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Mutational signatures in melanoma are associated with prognostic features in patients and suggest distinct disease etiologies associated with the influence of different wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation.
Preliminary evidence from two cases suggests that fecal microbiota transplantation may provide a viable treatment option for a severe adverse effect of immune checkpoint blockade therapy in patients with cancer.
Mutations in the CD19 gene suggesting irreversible loss of its surface expression are identified in the majority of analyzed cases of CD19– relapse in two clinical trials of pediatric ALL CD19 CAR T therapy, offering considerations for the rational choice of follow-up therapies.
A CAR gene unintentionally introduced in a contaminating leukemia cell during the manufacturing of CAR T cells caused a patient to relapse after therapy.
Antibiotic treatment of SIV-infected nonhuman primates shows that inducing bacterial dysbiosis in the gut—similar to that seen in HIV infection—does not promote disease progression, questioning its potential role in progression to HIV/AIDS.
Zika virus infection during pregnancy is associated with an increased rate of fetal loss in nonhuman primates, as reported in this multicenter analysis.
Initiation of antiretroviral therapy in the first 2 weeks of HIV infection fails to prevent resurgence of virus after stopping treatment, indicating early establishment of a resilient viral reservoir.
Treatment with setmelanotide, a new-generation MC4R agonist, provides durable weight loss in hyperphagic, leptin receptor–deficient patients, suggesting a pharmacological avenue to treat patients with various MC4R pathway defects.
Thomas Geisbert and colleagues show that a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies protects cynomolgus monkeys from lethal Lassa fever virus infection, including when administration is delayed by more than a week after viral challenge.
Bispecific antibodies that connect T cells with tumor cells can be delivered in the form of in vitro–transcribed pharmacologically optimized mRNA; when injected into mice, these mRNA-encoded antibodies reject large established tumors as efficiently as the corresponding recombinant antibody protein.
Using intracranial electrode recordings in two individuals with Alzheimer's disease, Lam et al. discover hippocampal seizure activity that could not be detected by traditional EEG monitoring.
Prostate cancer is refractory to anti-CTLA-4 therapy, but the reason why is unclear. Padmanee Sharma and colleagues report that the inhibitory molecule VISTA, which negatively regulates T cells, is upregulated on macrophages in prostate tumors that have been treated with anti-CTLA-4 and may play a role in resistance to this immunotherapy.
Antibody-based diagnosis of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection is complicated by cross-reactivity with antibodies against dengue virus. Hongjie Dai and colleagues report their development of a new IgA- and IgG-based diagnostic test that detects ZIKV with high specificity.
Glucocorticoid treatment of human cord blood hematopoietic stem cells increases expression of the receptor CXCR4 by chromatin remodeling, thereby enhancing hematopoietic stem cell homing and engraftment.
Excess urinary cystine can lead to painful stone formation. There is no current effective treatment, but here Pankaj Kapahi, Marshall Stoller and colleagues have found that α-lipoic acid can prevent or even reverse formation of these stones in a mouse model.
New animal models of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection are imperative to accelerating efforts to treat or prevent disease in humans. Adams Waldorf et al. now report that ZIKV infection of a pregnant female pigtailed macaque caused brain lesions in the developing fetus, suggesting that this model may be useful for understanding ZIKV-associated congenital abnormalities in humans.
By using combined positron emission and computed tomography (PET–CT), Esmail et al. show that some patients with latent tuberculosis have signs of subclinical, active disease in the lungs and a greater likelihood of progression, suggesting a spectrum of disease rather than discrete latent and active disease states.