Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Articles in this Issue
A systems-level atlas of carbon-response transcriptional states in <i>Escherichia coli</i>
Escherichia coli encounters chemically diverse carbon sources, and the observed outputs of its transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) vary with substrate chemistry, metabolic ent...
Measurement of isotope fractionation associated with crystal nucleation: Implications for biocrystallization studies
Isotopic fractionation is a unique indicator of the mechanisms of mineral precipitation from aqueous solutions, but existing theory does not account for nucleation effects or nonclassical growth mecha...
A genome-wide screen identifies that PLCG2 restrains lysosomal GCase activity
Mutations in the GBA1 gene, which encodes the lysosomal glucocerebrosidase enzyme GCase, cause the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease and represent the...
Why environmental scientists need ethics training more than ever before
Multistep electron tunneling through tryptophans in the KatG bifunctional peroxidase monitored by a nonperturbing spin probe
The bifunctional heme peroxidase from B. pseudomallei (BpKatG) utilizes heme and three tryptophans (Trp139, Trp153, and Trp330) as unique redox cofactors in the...
Spectroscopic elucidation of an electron-delocalized copper–tyrosine state in heme–copper oxidases reveals its role in proton pumping
Heme–copper oxidases, the terminal respiratory complex in the electron transport chain, harness the energy from the reduction of dioxygen to water to pump protons across mitochondrial or bacterial mem...
A transcription factor modulates dermal architecture to generate structural and pigment color diversity in lizards
The way organisms perceive the world influences their evolution. Many animals detect ultraviolet (UV) light invisible to humans, creating sensory contexts that alter the selective landscape for colora...
Synthetic essentiality of TRAIL/TNFSF10 in VHL-deficient renal cell carcinoma
Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common and aggressive subtype of kidney cancer. Loss of von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) and the consequent activation of hypoxia-inducible factor-α (HIFα, e...
Combinatorial decision-making driven by multicomponent surface condensates
Living organisms rely on molecular networks, such as gene circuits and signaling pathways, for information processing and robust decision-making in crowded, noisy environments. Recent advances show th...
Neuropeptide signaling and the blood–brain barrier generate a persistent stress-induced internal state in <i>Drosophila</i>
Although fear conditioning has elucidated cue-evoked acute fear responses, the mechanisms by which stress experiences induce generalized internal states linked to anxiety or phobia are poorly understo...
Dual salt bridges govern proton gating and calcium leak in <i>Bs</i> YetJ across bilayers and live cells
Proton-coupled ion transport is a fundamental chemical process underlying membrane physiology, yet how local electrostatics are transduced into gated Ca 2+ perm...
Social and spatial affinity drive wound care in ants
In social animals, open wounds pose a risk not only for the injured individual but also for its wider social context, especially when the probability of infection transmission is high. To mitigate thi...
Histone H1 promotes silencing of unintegrated HIV-1 DNA
In eukaryotic cells, genomic DNA is packaged into chromatin with nucleosomes formed by core histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, and further stabilized by the linker histone H1. During the early stages of r...
Metabolic breadth links insect pathogenicity and plant association in <i>Metarhizium robertsii</i>
Fungi frequently transition between pathogenic, endophytic, and saprophytic lifestyles, yet the functional traits enabling these ecological shifts remain unclear. Comparative analyses of early and rec...
Debt as a blessing: A capital screening mechanism
We challenge a recently popular view that a negative interest-growth rate gap ( r...
Morphogenesis and topological evolution of a frustrated nematic liquid crystal under confinement
Liquid crystals (LC) represent topological soft matter that spontaneously form assemblies of constituents and mesoscale textures to minimize free energy. Depending on boundary conditions, they exhibit...
Corkscrew motion of <i>Trypanosoma brucei</i> is driven by helical beating of the flagellum and facilitated by its bent shape
In the pathogenic parasite Trypanosoma brucei , a laterally attached flagellum drives rapid deformation of the complex cell body, producing puzzling dynamics. H...
Elastocapillary adhesion of soft gel microspheres
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between nonconformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich...
Tau protein as a regulator of mitochondrial function and dynamics
Mitochondrial damage is a shared hallmark of brain aging and neurodegeneration. While pathological Tau mutations disrupt mitochondrial dynamics and function, the physiological role of wild-type (WT) T...
Large language models accurately identify decision reasons in verbal reports
Understanding the reasons behind human choices under risk is a central goal of decision scientists, but traditional methods relying on behavioral data are limited by strict invariance assumptions. We...
Sustained A2AR expression and loss paradoxically promote CD8 <sup>+</sup> T cell exhaustion
Although A2AR is a key immunoregulatory receptor that suppresses CD8 + T cell activation in response to elevated extracellular adenosine in inflamed or hypoxic...
RNA polymerase inhibitors reveal active-site motions essential for the nucleotide addition cycle
The nucleotide addition cycle (NAC) of multisubunit DNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RNAPs) involves coordinated conformational changes in conserved active-site structural elements, including the trigge...
A scalable, dividing cell model for the robust propagation and quantification of human sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease prions
Prion diseases represent a unique biological paradigm with mechanistic parallels to other neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. However, the study of human prion path...
Phosphatidylinositol diphosphate binding by ESCRT-III filaments
Different inositol phospholipids (PIPs) distribute to distinct subcellular organelles, creating an addressing system that dictates the sites of action of PIP-binding proteins, including components of...
Female reproductive dysfunction and transgenerational consequences following prolonged spaceflight exposure
Spaceflight presents unique gravitational, radiation, and isolation hazards for human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond, yet its impact on the female reproductive system and successive generat...