Editorials
In sharp contrast to President Trump, Brenda Fitzgerald has put maternal and child health at the heart of her policies.
doi: 10.1038/547137b
China and other countries should look again at how they pay bonuses and allocate grants that are based on individual research papers.
doi: 10.1038/547137a
Interactions between humans and robots may eventually include sex.
doi: 10.1038/547138a
News
Pared-back staff struggles to continue cybersecurity, climate-change and science-education efforts without direction from the Trump administration.
doi: 10.1038/547145a
Artificial soils that mimic the surfaces of the Moon, Mars and asteroids are hard to make — and often miss the mark.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.22228
The technique could be used on everything from flowers to cells to examine the factors that influence the shapes of plant parts.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.22230
Physicists find ways to make LIGO and other gravitational-wave detectors even more sensitive.
doi: 10.1038/547148a
Clutch of DNA analyses show that ancient humans moved around on the continent far more than has been appreciated.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.22272
News Features
An unprecedented study in Bangladesh could reveal how malnutrition, poor sanitation and other challenges make their mark on child development.
doi: 10.1038/547150a
News & Views
Quantum physics ultimately constrains how well sensors of position, speed and acceleration can perform. A hybrid quantum system that avoids these constraints could give rise to improved sensor technologies. See Letter p.191
doi: 10.1038/547164a
The T cells of the immune system can destroy tumours, but their activation can be inefficient. Vaccines that exploit tumour mutations elicit robust T-cell responses to tumours, with potential clinical benefits. See Letters p.217 & p.222
doi: 10.1038/nature23093
Trace elements are enriched in plants by natural processes, human activities or both. An analysis of mercury in Arctic tundra vegetation offers fresh insight into the uptake of trace metals from the atmosphere by plants. See Letter p.201
doi: 10.1038/547167a
The protein HP1 mediates compaction of DNA into a repressive structure called heterochromatin. Analysis reveals that HP1 has liquid-like properties, offering a fresh perspective on genome organization. See Letters p.236 & p.241
doi: 10.1038/nature23089
The protein tau forms abnormal filamentous aggregates called tangles in the brains of people with neurodegeneration. Structures of two such filaments offer pathways to a deeper understanding of Alzheimer's disease. See Article p.185
doi: 10.1038/nature23094
The development of a protocol for isolating and expanding the cell population that lines bile ducts has enabled the in vitro generation of bioengineered ducts. These can replace native bile ducts when transplanted into mice.
doi: 10.1038/547171a
Articles
Results of fine-mapping 94 inflammatory bowel disease loci using high-density genotyping in 67,852 individuals and several new fine-mapping methods.
doi: 10.1038/nature22969
The extracellular matrix protein agrin promotes cardiac regeneration in adult mice after myocardial infarction; it modulates cardiac differentiation and proliferation by interacting with the dystrophin–glycoprotein complex, Yap and ERK-mediated signalling.
doi: 10.1038/nature22978
High-resolution structures of tau filaments shed light on the ultrastructure of neurofibrillary lesions in Alzheimer’s disease.
doi: 10.1038/nature23002
Letters
By coupling a mechanical object to an ensemble of atomic spins with negative effective mass, the object’s position can be measured without the usual quantum back-action perturbation of its momentum.
doi: 10.1038/nature22980
Non-symmetric internal alkenes are selectively converted into allylic functionalized products with high stereoselectivity and regioselectivity.
doi: 10.1038/nature22805
A two-year study of mercury deposition in the Arctic finds that the main source of mercury is gaseous elemental mercury, which is deposited throughout the year and leads to very high soil mercury levels.
doi: 10.1038/nature22997
The pyrite-type high-pressure form of FeOOH is predicted from first principles, and found experimentally to be stable under the conditions at the base of the mantle, with implications for transport of water within Earth’s deep interior.
doi: 10.1038/nature22823
In contrast to the prevailing belief that the gut begins with the mouth and continues backwards from there, this work shows that substantial areas of the faces of ray-finned fishes originate from the pre-oral gut or endoderm.
doi: 10.1038/nature23008
Malaria parasites use a sensing mechanism to moderate their growth in response to the nutrient content of their host.
doi: 10.1038/nature23009
The results of a phase I trial assessing a personal neoantigen multi-peptide vaccine in patients with melanoma, showing feasibility, safety, and immunogenicity.
doi: 10.1038/nature22991
The authors report the first-in-human application of personalized neo-antigen RNA vaccines in patients with melanoma.
doi: 10.1038/nature23003
After injury in the heart, postnatal mouse hearts deficient in the Hippo pathway show efficient repair, and in the hearts of Mdx mice (a model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy) Hippo deficiency protects against overload-induced heart failure.
doi: 10.1038/nature22979
A low-input Hi-C method is used to show that chromatin organization is markedly relaxed in pre-implantation mouse embryos after fertilization and that the subsequent maturation of 3D chromatin architecture is surprisingly slow.
doi: 10.1038/nature23263
Gene silencing by heterochromatin is proposed to occur in part as a result of the ability of heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) proteins to spread across large regions of the genome, compact the underlying chromatin and recruit diverse ligands. Here we identify a new property of the human HP1α protein: the ability to form phase-separated droplets. While unmodified HP1α is soluble, either phosphorylation of its N-terminal extension or DNA binding promotes the formation of phase-separated droplets. Phosphorylation-driven phase separation can be promoted or reversed by specific HP1α ligands. Known components of heterochromatin such as nucleosomes and DNA preferentially partition into the HP1α droplets, but molecules such as the transcription factor TFIIB show no preference. Using a single-molecule DNA curtain assay, we find that both unmodified and phosphorylated HP1α induce rapid compaction of DNA strands into puncta, although with different characteristics. We show by direct protein delivery into mammalian cells that an HP1α mutant incapable of phase separation in vitro forms smaller and fewer nuclear puncta than phosphorylated HP1α. These findings suggest that heterochromatin-mediated gene silencing may occur in part through sequestration of compacted chromatin in phase-separated HP1 droplets, which are dissolved or formed by specific ligands on the basis of nuclear context.
doi: 10.1038/nature22822
HP1a can nucleate into foci that display liquid properties during the early stages of heterochromatin domain formation in Drosophila embryos, suggesting that the repressive action of heterochromatin may be mediated in part by emergent properties of phase separation.
doi: 10.1038/nature22989