Research articles

Erbium-doped lead magnesium niobium titanate ceramics demonstrate ultrahigh strain and piezoelectric coefficients under low electric fields, setting a benchmark for piezoelectric materials and offering versatile applications in precision actuators and sensors.

The stability and delivery of biopesticides limits application. Here, azadirachtin is co-assembled with plant secondary metabolites for efficient drug delivery, demonstrating pest management, the activation of plant defensive capacity, while increasing the production yield of crops.

Metabolic dysfunction is an important characteristic of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) phenotypic transition in aortic dissection. Here, the authors show lncRNA H19 could encode a peptide, GMRSP. GMRSP regulates the glycolysis by counteracting hnRNP A2B1-mediated pyruvate kinase M pre-mRNA alternative splicing and control the phenotypic transition of VSMCs.

Effectiveness of the hepatitis E vaccine HEV 239 amongst high-risk groups isn’t well studied. Here, Zhuang et al. analyse a decade of surveillance data (2007–2017) from Dongtai, China, and estimate HEV 239 effectiveness of 72% amongst hepatitis B virus infected people.

Here, the authors show that cystatin C (CST3) regulates the activity of cathepsin B during pancreatitis in a pH dependent manner. Moreover, cathepsin B activity is inhibited by monomeric CST3 but activated by dimeric CST3.

The ability to manage ill health and care needs might be affected by who a person lives with. Here, authors show that living alone or with co-residents with multimorbidity poses additional risk for unplanned hospitalisation and care home transition beyond an individual’s characteristics.

Recently, superconductivity intertwined with an insulating phase at a commensurate band-filling was discovered in twisted bilayer WSe₂. Here, the authors theoretically propose that the observed insulating state may be a quantum spin-liquid Mott insulator with electron fractionalization, separated from the superconductor via a quantum phase transition.

Diabetes-associated cognitive dysfunction (DACD) is increasingly recognized as a critical complication of diabetes. Here, the authors show that SGK1 drives hippocampal demyelination and DACD via regulating NDRG1 phosphorylation.

Epistasis can be quantified using the chimeric formula, which mixes additive and multiplicative scales. Here, the authors show that this formula does not appropriately quantify higher-order epistasis.

Thermal management in compact electrical devices is challenging due to limited space and complex geometries. Here, the authors present a flexible heat pipe that conforms to arbitrary shapes without space constraints, achieving an ultra-high thermal conductivity of 11,363 W/m·K.

Zebrafish show robust heart regeneration after injury. Here they show that zebrafish cardiomyocytes experience replication stress, which BMP signaling alleviates via a conserved mechanism of replication fork restart, suggesting a potential for anti-aging and regenerative therapies.

Monitoring the early-stage healing of severe traumatic nerve injuries is essential to gather pathological information for timely interventions. Here, the authors introduce a biodegradable and restorative neural interface for wireless real-time tracking.

Iron-regulated surface determinant B (IsdB) from Staphylococcus aureus extracts heme from human hemoglobin, which is the first iron transfer step to the bacterial cell. Here, IsdB functional dynamics are explored with X-ray solution scattering techniques including time-resolved WAXS.

The RNA methyltransferase activity of SPOUT1/CENP-32 is crucial for accurate mitotic spindle organization. Here, the authors describe a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by bi-allelic pathogenic SPOUT1 variants with reduced activity and compromised function in spindle organization.

Ruthenium dioxide electrocatalysts for acidic oxygen evolution suffer from mediocre activity and poor stability due to high ruthenium-oxygen covalency. Here, the authors report the effectiveness of tensile strain and electronic dopants in improving both activity and stability.

Variation in cortical surface area in adults can reflect developmental events occurring during prenatal and early postnatal periods. Here, the authors find rare copy number variants associated with cortical surface area, which are also found to disrupt neural progenitor proliferation during fetal development.

Respiratory virus infection often induces excessive cytokine and chemokine production. Here the authors show in vitro that infection by the enterovirus, EV-D68, induces CXCL8/CXCR1/2 signaling and translocation of host factor, hnRNP-K, to the cytoplasm as a means to facilitate viral replication.

The CHAMP1 complex, consisting of CHAMP1, POGZ, and HP1α, is enriched in heterochromatin, but its role was unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate that the CHAMP1 complex promotes heterochromatin assembly and homology-directed repair, with its dysfunction linked to CHAMP1 syndrome.

Elucidating the hierarchical assembly process is fundamental to the understanding of chirality transfer and chiroptical functions. Here, the authors show that a bisurea molecule self-assembles into chiral double-helices by a supramolecular rosette intermediated hierarchical assembly mechanism.

Efficiently processing electronic polymer solutions into thin films with targeted properties is challenging. Here the authors employ Polybot, an AI-driven automated lab, to autonomously explore pathways for high-conductivity, low-defect polymer films.