Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Articles in this Issue
Pareto optimality reveals an atlas of cellular archetypes
We sought to identify universal organizing principles behind phenotypic variation within cell types. Pareto optimality describes how trade-offs between optimal solutions account for variation, predict...
Elucidating the design principles for engineering plant organ size
Enhancements to crop morphology, such as the semidwarfing that helped drive the green revolution, are often driven by changes in gene expression. These are challenging to translate across species, whi...
Microbially enhanced dissolution of calcite in sinking marine particles
Evidence for the shallow cycling of calcium carbonate in the global ocean is mounting, but the mechanisms driving the dissolution of thermodynamically stable polymorphs, like aragonite and calcite, in...
Leveraging antibiotic hormesis for cryptic natural product discovery
Microbial natural products are a foundational source of therapeutic agents, yet a vast majority remain inaccessible due to the limited expression of their biosynthetic gene clusters under standard lab...
High-latitude teleconnections drive subtropical marine bioproductivity at the dawn of the Antarctic ice sheet
The inception of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) marked a major global climatic reorganization of the Cenozoic, but the response of the subtropical marine biosphere remains poorly constrained. A new sed...
Identification and characterization of a wet adhesive protein extracted from <i>Dreissena bugensis</i> , the freshwater quagga mussel
Mechanisms of wet adhesion have evolved in several aquatic organisms over millions of years. Yet, the repertoire of synthetic biocompatible wet adhesive materials is still limited. The byssus is a wel...
Opioid-specific brain connectivity dynamics distinguish analgesia from secondary effects: Studies in male mice
The µ-opioid receptor (MOP) is a critical pharmaceutical target that mediates both the therapeutic benefits and adverse effects of opioid drugs. However, the large-scale neural circuit dynamics underl...
When collagen fails: Zinc isotopes unlock Sumerian lifeways in southern Mesopotamia
Reconstructing past lifeways and diets is essential to understanding the emergence of urban societies. However, in what are now arid environments like southern Mesopotamia, poor collagen preservation...
Bacterial reporter–paired scRNA sequencing reveals cross talk between zinc starvation and zinc toxicity in macrophage antibacterial defense
Mechanisms by which macrophages deploy antibacterial zinc toxicity are poorly understood. To gain insight into this antimicrobial pathway, we developed bacterial reporter–paired single-cell RNA sequen...
Ambient ammonia synthesis from air via tandem water microdroplets–driven oxidation and pulsed photoelectrochemical reduction
Artificial N 2 reduction offers a sustainable approach to green NH 3 synthesis, but the practical implementation is chal...
Direct and indirect benefits of cooperation in collective defense against predation
The evolution and maintenance of public goods cooperation, despite cheating, remains a key interest in social biology. Identifying how ecological factors determine the direct and indirect benefits tha...
Elevated phthalate exposure and metabolic susceptibility increased breast cancer risk: A 20-y follow-up study in Taiwan
Widely used phthalates, especially di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), increase breast cancer risk in experimental animals and humans, but long-term follow-up evidence of its human breast carcinogenic...
Divergent BLA engram circuits orchestrate social preference dynamics in bystander male mice with self-experienced stress
Personal experiences are encoded and stored in memory engram cells and are crucial for social preference dynamics in future social contexts, yet the neural circuit mechanisms involved are still poorly...
Stochastic resilience enables particle foraging in oligotrophic marine environments
Heterotrophic bacteria play a central role in attenuating the sequestration of carbon to the deep ocean by degrading sinking marine particles. The role of certain copiotrophic adaptations such as surf...
Oligomerization of PER2 as a dynamic mode of regulation of the mammalian circadian clock
PER2 is a central transcriptional regulator in the mammalian circadian clock that closes the negative transcription–translation feedback loop by repressing its own transcription. The balance between t...
Heightened risk of fatal police violence in and around reservations for American Indian/Alaska Native peoples in the United States
Fatal police violence is a public health problem in the United States, with large racial and spatial inequities that remain understudied. Indigenous people, for example, experience some of the highest...
Deubiquitinase OTULIN dampens RIG-I-dependent antiviral signaling by removing linear ubiquitination from TRAF6
Linear ubiquitination and deubiquitination represent critical regulatory mechanisms in inflammation and cell death, yet their roles in RIG-I-like receptor (RLR)-dependent signaling remain unclear. Her...
Insights into US life expectancy stagnation from birth cohort mortality dynamics
US life expectancy remained essentially flat in the 2010s. This trend has occurred in the presence of advancing innovations in medical care, especially for chronic disease, and a growing economy. Whil...
Haplodiploidy and the evolution of eusociality: A long-standing question is finally resolved
The path to room-temperature superconductivity: A programmatic approach
Room-temperature superconductivity is arguably the greatest challenge in condensed matter physics, with significant practical and commercial implications if it can be solved. There are no physical law...
Reassessing evidence for symmetric histone inheritance in <i>Drosophila</i> stem cells
Multiple molecular mimics in Epstein Barr Nuclear Antigen-1, and the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis
The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infects greater than 95% of humans and is associated with initiating and perpetuating multiple sclerosis (MS). Antibody to Epstein–Barr Nuclear Antigen-1 (EBNA1) is presen...