Liu Jia

Cell-surface proteins are critical therapeutic targets and are vital to cellular communication, signaling, and homeostasis. However, developing high-affinity probes such as aptamers against these targets is hindered by low throughput and the lack of native protein conformations.

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is largely driven by the widespread availability of high-calorie and highly palatable foods. Even without feeling hungry, some people tend to eat food for the taste. This pleasure-driven eating leads to overeating, which is a major contributor to obesity.

In a study published in Science, researchers have resolved, for the first time, the high-resolution crystal structure of the complex formed between the NodD protein of pea rhizobia and a flavonoid compound (hesperetin). They elucidate how NodD recognizes flavonoids and reveal key structural elements in NodD that determine the specificity of signal recognition.

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), such as dengue and Zika viruses, transmit widely across the globe, posing threats to human health and biosecurity. They spread through the bites of arthropod vectors, moving between insects and vertebrate hosts. To sustain their transmission cycle, these viruses must alternately infect both mosquito vectors and vertebrate hosts.

Nicotine, a potent insecticidal alkaloid unique to the nightshade family, has been employed in agriculture as a pesticide since 1690. It also has therapeutic potential for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and depression. Despite its profound influence on human history, agriculture, and plant evolution, however, the final steps of nicotine biosynthesis have remained unclear until now.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the most aggressive blood cancers and is characterized by the rapid growth of immature myeloid precursor cells. It predominantly affects elderly people, and current treatment options are largely limited to chemotherapy, with a five-year survival rate of only about 30%. However, chemotherapy may fail to eliminate chemotherapy-resistant leukemia-initiating cells (LICs), which frequently leads to disease relapse. For this reason, novel therapies to eliminate LICs without compromising normal blood cell production are urgently needed.

A major goal of modern crop breeding is to efficiently combine multiple desirable traits by "stacking" the favorable gene variants (alleles) that contribute to those traits in a single crop variety. However, current strategies are often time-consuming and inefficient.

Maize (Zea mays L.) plays an important role in global food security. During 9,000 years of maize domestication and breeding, however, protein content was not a major breeding target. Consequently, many beneficial gene variants associated with higher protein content were gradually lost from cultivated maize. As a result, modern maize varieties often have low seed protein content, leading to a heavy reliance on imported soybean meal for livestock feed.

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) are progressive chronic liver diseases linked to abnormal bile acid metabolism. Although these diseases differ in origin, they all lead to a similar outcome: abnormal hepatic accumulation of bile acids and liver injury.

Global climate change has increased the frequency of regional cold spells, causing substantial yield losses and even crop failure. Meanwhile, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use in agriculture has increased non-point-source pollution. Improving both stress resilience and nitrogen use efficiency has therefore become a major challenge for sustainable crop production.