Zoonosis: social and environmental connections in the Mexico-United States border region.

The emerging risks facing humanity have highlighted the need to address and prevent challenges through multilateral preventive strategies. The Mexico-United States (US) border is a region with great biological biodiversity and both countries shared a similar history and intense socioeconomic, and cultural interrelationships. Also, it has an extraordinary ecological contrast, resulting in an enormous biological diversity in a broad Nearctic-Neotropical transition zone.

Population sequencing of cherry accessions unravels the evolution of Cerasus species and the selection of genetic characteristics in edible cherries.

Cerasus is a subgenus of Prunus in the family Rosaceae that is popular owing to its ornamental, edible, and medicinal properties. Understanding the evolution of the Cerasus subgenus and identifying selective trait loci in edible cherries are crucial for the improvement of cherry cultivars to meet producer and consumer demands. In this study, we performed a de novo assembly of a chromosome-scale genome for the sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.

Impact of irradiation conditions on therapy of Lewis lung carcinoma in mice using glucose-ethylenediamine carbon dots.

Background: nowadays, the photoacoustic imaging is in the mainstream of cancer theranostics. In this study the nanoparticles with previously proven photoacoustic imaging properties, i.e.

How frictional ruptures and earthquakes nucleate and evolve.

Frictional motion is mediated by rapidly propagating ruptures that detach the ensemble of contacts forming the frictional interface between contacting bodies. These ruptures are similar to shear cracks. When this process takes place in natural faults, these rapid ruptures are essentially earthquakes.

Longitudinal strain enhancement and bending deformations in piezoceramics.

Piezoelectric materials directly convert between electrical and mechanical energies. They are used as transducers in applications such as nano-positioning and ultrasound imaging. Improving the properties of these devices requires piezoelectric materials capable of delivering a large longitudinal strain on the application of an electric field.

Synthesis of three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks through a symmetry reduction strategy.

Three-dimensional (3D) covalent organic frameworks (COFs) hold significant promise for a variety of applications. However, conventional design approaches using regular building blocks limit the structural diversity of 3D COFs. Here we design and synthesize two 3D COFs, designated as JUC-644 and JUC-645, through a methodology that relies on using eight-connected building blocks with reduced symmetry.

Tandem kinase proteins across the plant kingdom.

Plant pathogens pose a continuous threat to global food production. Recent discoveries in plant immunity research unveiled a unique protein family characterized by an unusual resistance protein structure that combines two kinase domains. This study demonstrates the widespread occurrence of tandem kinase proteins (TKPs) across the plant kingdom.

Chromosome mis-segregation triggers cell cycle arrest through a mechanosensitive nuclear envelope checkpoint.

Errors during cell division lead to aneuploidy, which is associated with genomic instability and cell transformation. In response to aneuploidy, cells activate the tumour suppressor p53 to elicit a surveillance mechanism that halts proliferation and promotes senescence. The molecular sensors that trigger this checkpoint are unclear.

T cell malignancies after CAR T cell therapy in the DESCAR-T registry.

The risk of T cell malignancies after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is a concern, although the true incidence remains unclear. Here we analyzed the DESCAR-T registry database, encompassing all pediatric and adult patients with hematologic malignancies who received CAR T cell therapy in France since 1 July 2018. Of the 3,066 patients included (2,536 B cell lymphoma, 162 B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 368 multiple myeloma), 1,680 (54.

Transplantation of a genetically modified porcine heart into a live human.

Following our previous experience with cardiac xenotransplantation of a genetically modified porcine heart into a live human, we sought to achieve improved results by selecting a healthier recipient and through more sensitive donor screening for potential zoonotic pathogens. Here we transplanted a 10-gene-edited pig heart into a 58-year-old man with progressive, debilitating inotrope-dependent heart failure due to ischemic cardiomyopathy who was not a candidate for standard advanced heart failure therapies. He was maintained on a costimulation (anti-CD40L, Tegoprubart) blockade-based immunomodulatory regimen.

High-efficiency base editing in the retina in primates and human tissues.

Stargardt disease is a currently untreatable, inherited neurodegenerative disease that leads to macular degeneration and blindness due to loss-of-function mutations in the ABCA4 gene. We have designed a dual adeno-associated viral vector encoding a split-intein adenine base editor to correct the most common mutation in ABCA4 (c.5882G>A, p.

One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction.

Freshwater ecosystems are highly biodiverse and important for livelihoods and economic development, but are under substantial stress. To date, comprehensive global assessments of extinction risk have not included any speciose groups primarily living in freshwaters. Consequently, data from predominantly terrestrial tetrapods are used to guide environmental policy and conservation prioritization, whereas recent proposals for target setting in freshwaters use abiotic factors.

Saturation genome editing-based clinical classification of BRCA2 variants.

Sequencing-based genetic tests have uncovered a vast array of BRCA2 sequence variants. Owing to limited clinical, familial and epidemiological data, thousands of variants are considered to be variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Here we have utilized CRISPR-Cas9-based saturation genome editing in a humanized mouse embryonic stem cell line to determine the functional effect of VUS.

New Silurian aculiferan fossils reveal complex early history of Mollusca.

Mollusca is the second most species-rich animal phylum, but the pathways of early molluscan evolution have long been controversial. Modern faunas retain only a fraction of the past forms in this hyperdiverse and long-lived group. Recent analyses have consistently recovered a fundamental split into two sister clades, Conchifera (including gastropods, bivalves and cephalopods) and Aculifera, comprising Polyplacophora ('chitons') and Aplacophora.

The trans-european catchment area of common noctule bats killed by wind turbines in France.

Wind turbines used to combat climate change pose a green-green dilemma when endangered and protected wildlife species are killed by collisions with rotating blades. Here, we investigated the geographic origin of bats killed by wind turbines along an east-west transect in France to determine the spatial extent of this conflict in Western Europe. We analysed stable hydrogen isotopes in the fur keratin of 60 common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) killed by wind turbines during summer migration in four regions of France to predict their geographic origin using models based on precipitation isoscapes.

A distinct hypothalamus-habenula circuit governs risk preference.

Appropriate risk evaluation is essential for survival in complex, uncertain environments. Confronted with choosing between certain (safe) and uncertain (risky) options, animals show strong preference for either option consistently across extended time periods. How such risk preference is encoded in the brain remains elusive.

Automatically optimized vectorcardiographic features are associated with recurrence of atrial fibrillation after electrical cardioversion.

Electrical cardioversion presents one of the treatment options for atrial fibrillation (AF). However, the early recurrence rate is high, reaching ~40% three months after the procedure. Features based on vectorcardiographic signals were explored to find association with early recurrence of AF.

Microglia depletion reduces neurodegeneration and remodels extracellular matrix in a mouse Parkinson's disease model triggered by α-synuclein overexpression.

Chronic neuroinflammation with sustained microglial activation occurs in Parkinson's disease (PD), yet the mechanisms and exact contribution of these cells to the neurodegeneration remains poorly understood. In this study, we induced progressive dopaminergic neuron loss in mice via rAAV-hSYN injection to cause the neuronal expression of α-synuclein, which produced neuroinflammation and behavioral alterations. We administered PLX5622, a colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor inhibitor, for 3 weeks prior to rAAV-hSYN injection, maintaining it for 8 weeks to eliminate microglia.

Physical embodiment and anthropomorphism of AI tutors and their role in student enjoyment and performance.

Rising interest in artificial intelligence in education reinforces the demand for evidence-based implementation. This study investigates how tutor agents' physical embodiment and anthropomorphism (student-reported sociability, animacy, agency, and disturbance) relate to affective (on-task enjoyment) and cognitive (task performance) learning within an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). Data from 56 students (M = 17.

Investigating Parkinson's disease risk across farming activities using data mining and large-scale administrative health data.

The risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) associated with farming has received considerable attention, in particular for pesticide exposure. However, data on PD risk associated with specific farming activities is lacking. We aimed to explore whether specific farming activities exhibited a higher risk of PD than others among the entire French farm manager (FM) population.

Dynamic transitions of initiator binding coordinate the replication of the two chromosomes in Vibrio cholerae.

The replication of the two chromosomes in the pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae is coordinated by the binding of initiator protein RctB to a checkpoint sequence, crtS. Replication of crtS on the primary chromosome (Chr1) triggers replication of the secondary chromosome (Chr2), but the details are poorly understood. Here, we analyze RctB binding patterns in the V.

Pan-inhibition of super-enhancer-driven oncogenic transcription by next-generation synthetic ecteinascidins yields potent anti-cancer activity.

The plasticity of cancer cells facilitates their ability to adopt heterogeneous differentiation states, posing a significant challenge to therapeutic interventions. Specific gene expression programs, driven in part by super-enhancers (SEs), underlie cancer cell states. Here we successfully inhibit SE-driven transcription in phenotypically distinct metastatic melanoma cells using next-generation synthetic ecteinascidins.

Harmonized Datasets of microbiological parameters from a French national-scale soil monitoring survey.

Microbiological datasets and associated environmental parameters from the French soil quality monitoring network (RMQS) offer an opportunity for long-term and large-scale soil quality monitoring. Soils supply important ecosystem services e.g.

Diet-wide analyses for risk of colorectal cancer: prospective study of 12,251 incident cases among 542,778 women in the UK.

Uncertainty remains regarding the role of diet in colorectal cancer development. We examined associations of 97 dietary factors with colorectal cancer risk in 542,778 Million Women Study participants (12,251 incident cases over 16.6 years), and conducted a targeted genetic analysis in the ColoRectal Transdisciplinary Study, Colon Cancer Family Registry, and Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO).