Liu Jia

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are RNA transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides that do not code for proteins. Once considered mere transcriptional noise, lncRNAs are now known to play vital roles in plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stress. However, few studies have used epigenomic data to investigate the functions of lncRNAs in plants.

Methanol is an ideal feedstock for bio-manufacturing. Converting it into lactate, a monomer for biodegradable plastic, offers a promising strategy for addressing the challenge of white pollution. However, it remains difficult to engineer microbes to produce lactate from methanol due to methanol toxicity and strong competition between product synthesis and cell growth.

"Range anxiety" remains one of the major issues of electric vehicles (EVs). Most of the existing range prediction technologies rely on simulated conditions or limited datasets, making it difficult to accurately capture variations caused by regional climate, road conditions, and vehicle types.

Imagine if our bodies could grow new organs throughout our entire lives. Plants do this constantly, thanks to tiny, powerful reservoirs of stem cells. But how do these cells know when to divide, and how do they ensure each division is perfectly oriented to build a leaf, a stem, or a flower?

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.