Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 122, Number 33
This Week in PNAS
Opinion
Retrospective
Étienne-Émile Baulieu (1929–2025): Scientist of steroids and champion of women’s reproductive rights
Having trained as a physician, Étienne-Émile Baulieu soon turned his focus to research,
as early as his medical internship. He went on to make major contributions on ketosteroids
and other steroids, such as estrogen, and how they act on target organs ...
Commentaries
Perspective
Climate change significantly impacts the incidence and abundance of microorganisms,
including those essential for environmental cycles and those pathogenic to humans
and animals. Shifts in conditions favorable for microbial growth have expanded the
...
Brief Report
Eye movements are closely linked to encoding and retrieval processes, with changes
in viewing behavior reflecting age- and pathology-related memory decline. In the current
study, we leveraged this relationship to explore possible gaze-based indicators of
...
Physical Sciences
Applied Mathematics
In several settings (e.g., sensor networks and social networks), nodes of a graph
are equipped with initial opinions, and the goal is to estimate the average of these
opinions using local operations. A natural algorithm to achieve this is the edge-...
Applied Physical Sciences
In 1964, Keldysh laid the groundwork for strong-field physics in atomic, molecular,
and solid-state systems by delineating a ubiquitous transition from multiphoton absorption
to classical field-driven electron tunneling under intense electromagnetic ...
Vibrational microscopy provides label-free, bond-selective chemical contrast by detecting
molecular vibrations, making it invaluable for biomedical research. While conventional
methods rely on the direct detection of Raman scattering or infrared ...
The evolution of multicellularity involved the transformation of a simple cell wall
of unicellular ancestors into a complex, multifunctional extracellular matrix (ECM).
A suitable model organism to study the formation and expansion of an ECM during ...
Astronomy
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets and the emergence of telescopes capable of
exoplanet atmospheric characterization have intensified the search for habitable worlds.
Due to selection biases, many exoplanets under study are planets deemed ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Some RNA viruses package their genomes with extraordinary selectivity, assembling
protein capsids around their own viral RNA while excluding nearly all host RNA. How
the assembling proteins distinguish viral RNA from host RNA is not fully understood,
but ...
Chemistry
DNA aptamers that bind small molecules with high affinity have revolutionized the
fields of biosensing and bioimaging. Recently, a DNA aptamer named 1301b has been
identified as the most potent DNA aptamer for the binding of adenosine triphosphate
(ATP) ...
The practical applications of aqueous Zn||MnO2 batteries are limited by their small areal capacity, low discharging plateau, and
clumsy packing device. Currently, the high potential MnO2/Mn2+ redox conversion can only be well activated in electrolytes ...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
We use remote sensing observations to document surface deformation caused by the 2025
Mw7.7 Mandalay earthquake. This event is a unique case of an extremely long (~510 km)
and sustained supershear rupture probably favored by the rather smooth and ...
Air-breathing vertebrates incorporate a fraction of isotopically anomalous air O2 in their body water. The 17O isotope anomaly of air O2 (expressed as Δ’17Oair) is related to atmospheric CO2 concentrations (pCO2) and gross primary production (GPP). Tooth ...
Engineering
Over 350 million metric tons of plastic waste are generated annually, with most ending
up in landfills, dumps, or the environment, posing significant risks. Mechanical recycling
remains underutilized, largely due to the high variability in the mechanical ...
Analytical solutions of diffusion theory for light propagation in turbid media are
essential for optical diagnostics and therapeutic applications, including cerebral
oximetry, hemodynamic monitoring, and photostimulation. While existing solutions work
...
Environmental Sciences
A current tenet in the science of cities is the emergence of power-law relations between
population size and a variety of urban indicators, echoing allometric scaling in living
organisms akin to Kleiber’s law. However fascinating, existing scaling ...
Widespread evidence of decreasing leaf nutrients has raised concerns about ecosystem
productivity under global change. Interpreting trends in leaf nutrients has important
implications for the fate of ecosystem services, particularly the role of forests
in ...
Physics
A quantum spin liquid (QSL) is an exotic insulating phase with emergent gauge fields
and fractionalized excitations. However, the unambiguous demonstration of the existence
of a QSL in a “nonengineered” microscopic model (or in any material) remains ...
We argue that the combination of strong repulsive interactions and high magnetic fields
can generate electron pairing and superconductivity. Inspired by the large lattice
constants of moiré materials, which make large flux per unit cell accessible at ...
Sustainability Science
The circular bionutrient economy is defined here as the circular economy of nutrients
in managed organic residues. Here, we posit that biochar technology can stimulate
the circular bionutrient economy by meeting the following three requirements: 1) ...
Biochar application offers significant potential to enhance food security and mitigate
climate change. However, most evidence stems from short-term field experiments (≤3
y), leaving uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of these benefits, ...
Social Sciences
Economic Sciences
In several settings (e.g., sensor networks and social networks), nodes of a graph
are equipped with initial opinions, and the goal is to estimate the average of these
opinions using local operations. A natural algorithm to achieve this is the edge-...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Removing irrelevant information from working memory (WM) can free cognitive resources
and reduce interference with current task goals. Beyond these immediate benefits,
removal may also support long-term memory processes. We tested this hypothesis using
an ...
Recent research has focused on understanding ideological and affective political polarization
in the United States; however, the polarization of issue salience—defined as personal
beliefs about how important or concerning an issue is, and how much ...
Social Sciences
Scientific institutions like funding agencies and journals rely on peer reviewers
to select among competing submissions. How does the geographical diversity of reviewers
affect which authors are selected? If reviewers typically favor submissions from ...
Biological Sciences
Agricultural Sciences
The circular bionutrient economy is defined here as the circular economy of nutrients
in managed organic residues. Here, we posit that biochar technology can stimulate
the circular bionutrient economy by meeting the following three requirements: 1) ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
DNA aptamers that bind small molecules with high affinity have revolutionized the
fields of biosensing and bioimaging. Recently, a DNA aptamer named 1301b has been
identified as the most potent DNA aptamer for the binding of adenosine triphosphate
(ATP) ...
Some RNA viruses package their genomes with extraordinary selectivity, assembling
protein capsids around their own viral RNA while excluding nearly all host RNA. How
the assembling proteins distinguish viral RNA from host RNA is not fully understood,
but ...
Many studies have shown that sequestration of client proteins into condensates locally
increases their concentrations and/or modulates their conformational landscapes to
promote aberrant aggregation. Far fewer examples have emerged where the proteinaceous
...
F1-ATPase comprises the stator ring consisting of α3β3 subunits and the rotor γ subunit. The γ subunit rotation mechanism has been extensively
investigated by biochemical analyses, structural studies, single-molecule measurements,
and computational ...
GluA2 is a key subunit of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (AMPAR) ion channels
that is abundantly expressed in the vertebrate brain. Posttranscriptional Q/R editing
of GluA2 renders AMPARs nearly impermeable to calcium ions, ...
The development of germline-targeting vaccines represents a potentially transformative
strategy to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against HIV and other antigenically
diverse pathogens. Here, we report on structural characterization of ...
Cell Biology
Glucose transporters (GLUT1/2) facilitate glucose uptake in pancreatic β cells, triggering
insulin secretion. The availability of GLUTs at the plasma membrane (PM) is governed
by its expression, delivery to the membrane, and endocytosis. Little is known ...
Hypoxia, a condition characterized by insufficient oxygen supply, challenges cellular
homeostasis and energy production, triggering adaptive responses to promote survival
under these stressful conditions. One key strategy involves enzymatic oxidation of
N-...
Male infertility remains a major unmet medical challenge, with poorly defined molecular
mechanisms and no effective therapies. Here, we identify a stress granule–mediated
necroptotic pathway as a key driver of non-obstructive azoospermia, a severe form
of ...
Transient Receptor Potential Canonical 4 (TRPC4) channels have been implicated in
multiple neurological functions, including anxiety and sociability. TRPC4 variants
were also found in patients with autism. However, the contributions of TRPC4 to ...
Developmental Biology
The evolution of multicellularity involved the transformation of a simple cell wall
of unicellular ancestors into a complex, multifunctional extracellular matrix (ECM).
A suitable model organism to study the formation and expansion of an ECM during ...
The vertebrate enteric nervous system (ENS) is derived from vagal neural crest cells,
which enter the foregut as progenitors that migrate from rostral to caudal to populate
the entire length of the gut. Here, we show that transcription factors sox11a and ...
Ecology
Widespread evidence of decreasing leaf nutrients has raised concerns about ecosystem
productivity under global change. Interpreting trends in leaf nutrients has important
implications for the fate of ecosystem services, particularly the role of forests
in ...
Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic
groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by insects. Long-term data
have illuminated butterfly declines across geographic regions. However, critical ...
Soil carbon (C) dynamics upon permafrost thaw represents a major uncertainty in climate
projections. Both soil C loss and formation in permafrost regions are mediated by
microorganisms, and the balance of these two processes could be characterized by a
...
Alpine treeline is a prominent biogeographic feature worldwide, determined by the
physiological limit of tree life form. There are considerable variations in the various
dimensions of physiological limit among tree taxa; thus, varied environmental drivers
...
Two significant complications in the structure of ecological communities are its dimensionality
(many species interacting) and its network diversity (many ways to “wire” the interactions).
Two classic concepts, the competitive exclusion principle and the ...
Migratory locusts (Locusta migratoria) emit two key odorants during aggregation: 4-vinylanisole (4VA), which serves as
an aggregation pheromone attracting conspecifics to form swarms, and phenylacetonitrile
(PAN), which acts as an aposematic signal and a ...
Environmental Sciences
Air-breathing vertebrates incorporate a fraction of isotopically anomalous air O2 in their body water. The 17O isotope anomaly of air O2 (expressed as Δ’17Oair) is related to atmospheric CO2 concentrations (pCO2) and gross primary production (GPP). Tooth ...
Biochar application offers significant potential to enhance food security and mitigate
climate change. However, most evidence stems from short-term field experiments (≤3
y), leaving uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of these benefits, ...
Transpiration drives most of the local rainfall during the dry season in the Amazon
forests by recycling moisture into the atmosphere. However, the source, temporal origin
of transpiration, and spatial distribution of transpiration water sources remain ...
Evolution
Endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT) and import of host-encoded proteins have been considered
hallmarks of organelles necessary for stable integration of two cells. However, newer
endosymbiotic models have challenged the origin and timing of such genetic ...
Polyploidization is an important driver of evolution and diversification in flowering
plants. Here, we assess how repeated polyploidization may have shaped diversification
of floral morphology in Lithophragma bolanderi (Saxifragaceae). This species ...
Immunology and Inflammation
The meninges serve as a critical interface between the peripheral immune system and
the central nervous system, playing a crucial role in maintaining parenchymal homeostasis.
Neurodegenerative disorders, such as amyloidosis and tauopathies, are marked by ...
A primary obstacle for HIV elimination is the long-term viral reservoir in lymphoid
tissues (LT) that can cause rebound viremia if therapy is stopped. Cytotoxic CD8+ T cells are critical for control of HIV and Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) viremia;
...
Medical Sciences
Sweat parameters such as volume and chloride concentration may offer invaluable clinical
insights for people with CF (PwCF). Pilocarpine-induced sweat collection for chloridometry
measurement is the gold standard for a CF diagnosis, but this technique is ...
Dengue fever, a tropical vector-borne disease, is a leading cause of hospitalization
and death in many parts of the world, especially in Asia and Latin America. Where
timely dengue surveillance exists, decision-makers can better implement public health
...
Hearing loss (HL) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has been widely
reported, though the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrate
significant HL in an imiquimod-induced mouse model of SLE, accompanied by blood–...
While Estrogen receptor alpha (ERα)+ breast cancer treatment is considered effective,
resistance to endocrine therapy is common. Since ERα is still the main driver in most
therapy-resistant tumors, alternative therapeutic strategies are needed to disrupt
...
People living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) experience
heterogeneous and debilitating symptoms that lack sufficient biological explanation,
compounded by the absence of accurate, noninvasive diagnostic tools. To address ...
Microbiology
Metatranscriptomic data from a mass-mortality event of adult Pacific Oysters, Crassostrea (Magallana) gigas, the most widely cultivated shellfish globally, revealed a nidovirus shown to replicate
in a bivalve, Pacific Oyster Nidovirus 1 (PONV1). At 64,331 ...
Influenza A virus (IAV) is a zoonotic pathogen responsible for seasonal and pandemic
flu. The extensive genetic and antigenic diversity within and between IAV phylogenetic
groups presents major challenges for developing universal vaccines and broad-...
Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V. para), a Gram-negative halophilic bacterium, is the leading cause of seafood-borne gastroenteritis.
While the cytotoxic and enterotoxic capabilities of this bacterium have been previously
investigated, the strategies it employs ...
Viruses have evolved elaborate mechanisms to hijack the host mRNA translation machinery
to direct viral protein synthesis. Picornaviruses, whose RNA genome lacks a cap structure,
inhibit cap-dependent mRNA translation, and utilize an internal ribosome ...
Neuroscience
Removing irrelevant information from working memory (WM) can free cognitive resources
and reduce interference with current task goals. Beyond these immediate benefits,
removal may also support long-term memory processes. We tested this hypothesis using
an ...
Parental skills are among the most powerful predictors of children’s outcomes. While
distal genetic and environmental pathways likely contribute to skill transmission
within families, much less is known about the proximal neural markers that support
the ...
Somatic mutations in cortical neurons have been implicated in psychiatric disorders.
While endogenous DNA damage and repair errors are potential contributors to these
mutations during development, the underlying mutagenic mechanism remains unclear.
Here, ...
Non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep facilitates memory consolidation by transferring
information from the hippocampus to the neocortex. This transfer is thought to occur
primarily when hippocampal sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) and thalamocortical spindles
are ...
Physiology
The mechanically activated PIEZO1 ion channel is genetically linked to numerous physiological
and pathophysiological processes. For example, deleting PIEZO1 in mice leads to defective lymphatic vessel development, while nonsense mutations
in humans are ...
Plant Biology
Plant genomes have undergone multiple rounds of whole-genome duplication (WGD) throughout
their evolutionary history. As a result, many species, including Arabidopsis thaliana, retain duplicated genomic segments, or syntenic regions, which harbor large ...
As the energy center of the cell, mitochondria display enormous metabolic plasticity
to meet the cellular demand for plant growth and development, which is tightly linked
to their structural and dynamic plasticity. Mitochondrial number and morphology are
...
The Ghd7 (Grain number, plant height, and heading date 7) gene integrates red light signals and circadian rhythms to control floral repression
under long-day conditions in rice. CRISPR/Cas9 systems were employed to create a series
of deletion mutant lines ...
Systems Biology
Type I interferon IFNβ is a key immune response cytokine, and when its expression
is dysregulated, it causes disease. The regulation of IFNβ enhancer has been a touchpoint
of mammalian gene control research since the discovery of functional synergy ...
Corrections
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