance due to fire is growing ...
Physical Sciences
Applied Physical Sciences
Coupling between chemical fuel consumption and phase separation can lead to condensation
at a nonequilibrium steady state, resulting in phase behaviors that are not described
by equilibrium thermodynamics. Theoretical models of such “chemically driven ...
Tenure is a cornerstone of the US academic system, yet its relationship to faculty
research trajectories remains poorly understood. Conceptually, tenure systems may
act as a selection mechanism, screening in high-output researchers; a dynamic incentive
...
Structural phase transformations allow us to design materials from the ground up.
Predicting the structural transformation of crystals during solid–solid phase transitions,
however, is challenging, as the transition can proceed through multiple pathways ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent
or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable diversity in their
form, often exhibiting extreme morphologies, but with no obvious functional explanation.
...
Chemistry
The self-assembly of intrinsically disordered proteins into biomolecular condensates
depends on their primary sequence, leading to sequence-dependent phase separation.
Computational methods to study this behavior often rely on residue-level interaction
...
This work reveals a striking exception to the well-established rule in chemistry that
polar and nonpolar compounds do not spontaneously mix: insertion of methane, ethane,
and other small hydrocarbons into the crystal lattice of hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a
...
A catalyst’s efficiency for accelerating a reaction rate is determined by its molecular
structure and interactions with the substrate. While one can predict kinetics for
a particular molecular model, tuning the (potentially many) model parameters to reach
...
In electrochemical systems, the structure of electrical double layers (EDLs) near
electrode surfaces is crucial for energy conversion and storage functions. While the
electrodes in real-world systems are usually heterogeneous, to date the investigation
of ...
Self-labeling protein tags are widely used in advanced bioimaging where dyes with
high-photon budgets outperform their fluorescent protein counterparts. Further increasing
the emitted photon numbers of dye-tag systems is actively pursued by both new ...
Aragonite, a polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), exhibits enhanced mechanical properties due to crystal defects such as twins, which
are particularly prevalent in biogenic aragonite and can inhibit crack propagation.
Despite the importance, the ...
The dispersal of millet and rice agriculture from Korea to Japan from around 3,000
y ago has been well documented through radiocarbon analysis of botanical remains and
surveying seed impressions on pottery. Much less is known about the extent to which
...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Understanding the drivers of spatial patterns in fossil communities is fundamental
to paleoecology, yet direct evidence for biological mechanisms regulating interindividual
spacing remains elusive. Brachiopod setae, hypothesized to function in feeding or
...
Engineering
Since the 1960s, enzymatic sensors have been vital in healthcare and environmental
monitoring due to their high selectivity. Traditionally, their performance is interpreted
using the Michaelis–Menten (MM) equation, which assumes idealized, homogeneous, ...
Understanding and exploiting material flexibility through phenomena such as the bending
and twisting of molecular crystals has been a subject of increased interest owing
to the number of applications that benefit from these properties, such as ...
As a key passivation film that governs battery operation, the solid electrolyte interphase
(SEI) has long been credited for enabling high-performance batteries or blamed for
their eventual death. However, qualitative descriptions of the SEI often found in
...
Physics
We develop an energy calculation algorithm leveraging quantum phase difference estimation
(QPDE) scheme and a tensor-network-based unitary compression method in the preparation
of superposition states and time-evolution gates. Alongside its efficient ...
Social Sciences
Anthropology
The dispersal of millet and rice agriculture from Korea to Japan from around 3,000
y ago has been well documented through radiocarbon analysis of botanical remains and
surveying seed impressions on pottery. Much less is known about the extent to which
...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Optimism is a critical personality trait that influences future-oriented cognition
by emphasizing positive future outcomes and deemphasizing negative outcomes. How does
the brain represent idiosyncratic differences in episodic future thinking that are
...
Decades of research have shown working memory (WM) relies on sustained prefrontal
cortical activity and visual extrastriate activity, particularly in the alpha (8 to
12 Hz) frequency range. This alpha activity tracks the spatial location of WM items,
even ...
Traveling waves guide the spatial propagation of neural activity and computational
processes across the brain. Traveling waves could contribute to the control of memory-guided
behaviors by flexibly organizing the timing and direction of interactions ...
Social Sciences
Tenure is a cornerstone of the US academic system, yet its relationship to faculty
research trajectories remains poorly understood. Conceptually, tenure systems may
act as a selection mechanism, screening in high-output researchers; a dynamic incentive
...
We analyze changes in pedestrian behavior over a 30-y period in four urban public
spaces located in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Building on William Whyte’s
observational work, which involved manual video analysis of pedestrian behaviors,
we employ ...
Sustainability Science
Access to safely managed drinking water is a fundamental human right, essential for
human health and well-being. However, 2.2 billion people around the world still lack
this access, with significant geographical disparities. In this study, we leveraged
...
Climate change caused by carbon pollution from the world’s largest economies poses
an existential threat to small-island states and territories this century. These places
bear virtually no responsibility for climate change but will face sea-level rise,
...
Biological Sciences
Applied Biological Sciences
Most breast cancers depend on hormone-stimulated estrogen receptor alpha (ER) activity
and are sensitive to ER inhibition. Resistance can arise from activating mutations
in the gene encoding ER (ESR1) or from reactivation of downstream targets. Newer ER ...
Biochemistry
Members of the tungsten-containing oxidoreductase (WOR) family, which contain a tungstopyranopterin
(Tuco) cofactor, are typically either monomeric (WorL) or heterodimeric (WorLS). These
enzymes oxidize aldehydes to the corresponding acids while reducing ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Coupling between chemical fuel consumption and phase separation can lead to condensation
at a nonequilibrium steady state, resulting in phase behaviors that are not described
by equilibrium thermodynamics. Theoretical models of such “chemically driven ...
Cancer cells exhibit a remarkable resilience to cytotoxic stress, often adapting through
transcriptional changes linked to alterations in chromatin structure. In several types
of cancer, these adaptations involve epigenetic modifications and restructuring ...
NCOA4, a dedicated autophagy receptor for mediating selective autophagy of ferritin
(ferritinophagy), plays a vital role in maintaining cellular iron homeostasis. The
cellular abundance of NCOA4 is regulated by the E3 ligase HERC2 that can specifically
...
Conformational control of nascent chains is poorly understood. Chaperones are known
to stabilize, unfold, and disaggregate polypeptides away from the ribosome. In comparison,
much less is known about the elementary conformational control mechanisms at the ...
The Notch signaling pathway regulates cellular differentiation by activating transcription
through an unusual heterotrimeric complex comprising the Notch receptor’s intracellular
domain (NICD), the DNA-binding protein CSL, and the coactivator MAML. NICD ...
Cell Biology
The recycling of integrin endocytosed during focal adhesion (FA) disassembly is critical
for cell migration and contributes to the polarized formation of new FAs toward the
leading edge. How this occurs is unclear. Here, we sought to identify the kinesin
...
Ras has traditionally been regarded as a positive regulator and therapeutic target
due to its role in cell proliferation, but recent findings indicate a more nuanced
role in cell migration, where suppressed Ras activity can unexpectedly promote migration.
...
Developmental Biology
Embryonic neural progenitors give rise to adult neural stem cells (aNSCs), which share
transcriptomic similarities with astrocytes while sustaining neurogenesis in the adult
brain. How embryonic neural progenitors transit into aNSCs while preventing ...
Removal of dead and damaged cells is critical for organismal health. Under stress
conditions such as nutritional deprivation, infection, or temperature shift, the clearance
of nonessential cells becomes a universal strategy to conserve energy and maintain
...
Ecology
The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent
or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable diversity in their
form, often exhibiting extreme morphologies, but with no obvious functional explanation.
...
Understanding the drivers of spatial patterns in fossil communities is fundamental
to paleoecology, yet direct evidence for biological mechanisms regulating interindividual
spacing remains elusive. Brachiopod setae, hypothesized to function in feeding or
...
Biota could be ecosystem engineers in generating an intrinsic heterogeneous landscape
through scale-dependent feedbacks. Thereby, they can form resource-enriched patchiness
or islands of fertility, comprising self-organizing spatial patterns. Research so
...
Land-use changes are reshaping the distribution of aboveground species worldwide.
However, the impact of land-use changes on the distribution of soil organisms remains
poorly understood. In particular, we lack a mechanistic understanding of the ...
Emerging infectious diseases increasingly threaten many wildlife populations, yet
the impacts of pathogens vary considerably both within and among host species. The
environmental tolerance mismatch hypothesis (ETMH) suggests that this variability
stems in ...
Identifying linkages between biodiversity loss and climate change is required for
understanding the scope of these interconnected challenges and developing approaches
to address them. One crucial yet underexplored aspect is the influence of seed-...
Controlled experiments suggest that the seasonal build-up of nitrogen (N) limitation
constrains the responses of forest autumn phenology to elevated temperatures. Therefore,
rising soil N is expected to increase the delaying effects of elevated ...
Evolution
Polyphenic traits in animals often exhibit nonlinear scaling with body size. Static
allometries (i.e., scaling relationships) themselves can exhibit plasticity, such
that individuals of the same size and genotype differ in body proportions across ...
Sex determination has been investigated across vertebrate lineages to reveal the stepwise
evolution of sex chromosomes and the diversity of responsible molecular mechanisms.
However, these studies rarely include cartilaginous fishes, which diverged from ...
Genetics
Angelman syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by severe motor and
cognitive deficits. It is caused by the loss of the maternally inherited allele of
the imprinted ubiquitin-protein ligase E3A (UBE3A) gene. Rodent models of Angelman ...
While somatic variants are well-characterized drivers of tumor evolution, their influence
on cellular fitness in nonmalignant contexts remains understudied. We identified a
mosaic synonymous variant (m.7076A > G) in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)-encoded ...
Phage λ, a well-characterized temperate phage, has been recently leveraged for bacterial
genome editing by selectively delivering base editors into targeted bacterial species.
We extend this concept by engineering phage λ to deliver CRISPR-guided ...
Immunology and Inflammation
8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoG), the most frequent form of oxidative-DNA-base lesion
caused by ROS, is recognized and repaired by 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase 1 (OGG1)
through base excision repair (BER) pathway. Beyond its role in DNA repair, OGG1 has
...
The human gestational environment is commonly perceived to be predominantly suppressive
and incompatible for T effector maturation. However, evidence of a competent effector
fetal environment is mounting in the field. Here, we employed a high parametric, ...
Microvilli on T cells differ from those on epithelial cells, exhibiting filopodia-like
characteristics that facilitate the clustering of molecules essential for sensing
and cell migration. Recently, they have also been recognized as the structures from
...
Central memory CD8+ T cells (Tcm) represent the prominent memory T cell subset in human blood, yet the persistence
of T cell receptor (TCR) clonotypic and transcriptional features of epitope-specific
Tcm pools across the human lifespan remains unknown. We ...
Barrier tissues such as the intestine are constantly challenged by environmental stressors
and must adapt to maintain integrity and prevent excessive inflammation. Although
traditionally viewed as a proinflammatory effector of interferon (IFN) signaling,
...
Microbiology
Natural biopolymer-degrading microbial communities drive carbon biogeochemical cycling.
Within these communities, polymer degraders facilitate the growth of nondegraders
by breaking down polymers through extracellular enzymes. However, the contributions
...
All cells require a continuous supply of the universal energy currency, adenosine
triphosphate (ATP), to drive countless cellular reactions. The universally conserved
F1Fo-ATP synthase regenerates ATP from ADP and Pi by harnessing a transmembrane ...
Shigellosis is a global public health challenge that mostly affects low- and middle-income
countries and causes considerable morbidity and mortality among children under 5 y
of age. Multi- and extensively drug-resistant Shigella sonnei strains associated ...
Neuroscience
Decades of research have shown working memory (WM) relies on sustained prefrontal
cortical activity and visual extrastriate activity, particularly in the alpha (8 to
12 Hz) frequency range. This alpha activity tracks the spatial location of WM items,
even ...
Traveling waves guide the spatial propagation of neural activity and computational
processes across the brain. Traveling waves could contribute to the control of memory-guided
behaviors by flexibly organizing the timing and direction of interactions ...
Infantile hypomyelinating leukodystrophy 19 (HLD19) is a rare genetic disorder where
patients exhibit reduced myelin in central nervous system (CNS) white matter tracts
and present with varied neurological symptoms. The causative gene TMEM63A encodes a ...
Mammalian hearing sensitivity depends on the amplification of sound-induced cochlear
vibrations by outer hair cells (OHCs). OHCs transduce deflections of their stereociliary
bundles into receptor potentials that drive changes in cell length. While fast, ...
Physiology
Environmental causes of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) remain poorly characterized.
Here, we compare germ-free (GF) and conventionally raised (CONV-R) mice to assess
the effects of the gut microbiota on placental/fetal development at embryonic day
...
Plant Biology
Apical hook development is an ideal model for studying differential growth in plants
and is controlled by complex phytohormonal crosstalk, with auxin being the major player.
Here, we identified a bioactive small molecule that decelerates apical hook ...
Plant bodies are built from immobile cells, making the regulation of cell expansion
essential for growth, development, and adaptation. In roots, cell elongation executes
the movement of the root tips through the soil. This process is tightly controlled
by ...
Guard cells, which regulate stomatal apertures in plants, possess a sophisticated
mechanism for regulating turgor pressure. The outward-rectifying “K+out” channel GORK, expressed in guard cells of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, is a central component ...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Inspired by the high engagement and sustained behavioral excitement observed in video
game players, we hypothesized that distinct brain activity patterns occur during gaming
compared to a generic nongame setting. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we ...
Corrections
SI Corrections
Retractions
Cover image: Pictured is a treehopper of the genus Notocera from Costa Rica. Sam J. England et al. explored a hypothesis that the vast diversity of forms of the pronotum, an exoskeletal plate found on the thorax of treehoppers, may have partly evolved to detect changes in electric fields. The authors found that the geometry of the pronota–with often sharp and elongated features–is ideal for detecting and distinguishing between electric fields produced by predatory wasps and mutualist bees. According to the authors, selection for electrosensitivity may have contributed to the evolution of diverse pronotal forms in treehoppers. See the article by England et al. e2505253122. Image credit: Sam J. England.
Sign up for PNAS alerts.
Get alerts for new articles, or get an alert when an article is cited.
Manage alertsStay connected
Advertisement
Recent Issues
Submit to PNAS
Submit to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and have your research discovered by millions of researchers in the biological, physical, and social sciences.
Submit your manuscript