Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Articles in this Issue
Reassessment of Kepler’s habitable zone Earth-like exoplanets with data-driven null signal templates
One of the primary mission goals of the Kepler space telescope is to detect Earth-like terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around Sun-like stars. Unfortunately, such planets are at the detection...
Biologically grounded neocortex computational primitives implemented on neuromorphic hardware improve vision transformer performance
Understanding the computational principles of the brain and translating them into neuromorphic hardware and modern deep learning architectures is critical for advancing neuro-inspired AI (NeuroAI). He...
A nonenzymatic effector disrupts <i>Bacteroides</i> cell wall homeostasis via OmpA targeting to mediate interbacterial competition
The human gut microbiome is a dynamic ecosystem where bacteria engage in interspecies competition using molecular weapons such as the type VI secretion system (T6SS). Here, we characterize BteO–BtiO,...
When noncanonical olfaction is optimal
The early olfactory system is canonically described by a “one-receptor-to-one-neuron” model: each olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) expresses a single type of olfactory receptor (OR). Although the olfact...
Phycobilisome core architecture influences photoprotective quenching by the Orange Carotenoid Protein
Photosynthetic organisms rely on sophisticated photoprotective mechanisms to prevent oxidative damage under high or fluctuating solar illumination. Cyanobacteria, which have evolved a unique, water-so...
The autophagy-specific exocyst subcomplex contributes to phagophore assembly site integrity by promoting phagophore expansion
Autophagy is a crucial intracellular pathway for maintaining cellular homeostasis. It involves forming double-membrane vesicles called autophagosomes, which deliver cytosolic cargoes to the lysosomes/...
An Orc6 tether mediates ORC binding-site switching during replication origin licensing
During origin licensing, the origin recognition complex (ORC) loads two Mcm2-7 helicases onto DNA in a head-to-head conformation, establishing the foundation for subsequent bidirectional replication....
Distinct and convergent effects of <i>SF3B1</i> mutations in human breast cancer
Tumor genomic profiling has uncovered many cancer drivers whose implications in terms of tumor biology and therapeutic actionability remain understudied. Hotspot mutations in SF3B1...
EFCAB10 anchors AK8 to the radial spoke for proper ciliary motility
Radial spokes in motile cilia and flagella regulate rhythmic ciliary motility, which is essential for rapid cell movement and extracellular fluid flow. In humans, defective radial spokes can cause a g...
Species introductions shift seed dispersal potential more than extinctions across 120 island plant–frugivore communities
Oceanic islands are hotspots of both species extinctions and introductions, which led to marked changes in species composition. This may disrupt key ecological interactions, such as animal-mediated se...
Causes and consequences of disordered hyperuniformity in global drylands
Self-organization of individual organisms at a very small scale may result in recognizable functional ecosystem structures at a larger spatial scale. Drylands, which cover almost half of emerged lands...
Design principles of the common Gly-X6-Gly membrane protein building block
Protein behavior in lipids is poorly understood and inadequately represented in current computational models. Design and prediction abilities for bilayer-embedded molecular structures may be improved...
Impact of extreme weather events on the US domestic supply chain of food manufacturing
In the United States, like in other countries, the agrifood supply chain faces challenges from a growing population and less predictable weather conditions. Extreme weather events such as droughts dec...
Dynamic sensor selection for biomarker discovery
Recent advances in biotechnologies enable monitoring of biological systems with unprecedented resolution, yet identifying and interpreting biological signals remains a major challenge in clinical and...
STAR/STARD1: A mitochondrial intermembrane space cholesterol shuttle degraded through mitophagy
The import of cholesterol to the inner mitochondrial membrane by the steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (STAR/STARD1) is essential for de novo steroid hormone biosynthesis and the alternate pathwa...
The intestinal environment potentiates bacteriophage adaptation in response to phenotypic resistance in <i>Salmonella</i> Typhimurium
Heterogeneous gene expression enables the coexistence of virulent phages with populations of isogenic bacteria comprising both phenotypically phage-resistant and susceptible cells. However, the evolva...
Association of affirmative action with health and education outcomes and services in India
Structural and social inequalities are determinants of poor human development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. In a quasi-experimental, regression discontinuity design study, we examined...
Deciphering the determinants of recombinant protein expression across the human secretome
Protein secretion is an essential process of mammalian cells. In biomanufacturing, this process can be optimized to enhance production yields and biotherapeutic quality. While cell line engineering an...
Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds
Multispecies sensory networks, where different species prioritize different sensory modalities and then use heterospecific information in a likely noncooperative fashion, may allow animals to improve...
Skillful heat-related mortality forecasting during recent deadly European summers
Europe is a heatwave hotspot: numerous temperature records have been broken in recent summers, and roughly 60,000 and 50,000 heat-related deaths occurred in the summers of 2022 and 2023, respectively....
Ab initio machine-learning simulation of calcium carbonate from aqueous solutions to the solid state
A first-principles machine-learning model has been developed aimed at studying the formation of calcium carbonate from aqueous solution using molecular dynamics simulations. The model, dubbed strongly...
Graph neural networks for predicting metal–ligand coordination of transition metal complexes
High-throughput virtual screening campaigns are invaluable for surveying the combinatorial space of possible transition metal complexes (TMCs), but they rely on accurate metal–ligand connectivity for...
Machine learning in chemistry
Manifold-constrained nucleus-level denoising diffusion model for structure-based drug design
AI models have shown great potential in structure-based drug design, generating ligands with high binding affinities. However, existing models have often overlooked a crucial physical prior: Atoms mus...
ProT-VAE: Protein Transformer Variational AutoEncoder for functional protein design
Deep generative models have demonstrated success in learning the protein sequence to function relationship and designing synthetic sequences with engineered functionality. We introduce the Protein Tra...