Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Vol. 123, Issue 5 Issue 5 2026
77
Articles

Articles in this Issue

Forest loss and landscape pattern change cause watersheds to release more young water

Ming Qiu, Xiaohua Wei, Yiping Hou Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2522502123

The hydrological functions of forests are well recognized, but their influence on water storage and release dynamics remains poorly quantified. The fraction of young water (...

Aging populations threaten conservation goals of zoos

João Pedro Meireles, Max Hahn-Klimroth, Laurie Bingaman Lackey et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2522274123

Improvements in wildlife husbandry mean that many zoo animals are living longer. This has put pressure on the finite holding capacity of zoos, which has often been addressed through a curtailing of re...

Correction for Slaughter et al., Community notes reduce engagement with and diffusion of false information online

Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2600635123

SARS-CoV-2 S assembly into virions facilitated by host ERM proteins

Jiaming Wang, Wanbo Tai, Zhaoyang Wang et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2504517123

The host cell cytoskeleton plays a critical role in the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle, though the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigates the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2...

GABA corelease guides the functional maturation of glycinergic synapses in an auditory sound localization circuit

Jongwon Lee, Brian Brockway, Karl Kandler Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2520749123

In the mammalian brainstem and spinal cord, glycine is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter. However, during development, many glycinergic neurons also corelease the inhibitory neurotransmitter gam...

The role of fluctuations in the nucleation process

Yuanpeng Deng, Peilin Kang, Xiang Xu et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2526954123

The emergence upon cooling of an ordered solid phase from a disordered liquid is a remarkable example of self-assembly, which has also major practical relevance. Here, we use a recently developed comm...

INDETERMINATE DOMAIN–DELLA protein interactions orchestrate gibberellin-mediated cell elongation in wheat and barley

Patrycja Sokolowska, Matthias Jöst, Wolfram Buss et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2528934123

DELLA proteins, members of the GRAS-domain family of transcriptional regulators, play a crucial role in plant growth and development. They modulate transcription indirectly via interactions with hundr...

A J-domain protein enhances memory by promoting physiological amyloid formation in <i>Drosophila</i>

Kyle Patton, Yangyang Yi, Raj Burt et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2516310123

Memory requires experience-dependent alterations in the synaptic proteome. Chaperones interface between the environment and the proteome. Manipulating J-domain protein (JDP) chaperones, the most diver...

Theory for sequence selection via phase separation and oligomerization

Ivar S. Haugerud, Giacomo Bartolucci, Dieter Braun et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2422829123

Nonequilibrium selection pressures were proposed for forming oligonucleotides with rich functionalities encoded in their sequences, such as catalysis. Since phase separation was shown to direct variou...

All-visible-light-responsive porous aromatic frameworks manipulate CO <sub>2</sub> uptake by reversible bulk isomerization of azobenzene pendants

Jinyu Sheng, Jacopo Perego, Silvia Bracco et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2520024123

Embedding light-responsive small molecules in a porous solid is a promising strategy to achieve dynamic control over material properties. Powering these systems with low-energy photons is essential fo...

REV-ERB-alpha and -beta coordinately regulate astrocyte reactivity and proteostatic function

Collin J. Nadarajah, Michelle Y. Li, Elsa I. Quillin et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2511093123

The molecular circadian clock is a ubiquitous transcriptional–translational feedback loop that regulates CNS function, glial responses, and neurodegenerative pathology. The nuclear receptors REV-ERB-α...

Stepwise differentiation from precursor intermediates and distinct Th1 checkpoints promote CD4 Th1 cell differentiation during chronic viral infection

Hongshen Niu, Siying Lin, Ryan Brown et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2522928123

CD4 + helper T cells are essential for controlling viral infections. During chronic LCMV infection, CD4 + T cells differ...

Evolutionary pathways in epistatic mechanical networks

Samar Alqatari, Sidney R. Nagel Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2505183123

An elastic spring network is an example of evolvable matter. It can be pruned to couple separated pairs of nodes so that when a strain is applied to one of them, the other responds either in-phase or...

Structural basis for pseudokinase-mediated regulation of GCN2 in the integrated stress response

Yixin Liu, Jagannath Misra, Debarshi Ryan Bhowmik et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2526598123

The general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) is a conserved stress-responsive protein that plays a critical role in restoring cellular homeostasis in the integrated stress response (ISR). In response...

Fe metal–organic framework–derived heterojunction for metabolic diagnosis of thymic epithelial tumor

Yongpeng Liang, Haochen Han, Yuewei Zhao et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2522028123

Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs), rare yet clinically significant malignancies, face diagnostic challenges due to their occult presentation and lack of noninvasive risk-stratification tools, leading to...

Conformationally gated multisite proton-coupled electron transfer in the ribonucleotide reductase <i>β</i> subunit

Jiahua Deng, Sharon Hammes-Schiffer Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2535102123

Ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) is an essential enzyme that converts ribonucleotides into deoxyribonucleotides, enabling DNA synthesis and repair in all living organisms. Central to class Ia RNR activi...

Quantum benchmarking of high-fidelity noise-biased operations on a detuned Kerr-cat qubit

Bingcheng Qing, Ahmed Hajr, Ke Wang et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2520479123

Ubiquitous noise sources in quantum systems remain a key obstacle to building quantum computers, necessitating the use of quantum error correction codes. Recently, error-correcting codes tailored for...

Intronic polyadenylation–derived long noncoding RNA modulates nucleolar integrity and function

Sumana Mallick, Pranita Borkar, Jaspreet Thind et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2514521123

RNAs transcribed from protein-coding gene loci are widely assumed to be translated into proteins. However, intronic polyadenylation (IPA) occurring near the transcription start site or within early in...

A framework integrating multiscale in silico modeling and experimental data predicts CAR-NK cell cytotoxicity across target cell types

Saeed Ahmad, Kun Xing, Marcelo S. F. Pereira et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2500319123

Natural killer (NK) cells may be engineered with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to recognize tumor-associated antigens which bolsters their antitumor activity. More so than CAR-T cells, CAR-NK cell...

The socioeconomic returns to citizenship: A randomized controlled trial

Jens Hainmueller, Elisa Cascardi, Michael Hotard et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2516178123

Based on observational studies, conventional wisdom suggests that citizenship carries economic benefits. We leverage a randomized experiment from New York where low-income registrants with permanent r...

Dynamics of memory B cells and plasmablasts in healthy individuals

Andrea Mazzolini, Aleksandra M. Walczak, Thierry Mora Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2528141123

Our adaptive immune system relies on the persistence over long times of a diverse set of antigen-experienced B cells to encode our memories of past infections and to protect us against future ones. Wh...

Orbital longitudinal magnetoelectric coupling in rhombohedral multilayer graphene

Jin-Xin Hu, Justin C. W. Song Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2506751123

Magnetoelectric coupling enables the manipulation of magnetization by electric fields and polarization by magnetic fields. While typically found in heavy element materials with large spin–orbit coupli...

Ten-year <sup>15</sup> N labeling reveals the nitrogen retention threshold for maximizing carbon sequestration in a temperate forest

Bai Liu, Xianlei Fan, Ziping Liu et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2533999123

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition comprising reduced (NH x ) and oxidized (NO y ) forms, differentially influences e...

The assembly rules guiding hetero-oligomeric bacterioferritin organization and their evolutionary signature

Daniel Stein, Bruno Jartoux, Shiran Dror et al. Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2504561123

Homomeric and heteromeric protein complexes are ubiquitous across all domains of life. The evolutionary transition from homo- to hetero-oligomers by gene duplication and chain specialization is widesp...

Phage Mu enlists the β-sliding clamp for late gene transcription

Khang Ho, Rasika M. Harshey Feb 03, 2026 10.1073/pnas.2519494123

The phage Mu C protein (MuC), along with core RNA polymerase (RNAP) and σ 70 , is required for transcription of phage late genes. We found that overexpression o...

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Journal Info

Publisher National Academy of Sciences
ISSN 0027-8424
E-ISSN 1091-6490
Subject Life Sciences
Language English
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