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Maternal sensitivity to a hormone produced by the fetus might underlie the risk of severe nausea and vomiting in human pregnancy — a finding that could open up strategies for the treatment of this debilitating condition.
Diverse genomic sequences might boost equity in areas such as health care. Genomic data from Indigenous Australians, shared through a community-consultation framework, aids efforts to boost genetic representation.
Linking biological tissues with electronic devices is challenging owing to the softness of tissues and their arbitrary shapes and sizes. An innovative water-responsive, supercontractile polymer film, inspired by spider silk, allows the construction of soft, stretchable and shape-adaptive tissue–electronic interfaces.
Ultrathin semiconductor materials that mimic twisted layers of atoms have been used to build synchronized arrays of nanometre-scale lasers. The systems can be configured — and easily reconfigured — to form intricate patterns.
Current injectable COVID-19 vaccines are unable to induce robust immunity in the mucosal tissues lining the airways. A protein-based vaccine delivered to the lungs in the form of an inhaled dry powder shows promise as a way forward.
A tool that tags individual cells in a tissue with a unique barcode means that the gene-expression profile of each cell can be plotted in its original location. This allows spatial information to be captured at single-cell resolution.
In a huge collaborative effort, millions of cells in the mouse brain have been mapped in detail. Two scientists examine the resulting wealth of insights into gene regulation in brain cells, neuronal connections and how our own brains evolved.
The hormone oxytocin is secreted by the brain during labour and lactation. It has also been associated with lipid release from intracellular stores, but the physiological implications of this were unknown. This study shows that oxytocin is produced locally by neurons that innervate the adipose tissue and is required for maximizing energy release from fat.
Diabetes is a strong risk factor for viral respiratory infections, including influenza and COVID-19, which can be particularly dangerous for people with the condition. The discovery that the metabolism of lung dendritic cells, key sentinels of the immune system, is disrupted by high blood-sugar levels could provide a route to reversing this susceptibility.
Identifying nutrient dependencies of cancer cells is crucial for developing new therapies. The discovery that an aggressive type of cancer cell has a high uptake of vitamin B5 sheds light on the link between vitamin availability and tumour growth.
High-resolution structures of TAAR1 — the receptor bound by amphetamines and molecules called trace amines — reveal detailed interactions with ligand molecules that will inform efforts to design antipsychotic drugs.
Electron spin resonance is a standard method for studying the structure of chemical compounds, and it can also be used to control quantum spin states. Combining electron spin resonance with atomic force microscopy allows single spins to be manipulated in single molecules — with potential applications in quantum computing and elsewhere.
Fatal renal dysfunction is often associated with tumour development. Fly and mouse data reveal evolutionarily conserved mechanisms that link tumours to renal failure and offer potential for future therapeutic approaches.
An expanded version of a human-genome database called gnomAD, containing 76,156 whole-genome sequences, has enabled investigation of how variants in non-protein-coding regions of the genome affect health.
An innovative method uses the intrinsic attractive force between silicon surfaces that are separated by a tiny gap to engineer structures that can confine light — offering an ideal set-up for manipulating single photons.
