Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 122, Number 36
This Week in PNAS
Retrospective
William S. Sly, MD (1932–2025) was a biochemical geneticist who received his medical
degree from Saint Louis University. He received additional training at the NIH with
several members of the National Academy of Science and Nobel Prize winner Marshall
...
Commentaries
Letters
View the original article:
Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change
This article has a reply:Reply to Loh and Ren: Motivating action among climate change believers
Brief Reports
An explosion of recent research uses remote imaging spectroscopy from aircraft and
spacecraft to detect and quantify methane point source emissions. These instruments
first map the methane enhancement field and then combine this information with the
...
The Gulf of Panama’s (GOP) seasonal upwelling system has consistently delivered cool,
nutrient-rich waters via northerly trade winds every January–April for at least 40
y. Here, we document the failure of this normally highly predictable phenomenon in
...
Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy has revolutionized structural biology and
materials science. To image below liquid nitrogen temperatures, various liquid helium
stages have been constructed but have proven to be complex and unstable, making high-...
Social class disparities exist from the earliest stages of education. Research has
suggested that class-based differences in factors such as socialization practices
and access to resources partly explain this phenomenon, but less work has explored
whether ...
Physical Sciences
Applied Physical Sciences
Intuitively, slow droplets stick to a surface and faster droplets splash or bounce.
However, recent work suggests that on nonwetting surfaces, whether microdroplets stick
or bounce depends only on their size and fluid properties, but not on the incoming
...
In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even
closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding
needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous behavior ...
Self-assembled thin films respond to external loads via surface instabilities that
are critical to their functionality in both biology and technology. Lipid monolayers
at the air–liquid interface are one such system. Tunability between out-of-plane ...
Nanoporous structures play a critical role in a wide range of applications, including
catalysis, thermoelectrics, energy storage, gas adsorption, and thermal insulation.
However, their thermal instability remains a persistent challenge. Inspired by the
...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Humans and other organisms make decisions choosing between different options, with
the aim of maximizing the reward and minimizing the cost. The main theoretical framework
for modeling the decision-making process has been based on the highly successful ...
Distortion products are tones produced through nonlinear effects of a system simultaneously
detecting two or more frequencies. These combination tones are ubiquitous to vertebrate
auditory systems and are generally regarded as byproducts of nonlinear ...
Digital bioanalysis enables highly sensitive detection of biomolecules at the single-molecule
level, making it a widely used technique in biomedical research. However, conventional
approaches typically rely on fluorescence detection of single-enzyme ...
Regulation of cell growth and division is essential to achieve cell-size homeostasis.
Recent advances in imaging technologies, such as “mother machines” for bacteria or
yeast, have allowed long-term tracking of cell-size dynamics across many generations,
...
The ingression of neural crest cells from an ectodermal to a mesodermal layer is regulated
by instructive, directional cues and potentially stochastic, biophysical parameters
such as differential cell adhesion and tension heterogeneity. However, a ...
Chemistry
Genome editing with CRISPR–Cas systems hold promise for treating a wide range of genetic
disorders and cancers. However, efficient delivery of genome editors remains challenging
due to the requirement for the simultaneous delivery or intracellular ...
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a target for near-term climate change mitigation.
In many natural ecosystems, methane is sequestered by microbial communities, yet little
is known about how constituents of methane-oxidizing communities interact with ...
Variational quantum eigensolvers are touted as a near-term algorithm capable of impacting
many applications. However, the potential has not yet been realized, with few claims
of quantum advantage and high resource estimates, especially due to the need for ...
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Reconstructing carbon release fluxes during ancient climatic warming events is important
for improving predictions of carbon cycle and climate dynamics under future anthropogenic
warming scenarios. We investigate the extent of biogenic methane release and ...
Redox-sensitive elements figure prominently in studies of the evolution of Earth’s
surface redox state, including the first major rise in atmospheric O2, the Paleoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event. Most Precambrian rocks endured multistage
tectonothermal ...
Here, we explore the long-term history of chemical weathering and particle transport
from the continents to the oceans by leveraging the histories of Zr/Al, Rb/Al, and
Na/Al in marine sediments over the last 2000 My. We interpret these data in the context
...
Engineering
Harnessing instabilities of multicomponent multistable structural assemblies can potentially
lead to scalable and reversible functionalities, which can be enhanced by exploring
frustration. For instance, standard Kresling origami cells exhibit nontunable ...
Charge and energy transport within living systems are fundamental processes that enable
the autonomous function of excitable cells and tissues. To date, localized control
of these transport processes has been enabled by genetic modification approaches to
...
Physics
Closed capsules, such as lipid vesicles, soap bubbles, and emulsion droplets, are
ubiquitous throughout biology, engineered matter, and everyday life. Their creation
and disintegration are defined by a singularity that separates a topologically distinct
...
At low temperature T we expect vacuum tunneling processes to occur in superfluid 4He films. We distinguish between extrinsic processes, in which single vortices nucleate
by tunneling off boundaries in the system, and intrinsic processes, in which vortex/...
Social Sciences
Anthropology
Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve
a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic
relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or ...
Environmental Sciences
The long-term evolution of domestic mammal body size in Western Europe since the Early
Neolithic is mainly attributed to human selection. However, the relative influence
of environmental and anthropogenic factors in animal body size evolution, and the
...
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
The tendency to repeat past choices more often than expected from the history of outcomes
has been repeatedly empirically observed in reinforcement learning experiments. It
can be explained by at least two computational processes: asymmetric update and (...
Decision making and learning processes together enable adaptive strategic behavior.
Animal studies demonstrated the importance of subcortical regions in these cognitive
processes, but the human subcortical contributions remain poorly characterized. Here,
...
Biological Sciences
Agricultural Sciences
As global climate change exacerbates extreme heat events, the interplay between heat
stress and blast disease resistance in rice remains poorly understood. In this study,
through integrated transcriptome profiling and systematic phenotyping of mutants in
...
Anthropology
Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve
a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic
relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or ...
Applied Biological Sciences
Genome editing with CRISPR–Cas systems hold promise for treating a wide range of genetic
disorders and cancers. However, efficient delivery of genome editors remains challenging
due to the requirement for the simultaneous delivery or intracellular ...
Biochemistry
Brivaracetam (BRV) and levetiracetam (LEV) are antiseizure medications (ASMs); UCB-J
is a PET tracer targeting synaptic vesicle protein 2A (SV2A); UCB7361 is closely related
to padsevonil, an experimental anticonvulsant; while UCB1244283 acts as an ...
Membrane proteins play crucial roles in numerous biological processes and are important
drug targets. However, structural studies of membrane proteins often rely on solubilization
with detergents, which may not accurately reflect their native states in a ...
Cyanobacteria achieve highly efficient photosynthesis using a CO2-concentrating mechanism relying on specialized Type I (NDH-1) complexes. Among these,
NDH-13 and NDH-14 catalyze redox-coupled hydration of CO2 to bicarbonate, supporting carbon fixation in ...
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Distortion products are tones produced through nonlinear effects of a system simultaneously
detecting two or more frequencies. These combination tones are ubiquitous to vertebrate
auditory systems and are generally regarded as byproducts of nonlinear ...
Creatine plays a vital role in cellular energy production and adenosine triphosphate
(ATP) homeostasis and has also been identified as a neurotransmitter in the mammalian
brain. Creatine is transported into cells by the human creatine transporter (hCRT)
(...
Pathological aggregation of transactive response DNA binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43),
primarily driven by its low-complexity domain, is closely associated with various
neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and ...
Cell Biology
In mammals, a hierarchically organized circadian timing system orchestrates daily
rhythms of nearly all physiology. A master pacemaker in the brain’s suprachiasmatic
nucleus (SCN) synchronizes subsidiary clocks in most peripheral organs. By driving
...
Reduced mitochondrial quality and quantity in tumors is associated with dedifferentiation
and increased malignancy. However, it remains unclear how to restore mitochondrial
quantity and quality in tumors and whether mitochondrial restoration can drive ...
While it has been appreciated for decades that lysosomes can import cysteine, its
significance for whole-organism physiology has remained uncertain. Recent work identified
MFSD12 as a transmembrane protein required for cysteine import into lysosomes (and
...
The awakening of dormant disseminated cancer cells appears to be responsible for the
clinical relapses of patients whose primary tumors have been successfully cured months
and even years earlier. In the present study, we demonstrate that dormant breast ...
Developmental Biology
The ingression of neural crest cells from an ectodermal to a mesodermal layer is regulated
by instructive, directional cues and potentially stochastic, biophysical parameters
such as differential cell adhesion and tension heterogeneity. However, a ...
The RNA-binding protein TRIM71 is essential for brain development, and recent genetic
studies in humans have identified TRIM71 as a risk gene for congenital hydrocephal-us (CH). Here, we show that monoallelic
missense mutations in TRIM71 are associated ...
The role of induced gene expression is crucial for tissue regeneration. The transient
regenerative cellular state that discriminates between missing-tissue and non-missing-tissue
injuries remains to be fully elucidated. In this study, we identified a ...
Cardiogenesis relies on the integrated interplay between cardiac transcription factors
and signaling pathways. Here, we uncover a role for type IIA procollagen (IIA), an
extracellular matrix (ECM) protein encoded by an alternatively spliced Col2a1 ...
Environmental Sciences
The long-term evolution of domestic mammal body size in Western Europe since the Early
Neolithic is mainly attributed to human selection. However, the relative influence
of environmental and anthropogenic factors in animal body size evolution, and the
...
Bivalve farming, a vital component of global aquaculture, has been proposed as a potential
marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) strategy, yet its role remains contentious. Using
field mesocosms, we demonstrate that oyster filter-feeding enhances mCDR by ...
Evolution
Evolutionary rescue helps populations survive environmental change, but the phenotypic
and demographic factors associated with rescue dynamics and its long-term effects
remain unclear. We experimentally evolved 10 wild-collected populations of flour ...
Sexual conflict over mating has been documented in many species, both in the field
and in experimental studies. In pond damselflies (family Coenagrionidae), sexual conflict
maintains female-limited color polymorphisms, with one female morph typically ...
Coopetition is a term from game theory that describes a mix of cooperative and competitive
behavior. The maternal–fetal interface (MFI) among eutherian mammals presents close
interaction of two distinct individuals. These interactions have resulted in a ...
Genetics
Circadian clocks allow organisms to anticipate daily fluctuations in light and temperature,
but how this anticipatory role promotes adaptation to different environments remains
poorly understood. Here, we subjected the cyanobacterium Synechococcus ...
In mammals, sperm formation is completed in the seminiferous tubules within the testis,
and sperm maturation occurs during the epididymal transit of the spermatozoa. Sperm
morphology drastically changes when abnormal spermatozoa migrate from the testis to
...
Immunology and Inflammation
Environmental stimuli, including the exposure to ultraviolet (UV)-B light, are known
to play a role in the modulation of immune-mediated mechanisms in multiple sclerosis
(MS). In experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), we have shown that UV-B
...
Metastasis remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, driven by complex
interactions within the tumor microenvironment (TME). Tumor-associated macrophages
(TAMs) play a pivotal role in metastatic progression, yet their molecular diversity
and ...
12/15-lipoxygenase (12/15-LOX, Alox15) generates bioactive oxygenated lipids during inflammation, however its homeostatic
role(s) in normal healing are unclear. Here, the role of 12/15-LOX in resolving skin
wounds was elucidated, focusing on how its ...
Understanding host factors driving asymptomatic versus severe disease outcomes is
of key importance if we are to control emerging and re-emerging viral infections.
HLA-B*15:01 has been associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in nonhospitalized
...
Medical Sciences
Osteoarthritis is a prevalent joint disease in the aging population. The hallmark
of osteoarthritis is the degeneration of the joint cartilage, characterized by changes
in chondrocytes including mitochondrial dysfunction. However, the precise mechanisms
...
How drugs penetrate tissues is poorly understood yet important, since drugs that fail
to reach their target will be ineffective. We followed the fate of anthracycline cancer
drugs at high resolution by exploiting their intrinsic fluorescence. In a cell-...
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) remains incurable despite treatment advances, and
a major challenge is that biomarkers that predict response and resistance to current
therapies are lacking. We report that activated and proliferating malignant CLL B
...
Microbiology
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a target for near-term climate change mitigation.
In many natural ecosystems, methane is sequestered by microbial communities, yet little
is known about how constituents of methane-oxidizing communities interact with ...
Isoniazid (INH) inhibits mycolic acid synthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and is a cornerstone of treatment regimens against this deadly pathogen. However,
over 10% of Mtb infections are INH-resistant. The compound C10 can sensitize clinically ...
Despite the clinical significance of many nonenveloped viruses, the molecular mechanisms
of their internalization and membrane penetration are not well understood. Rotaviruses
(RVs) are nonenveloped double-stranded RNA viruses and the leading cause of ...
Nanobodies have been pursued as candidates for antimicrobial design due to their small
size and versatile binding capacities, but direct antibacterial activity of a nanobody
has yet to be described. Here, we employed a bacterial surface display platform ...
Zika virus (ZIKV) has caused multiple human outbreaks, with more recent epidemics
associated with severe outcomes in infants. Today, ZIKV is endemic to many countries
and presents a persistent threat for future epidemics. The host innate immune proteins
...
The ESX-5 secretion system, uniquely found in slow-growing mycobacteria, is predicted
to secrete over 150 proteins across the inner membrane of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb). Although many of these substrates are believed to promote M.tb virulence, ...
Neuroscience
Humans and other organisms make decisions choosing between different options, with
the aim of maximizing the reward and minimizing the cost. The main theoretical framework
for modeling the decision-making process has been based on the highly successful ...
Decision making and learning processes together enable adaptive strategic behavior.
Animal studies demonstrated the importance of subcortical regions in these cognitive
processes, but the human subcortical contributions remain poorly characterized. Here,
...
Population Biology
Each year, billions of animals migrate across the globe on diverse spatial and temporal
scales. Migration behavior thus plays a fundamental role in the life cycle and Darwinian
fitness of many organisms. While the influence of migration on early-life ...
Corrections
Cover image: Pictured is a mating pair of damselflies (Africallagma glaucum) from South Africa. Beatriz Willink et al. explored whether the fitness benefits of reduced mating for females might explain the evolutionary origin of male-mimicking female variants. Natural populations of some damselfly species exhibit female-limited color polymorphism. Comparing lineages, the authors inferred a mechanism by which temperate and open habitats increase the density of interacting adults at breeding sites. The increased density in turn boosts the intensity of conflict between the sexes and the evolution of male mimicry in females, according to the authors. See the article by Willink et al. e2503400122. Image credit: Erik I. Svensson.
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