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Hematopoietic stem cell formation via the endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition is initiated by a complex rewiring of the aortic endothelium. Here the authors identify Meis1 as an early driver of hemogenic specification of this arterial endothelium.

Trait correlations impact evolvability as selection on one trait can influence others. Here, the authors examine trait correlation in two proteins, a fluorescent protein & an antibiotic resistance enzyme, observing rapid evolution of trait correlations through changes in the biophysical properties of these proteins.

Using unique barcodes for tumour cells, the authors explore the dynamics of human glioblastoma subpopulations, and suggest that clonal heterogeneity emerges through stochastic fate decisions of a neutral proliferative hierarchy.

Several genomic features have been found for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) but targeted clinical genetic testing fails to predict prognosis. Here, the authors generate an AML prognostic score from RNA-seq data of patients, which successfully stratifies AML patients and which may provide guidance for therapeutic strategies.

VCP/p97 is identified as a co-factor to the fusion oncoprotein ASPSCR1::TFE3. They co-localize on chromatin, co-dependent for enhancer looping and transcriptional regulation in alveolar soft part sarcomas and Xp11- rearranged renal cell carcinomas.

Sonic Hedgehog medulloblastoma (Shh-MB) comprises four subtypes each with distinct clinical traits. Here the authors characterize the genome, transcriptome, and methylome of Shh-MB subtypes, revealing a complex fusion landscape and the molecular convergence of MYCN and cAMP signaling pathways.

The reasons for epistasis, wherein mutations interact non-additively, are often not fully understood. Now it is found that shifting the rate-limiting step from substrate binding to the chemical reaction step during the directed evolution of β-lactamase correlates with epistasis.

Direct library preparation (DLP) is a robust and economic method for preparing large numbers of single-cell whole-genome sequencing libraries without preamplification, to study copy-number heterogeneity at the cell level and other variant types at the clone or population level.

Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer is a highly aggressive disease, with a variable response to treatment. Here, the authors validate ctDNA fraction as a poor prognostic factor and develop a model to predict whether patients harbor sufficient ctDNA for informative blood-based genotyping.

Mutations in the transcription factor MEF2B are found in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. In this study, the authors map the DNA-binding sites of the transcription factor in cells in vitroand find that the mutations decrease the ability of MEF2B to activate transcription.

A genetic screen identifies the versatile membrane receptor protein FERONIA as a key modulator of rhizosphere Pseudomonas and microbiome composition in Arabidopsis, through the control of basal levels of reactive oxygen species production.

A large-scale genomics study shows that the cell of origin and founding mutations determine disease subtype and lead to the expression of multiple haematopoietic lineage-defining antigens in mixed phenotype acute leukaemia.

To address the question of whether a recurrent tumour is genetically similar to the tumour at diagnosis, the evolution of medulloblastoma has been studied in both an in vivo mouse model of clinical tumour therapy as well as in humans with recurrent disease; targeted tumour therapies are usually based on targets present in the tumour at diagnosis but the results from this study indicate that post-treatment recurring tumours (compared with the tumour at diagnosis) have undergone substantial clonal divergence of the initial dominant tumour clone.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell

Cryptococcus neoformansis generally considered to be an opportunistic pathogen of immunocompromised individuals. However, as discussed here, this view has been challenged by recent evidence of specialized host–pathogen interactions, and by the emergence of the related speciesCryptococcus gattiias a primary pathogen of immunocompetent populations.

Here, the authors perform statistical analyses to demonstrate that epistasis is highly pervasive in adaptive evolutionary trajectories of enzymes. Using epistatic data, they expose higher-order rewiring of intramolecular amino acid networks.

Information on protein sequence variability and conservation can be leveraged to identify functionally important regions. Here, the authors develop new conservation measures that exploit taxonomy distances and LIST, a tool for predicting deleteriousness of human variants.

Integrative analysis in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma uncovers that biallelic mutations on TMEM30A are associated with a favorable outcome and enhanced sensitivity to CD47 blockade.

Co-fractionation mass spectrometry (CF-MS) is a powerful technique for mapping protein interactions under physiological conditions. Here, the authors uniformly re-process 411 CF-MS experiments and carry out meta-analyses of protein abundance, protein-protein interactions, and phosphorylation sites in the resulting resource.

The globally-distributed Ranidae (true frogs) are the largest frog family. Here, Hammond et al. present a draft genome of the North American bullfrog, Rana (Lithobates) catesbeiana, as a foundation for future understanding of true frog genetics as amphibian species face difficult environmental challenges.

Warner et al. analyze tumor tissue and ctDNA from patients with de novo metastatic castrate-sensitive prostate cancer and find high intratumoral heterogeneity, suggesting that genomic profiling of multiple samples per patient is needed for accurate outcome prediction.

Relapsed pediatric acute myeloid leukemia is associated with poor prognosis. Here, the authors use RNA-seq data from 1503 primary samples to create a combined transcriptional and cytomolecular signature to improve relapse risk prediction.

Genomic analysis of 118 cervical tumors from Ugandan individuals identifies HPV-clade-specific differences in tumor DNA methylation, regulatory-region-associated histone marks, gene expression and pathway dysregulation.

Highly recurrent hotspot r.3A>G mutations are identified in U1 splicesomal small nuclear RNAs in about 50% of Sonic hedgehog medulloblastomas, which result in disrupted RNA splicing and the activation of oncogenes.

Neuropathic pain is a complex and often disabling condition with unclear pathogenesis. Here, the authors elucidate an epigenetic regulatory pathway driven by microRNA regulation of betaendorphin (β-EP) synthesis in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC) neurons to modulate neuropathic pain.

Gregor Andelfinger and colleagues identify mutations in SGOL1 that cause a novel cohesinopathy characterized by chronic atrial and intestinal dysrhythmia, termed CAID syndrome. SGOL1 encodes a component of the cohesin complex, suggesting that cardiac and gut rhythm are regulated by this complex.

Most existing long-read transcriptome assembly methods rely on reference genomes and transcript annotations, while reference-free methods remain scarce. Here, Nip et al. introduce RNA-Bloom2, a reference-free method that requires substantially less memory and runtime than other reference-free methods.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The phosphorylation of serine/arginine-rich proteins by CDC-like kinase is a central regulatory mechanism for RNA splicing reactions. Here, the authors synthesize a novel small molecule CLK inhibitor and map CLK-responsive alternative splicing events and discover an effect on conjoined gene transcription.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Here, using participants in the CHILD birth cohort, the authors reveal that impaired 1-year microbiota maturation may be universal to 5-year pediatric allergies, mediated by functional and metabolic imbalances of compromised mucous integrity, elevated oxidative activity, decreased fermentation, and elevated trace amines.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Treatments to prevent thrombosis are suboptimal. Here, the authors identify a lead an antithrombotic drug targeting polyphosphate based on switchable protonation states for the anion-binding groups, demonstrating antithrombotic activity in multiple mouse models, not causing bleeding, and well tolerated.