1. Although ecological research has long focused on the effects of temperature on population growth, arthropod pests are exposed to a wide variety of environmental factors that affect their performance, such as chemical pesticides targeted against them. Moreover, these environmental factors likely do not act in isolation. Identifying the extent to which abiotic factors interact […]

The continued evolution of SARS-CoV-2 has enabled escape from most monoclonal antibodies, yet a subset of broadly neutralizing antibodies targeting three newly identified super-conserved RBD epitopes SCORE-A, SCORE-B, and SCORE-C retains remarkable activity against even the most recent JN.1-derived sublineages. Here we employed an integrated computational framework combining conformational dynamics, mutational scanning, MM-GBSA binding energetics, […]

In cereal-legume intercrops, weed suppression is primarily driven by cereals, whose competitiveness is shaped by trait plasticity-morphological adjustments in response to the intercrop environment. However, how individual cereal traits respond plastically and contribute to system performance remains unclear, hampering improvements through breeding or system design. We combined field experiments with functional-structural plant modelling to quantify […]

Long-read sequencing has shown a rapid technological development during the last years. It has been established as the standard method for the sequencing of plant genomes and has also gained importance for full plasmid sequencing. As Sanger sequencing has a limited read length of about 1 kb, long read sequencing offers a great advantage, as […]

Enteroviruses initiate infection at the intestinal epithelium but can spread systemically to cause severe disease. Although both MDA5 and TLR3 have been implicated in enterovirus sensing, the mechanisms by which the intestinal epithelium detects these viruses remain poorly defined. To address this, we infected human intestinal organoids (enteroids) with echovirus 11 (E11) and compared responses […]

Background: Several large multisite studies have been conducted to describe etiology-specific burden of diarrhea among children in low-resource settings. Here, we combined data across studies to describe geographic and temporal trends in incidence and attributable fractions (AFs) of etiology-specific moderate-to-severe diarrhea (MSD), and to evaluate etiology-specific case fatality ratios (CFRs). Methods: We harmonized case definitions […]

Sliding-window phylogenetic analyses of multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) generate sequences of phylogenetic trees that can reveal recombination and other sources of phylogenetic conflict, yet comparing trees across genomic windows remains challenging. Phylo-Movies is a browser-based tool, also available as a standalone desktop application, that decomposes topological differences between consecutive phylogenetic trees into interpretable subtree migrations […]

Abstract Background After the global deployment of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs), serotype 12F has become the predominant serotype responsible for invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) worldwide. As PCVs that include serotype 12F are gradually introduced, we aim to characterise the global population structure and genetic diversity of the 12F capsule locus using whole-genome sequencing. Capsule variants […]

Large-scale genomic studies have identified biomarkers of adult cognitive functioning and educational attainment, yet the developmental pathways connecting these biomarkers to adult outcomes remain unclear. Drawing on four cohorts, we examined the developmental correlates of an epigenetic index of adult cognitive function ("Epigenetic-g") alongside polygenic indices of cognition and education. Epigenetic-g and polygenic indices were […]

One challenge to DNA replication is the presence of unrepaired damage on the template strand, which can stall the replication machinery. This stall can be resolved by the translesion synthesis (TLS) pathway, in which specialized translesion polymerases are recruited to copy damaged DNA. Because TLS polymerases are error-prone, their activity is regulated at multiple levels […]

Autoimmunity is emerging as a new etiology for early-onset gastric cancer (GC). However, it remains unclear what molecular pathways drive the initiation and progression of autoimmune tumorigenesis. Given that Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II (MHCII) is the strongest genetic risk factor for many autoimmune diseases, we hypothesized that MHCII-mediated autoantigen presentation drives tumorigenic differentiation of […]

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) contribute to the damage caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI) and can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). We analyzed plasma-derived EVs from human TBI patients to identify factors potentially contributing to TBI pathology. EVs were isolated using membrane affinity (ExoEasy) and size exclusion chromatography (iZone), both yielding CD9(+) and CD63(+) EVs with […]