Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Andrew Lane and colleagues analyze somatic alterations across 21 tumor types for evidence of sex bias. They find that an excess of genes on the non-pseudoautosomal region of the X chromosome harbor loss-of-function mutations more frequently in males, suggesting that biallelic expression of these genes in females contributes to reduced cancer incidence in females across a variety of tumor types.
Trever Bivona and colleagues use an in vivo lung cancer metastasis model to show that the transcriptional repressor Capicua (CIC) suppresses invasion and metastasis. CIC inactivation leads to upregulation of ETV4 and MMP24, which is necessary and sufficient for metastasis.
Stuart Cook and colleagues study the role of TTN (titin)-truncating variants using a combination of heart physiology experiments in rats and genomic analysis in humans. Their data show that TTN variants are associated with a range of cardiac phenotypes in healthy individuals and in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy.
The CNV analysis group of the Psychiatric Genomic Consortium analyzes a large schizophrenia cohort to examine genomic copy number variants (CNVs) and disease risk. They find an enrichment of CNV burden in cases versus controls and identify 8 genome-wide significant loci as well as novel suggestive loci conferring either risk or protection to schizophrenia.
Luca Lotta, Robert Scott, Stephen O’Rahilly, Claudia Langenberg, David Savage, Nicholas Wareham, Inês Barroso and colleagues identify 53 genomic regions associated with insulin resistance phenotypes. Their findings suggest that limited storage capacity of peripheral adipose tissue is an important etiological component in insulin-resistant cardiometabolic disease and highlight genes and mechanisms underpinning this link.
Michael Talkowski and colleagues analyze balanced chromosomal abnormalities in 273 individuals by whole-genome sequencing. Their findings suggest that sequence-level resolution improves prediction of clinical outcomes for balanced rearrangements and provides insight into pathogenic mechanisms such as altered gene regulation due to changes in chromosome topology.
Déborah Bourc’his and colleagues report that mouse embryos deficient for Liz (long isoform of Zdbf2) develop normally but fail to activate Zdbf2 in the postnatal brain and show growth reduction. These data suggest that transcription during an early embryonic stage may program a stable epigenetic state with later physiological consequences.
Jian Hu and colleagues use mouse models to show that Qki deficiency promotes gliomagenesis by allowing neural stem cells to maintain their stemness outside the subventricular zone. Mechanistically, they show that Qki deficiency decreases endolysosome-mediated degradation of receptors that are essential for maintaining self-renewal, allowing cells to cope with low ligand levels outside of their niche.
Thomas Hoffmann, Neil Risch and colleagues use longitudinal electronic health records from almost 100,000 individuals to conduct genome-wide association studies for blood pressure measurements. They find new significant loci that replicate in independent cohorts and can double the variance explained by using multiple blood pressure data points.
Thorsten Schnurbusch, Helmy Youssef and colleagues show that VRS2, a transcription factor of the SHI family, regulates floral organ patterning and phase duration during spike development in barley. Their data establish a link between the SHI protein family and sucrose metabolism during organ growth and development.
John Storey, David Blei and colleagues present a method, TeraStructure, for estimating population structure from human genomic data sets on a scale not possible with current methods. TeraStructure is able to analyze data from the Human Genome Diversity Panel and the 1000 Genomes Project in less than three hours.
Yuehui He and colleagues show that VAL1 and VAL2 bind to a cis-regulatory element at the FLC locus and are required for its epigenetic silencing during vernalization in Arabidopsis. They further report that VAL proteins recognize the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 and are necessary for genomic binding of the Polycomb silencing partner LHP1.
Sebastien Gagneux and colleagues analyze a global collection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates to classify sublineages by phylogeography. They find globally distributed ‘generalist’ and geographically restricted ‘specialist’ sublineages of lineage 4, indicating that different evolutionary strategies were adopted to succeed in various ecological niches.
Pim van der Harst and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for resting heart rate in individuals of European ancestry and identify 64 associated loci, 46 of which have not been previously reported. A genetic risk score constructed using the associated variants is significantly associated with increased mortality risk.
Melinda Mills, Nicola Barban, Harold Snieder, Marcel den Hoed and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of data from over 300,000 individuals for age at first birth and number of children ever born. They identify 12 significant loci that associate with these traits, providing insights into the genetic basis of human reproductive behavior.
Xu Tan, Yong Yang and colleagues identify patients with epidermolysis bullosa harboring mutations in KLHL24, which encodes a cullin 3–RBX1 ubiquitin ligase substrate receptor. They find that truncating mutations stabilize the protein by abolishing autoubiquitination, leading to enhanced ubiquitination and degradation of KRT14, the target substrate of KLHL24.
Lars Bullinger, Jinghui Zhang, Jeffery Klco, James Downing and colleagues report a detailed genomic analysis of pediatric and adult core-binding factor acute myeloid leukemias (CBF-AMLs). They identify recurrent mutations in CCND2, MGA, DHX15 and ZBTB7A and highlight dramatic differences in the landscape of cooperating mutations between different CBF-AML subtypes.
Marika Charalambous and colleagues show that, in mice, the fetus is the source of maternal circulating DLK1, which regulates the mother's metabolism during pregnancy. They also find that maternal circulating DLK1 levels predict embryonic weight in mice and associate with fetal growth restriction in a human cohort.
Bikram Gill and colleagues report map-based cloning of Fhb1, which confers resistance to Fusarium head blight in wheat. They show that the PFT gene at Fhb1 confers resistance and encodes a chimeric lectin with agglutinin domains and a pore-forming toxin domain, identifying a new type of durable plant-resistance gene.
Daehyun Baek and colleagues present a systematic analysis of more than 2 billion potential miRNA–gene target interactions using publicly available human microarray data. The authors find evidence for four canonical and seven non-canonical site types that show detectable downregulation of target genes, and they present functional validation for the new site types.
