Articles in 2021

In memory consolidation, the hippocampus has a unique way to preferentially amplify behaviour-relevant information that entails ‘replaying’ this information during periods of rest.

Hormonal FABP4 is discovered to be a pivotal regulator of an adipose–beta-cell endocrine axis that coordinates energy status and metabolic organ function, and targeting this axis improved metabolic outcomes.

An analysis of 2,173 individuals from the MetaCardis cohort quantifies the individual and combinatorial effects of a range of drugs on host health, metabolome and gut microbiome in cardiometabolic disease.

Using cryogenic electron microscopy, the structure of the human SGLT2–MAP17 complex captured in the empagliflozin-bound state reveals the inhibitory mechanism of these anti-diabetic drugs.

Following global DNA demethylation, mouse gonadal primordial germ cells undergo remodelling of repressive chromatin modifications, resulting in a sex-specific signature that is required to safeguard the transcriptional program.

A single dose of a small-molecule HIV capsid inhibitor provides long-term protection from repeated simian–human immunodeficiency virus challenges in macaques and might serve as a novel strategy for HIV prevention in humans.

Integration of pre-treatment tumour features in predictive models using machine learning could inform on response to therapy.

Evidence of a transcriptional signature that marks precursors of long-lived CD8⁺ memory T cells in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Blastoids derived from naive PXGL-cultured human pluripotent stem cells in which Hippo, TGF-β and ERK pathways are inhibited closely recapitulate aspects of blastocyst development, form cells resembling blastocyst-stage cells and thus provide a model system for implantation and development studies.

Interfacial water consists of hydrogen-bonded water and Na·H₂O, its structure changes at hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) potentials, and when structurally ordered it aids interfacial electron transfer, resulting in higher HER rates.

Stable, dissipative optomechanical solitons are realized using optical fields in a whispering gallery mode resonator by balancing the optomechanical nonlinearities with a tailored modal dispersion.

Stegouros elengassen, an ankylosaur from the late Cretaceous of Chile, has a large tail weapon, named a macuahuitl after the Aztec club, with a frond-like structure formed by seven pairs of laterally projecting osteoderms encasing the distal half of the tail.

Reanalysis of bipedal trackways from Laetoli site A in Tanzania suggest that the footprints were made by a hominin that coexisted with at least one other hominin species.

A framework through which machine learning can guide mathematicians in discovering new conjectures and theorems is presented and shown to yield mathematical insight on important open problems in different areas of pure mathematics.

The mechanism of Thoeris—a bacterial anti-phage defence system—is described in detail, revealing that bacterial TIR-domain proteins recognize infection and produce signalling molecules to execute cell death, akin to the roles of these proteins in plants.

A subset of inflammatory group 3 innate lymphoid cells, here termed iILC3s, infiltrate the central nervous system and promote neuroinflammation and disease progression in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis.

Single-cell tracing and optogenetics manipulation in mice are used to show how spatial tuning of individual pyramidal cells in CA1 can propagate to and be amplified by their local subnetwork of neurons.

.Morphometric analysis of coccolith assemblages spanning the last 2,800,000 years suggests that the evolution of coccolithophores is linked to seasonality changes, paced by Earth’s orbital eccentricity with implications for the carbon cycle.

Structural analysis of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae 80S ribosome trapped in an intermediate translocation state shows stabilization of codon–anticodon interactions by eukaryote-specific elements of the 80S ribosome, eEF2 and tRNA and demonstrates a major role for eEF2 in maintaining the directionality of translocation.

A new method quantifies the social makeup of online communities, and applying it to 14 years of commenting patterns on Reddit shows increased polarization in 2016, driven by new users to the platform.