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A genome-wide association study highlights a variant in DOCK2, which is common in East Asian populations but rare in Europeans, as a host genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19.

Ueda et al. develop a sensor targeted to tumour cells that tracks extracellular H₂O₂. Tumour cells in H₂O₂ hotspots undergo partial epithelial–mesenchymal transition and migrate away from H₂O₂ hotspots. This is not seen in NRF2-hyperactivated tumours.

Genetic mechanisms influencing COVID-19 susceptibility are not well understood. Here, the authors analyzed whole blood RNA-seq data of 465 Japanese individuals with COVID-19, highlighting thousands of fine-mapped variants affecting expression and splicing of genes, as well as the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs.

Analysis of the blood DNA virome in patients with COVID-19 and autoimmune disease associates endogenous HHV-6 (eHHV-6) and high anellovirus load with increased disease risk, most notably for systemic lupus erythematosus. eHHV-6 carriers show a distinct immune response.

Transferring molecular motion to macroscopic shape change of a crystal has potential application in actuators, or ‘artificial muscles’. Now, a single crystal of a Ni complex has been shown to exhibit a large, abrupt, temperature-induced crystal expansion/contraction near room temperature. The crystal deformation is induced by a collective 90° rotation of oxalate anions in the complex.

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 73 Japanese patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 75 healthy controls were analyzed using single-cell transcriptomics. Combining these data with genotyping data highlights the interplay between host genetics and the immune response in modulating disease severity.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Mutations in the ankyrin repeat ___domain (ARD) of TRPV4 are responsible for several channelopathies but little is known about the physiological function of this ___domain. Here the authors show that phosphoinositide binding to TRPV4 ARD leads to suppression of the channel activity, and obtain the crystal structure of the ___domain in complex with inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate.

Genome-wide analysis in 212,453 Japanese individuals identifies loci associated with 42 diseases. Comparative analysis with European populations identifies East Asian–specific associations.

Genome-wide analyses in BioBank Japan, UK Biobank and FinnGen identify ~5,000 new loci associated with 220 human traits. Statistical decomposition of matrices of phenome-wide summary statistics further highlights variants underpinning diseases across populations.

A multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of prostate cancer performed in 156,319 cases and 788,443 controls identifies 187 novel risk variants associated with the disease. Genetic risk scores associated with overall risk, and risk of aggressive disease in men of African ancestry.

The prediction of mortality due to prostate cancer remains challenging. Here, the authors perform trans-ancestry metaanalysis with a focus on binding sites of the androgen receptor and develop a polygenic risk score.

Investigating genetically correlated cancers can enhance our understanding of carcinogenesis. Here, the authors perform Pan-cancer and cross-population GWAS meta-analysis to identify novel cancer risk loci and highlight shared heritability between breast and prostate cancer.

The redox-sensitive TRP channel TRPA1 is activated in hyperoxic and hypoxic conditions directly through modification of cysteine residues by O₂ and indirectly through prolyl hydroxylation by PHDs, enzymes related to the hypoxia-inducible factor HIF-1, thus helping to explain how O₂ is sensed by sensory and vagal neurons.

The transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) is a cation channel that is involved in nociceptive pain sensing. Here, the authors show that hydroxylation of a proline in the N terminus of TRPA1 renders it sensitive to reactive oxygen species resulting from noxious cold.

Genome-wide analyses of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging data identify loci associated with right heart structure and function. A polygenic predictor of right ventricular ejection fraction is associated with dilated cardiomyopathy risk.

The burden of mosaic chromosomal alterations in blood-derived DNA, a type of clonal hematopoiesis, is associated with an increased risk for diverse types of infections, including sepsis and pneumonia.

Finding causal variants and genes from GWAS loci results remains a challenge. Here, the authors train a model to predict if a variant affects nearby gene expression, and apply the method to identify new possible causal eQTLs and mechanisms of GWAS loci.

MEGAnE is a new tool to detect and genotype mobile element variants (MEVs) from short-read whole-genome sequencing datasets. Genetic analyses implicate MEVs as population-specific drivers of gene expression variation and disease risk.

The Ca²⁺-permeable channel TRPM2 stimulates monocytes to produce chemokines in response to reactive oxygen species, and channel inhibition attenuates inflammatory disease in mice. TRPM2 could be a new target for treating inflammatory diseases.

PolyPred and PolyPred⁺ methods that leverage fine-mapping and non-European training data significantly improve cross-population polygenic prediction accuracy when applied to diseases and complex traits in UK Biobank populations.

This study suggests that enhanced imputation quality in genome-wide association studies, using a Japanese population-specific reference panel, leads to the discovery of rare, trait-associated loci.

We investigated the crystallization dynamics of P3MB1 under isothermal condition by synchrotron radiation X-ray scattering and optical microscopy. At a crystallization temperature (T_c) of 297 °C, needle-like crystals consisting of stacked lamellae formed. As T_c increased, the number of lamellar branches decreased and morphological transition (spherulite → axialite → needle-like crystal) occurred. The suppression of lamellar branching was attributed to the low viscosity of the molten portion at T_c.