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Discovering a new layer of control for a decades-old leukemia drug

For more than 70 years, the drug 6-thioguanine (6-TG) has been used to treat leukemia. Although its clinical effects have been studied extensively, scientists are still uncovering the molecular mechanisms that determine whether cells succumb to the drug or survive its attack.

Now, researchers at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators at the University of Oxford, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Dundee, have identified an unexpected player in this process: the protein NUDT5. Their paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The discovery builds directly on a recent breakthrough from the Kubicek and Huber laboratories. In that work, researchers showed that NUDT5 performs a critical cellular function independently of its enzymatic activity. Instead of acting primarily as a catalyst, NUDT5 was found to serve as a molecular scaffold that helps organize cellular metabolism. This unusual behavior has direct consequences for the action of the important cancer drug.

Prostate cancer: evading immunity, inspiring therapy

Mereu et al. present ESPACE, a single-cell multi-omic atlas of the human pancreas spanning fetal development, adulthood, and type 2 diabetes. Combining transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility, and spatial imaging, they uncover a rare population of plastic centroacinar cells and hidden diversity among hormone-producing islet cells, informing pancreas regeneration and disease.

Stellar stream beyond Milky Way offers new tool to map dark matter

In the image above, a faint trail of stars can be seen stretching across the galaxy. These structures, known as globular cluster stellar streams, are coherent stellar structures that retain a record of their dynamical history and can provide unique insights into the evolution of galaxies and the nature of dark matter.

Globular cluster stellar streams offer astronomers a unique opportunity to map otherwise invisible dark matter and study how it behaves. For many years, they have been difficult to observe because they are extremely faint. However, advances in large astronomical data sets and sophisticated analysis techniques have recently made stellar streams one of the most promising tools in galactic astronomy.

Now, Ph.D. student Julie Kiel Holm from the Niels Bohr Institute and associate professor Sarah Pearson from DTU Space, together with an international team of researchers, have made a discovery that has never been seen before. Their findings have just been published in Nature.

Glioblastoma isoform diversity mapping

Researchers have achieved a major breakthrough in brain cancer research by developing the most comprehensive map to date of isoform diversity in glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer in adults. Using advanced long-read single-cell sequencing, the team uncovered thousands of previously unknown tumor-specific genetic isoforms that had remained invisible to conventional approaches. The discovery reveals a new source of potential therapeutic targets, including candidates that could be harnessed for future personalised cancer vaccines and immunotherapies. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

Glioblastoma is notoriously difficult to treat because tumor cells within the same patient can behave, grow and respond to treatment differently. Understanding this cellular diversity is essential for developing more effective therapies.

Every gene in the human body can produce slightly different versions of its genetic instructions, known as isoforms. These variations can profoundly influence cellular function and in cancer, may determine whether tumour cells are recognised by the immune system or evade detection. Until now, the technology used to study individual cancer cells could read only short fragments of genetic information, limiting researchers’ ability to study full-length isoforms in individual cells.

Potential language-specific brain network identified

The language network in your brain can be seen, even if you aren’t saying a word. For a study published in Nature Communications, researchers used data from more than 1,900 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to find significant support for the existence of a language-specific network of neurons in the adult human brain. They could detect this network even when the people whose brains were scanned were at rest or performing a task unrelated to language, such as putting together a puzzle or listening to music.

“The human brain appears to have a network that’s selective and necessary for language, and we can find that network from the activity in the brain alone,” said Cory Shain, lead study author and assistant professor of linguistics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. “The simple fact that a person’s brain activity is always going up and down lets us detect where this network is with high fidelity. It’s such an important and stable structure that we can find it no matter what someone is doing.”

Shain and co-author Evelina Fedorenko of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that much of the language network generally spans the left hemisphere and frontal and temporal regions of the brain, but the details of its structure are different for each individual. The study findings could help make a range of advances, including finding therapies for the communication problems caused by strokes or other brain injuries.

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AI is making daily life more expensive, at least for now. Here’s why

The AI boom is proving complicated for everyday Americans. It’s raising the cost of living and stopping the Fed from lowering interest rates. It is making some things faster and easier, but it is also changing how we live.

If other inflation drivers, such as tariffs and the Iran war, don’t drive prices higher from here, many economists think the inflation picture could brighten.

“Inflation remains uncomfortably high, but it’s moving in the right direction,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

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