Table Of Contents Page, PNAS Volume 115, Number 47

PNAS November 20, 2018

This Week in PNAS

Letters (Online Only)

News Feature

QnAs

Commentaries

PNAS Plus Significance Statements

Perspective

All life requires the capacity to recover from challenges that are as inevitable as they are unpredictable. Understanding this resilience is essential for managing the health of humans and their livestock. It has long been difficult to quantify resilience ...

Physical Sciences

Applied Physical Sciences

Electrochemistry is an old but still flourishing field of research due to the importance of the efficiency and kinetics of electrochemical reactions in industrial processes and (bio-)electrochemical devices. The heterogeneous electron transfer from an ...
Hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) have become an important class of semiconductors for solar cells and other optoelectronic applications. Electron–phonon coupling plays a critical role in all optoelectronic devices, and although the lattice ...

Biophysics and Computational Biology

Multiple mutations are typically required to significantly improve protein stability or aggregation kinetics. However, when several substitutions are made in a single protein, the mutations can potentially interact in a nonadditive manner, resulting in ...
A hallmark of biological systems is that particular functions and outcomes are realized in specific contexts, such as when particular signals are received. One mechanism for mediating specificity is described by Fisher’s “lock and key” metaphor, ...
Protein assemblies consisting of structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) and kleisin subunits are essential for the process of chromosome segregation across all domains of life. Prokaryotic condensin belonging to this class of protein complexes is ...
Unlike in vivo conditions, group II intron ribozymes are known to require high magnesium(II) concentrations ([Mg2+]) and high temperatures (42 °C) for folding and catalysis in vitro. A possible explanation for this difference is the highly crowded ...
Arginine-rich cell-penetrating peptides do not enter cells by directly passing through a lipid membrane; they instead passively enter vesicles and live cells by inducing membrane multilamellarity and fusion. The molecular picture of this penetration mode, ...

Chemistry

Facile ionic transport in lead halide perovskites plays a critical role in device performance. Understanding the microscopic origins of high ionic conductivities has been complicated by indirect measurements and sample microstructural heterogeneities. ...

Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

The last glacial interval experienced abrupt climatic changes called Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events. These events manifest themselves as rapid increases followed by slow decreases of oxygen isotope ratios in Greenland ice core records. Despite promising ...

Engineering

Transmission-mode pulse oximetry, the optical method for determining oxygen saturation in blood, is limited to only tissues that can be transilluminated, such as the earlobes and the fingers. The existing sensor configuration provides only single-point ...

Sustainability Science

Continuation of historical trends in crop yield are critical to meeting the demands of a growing and more affluent world population. Climate change may compromise our ability to meet these demands, but estimates vary widely, highlighting the importance of ...
Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction ...

Social Sciences

Anthropology

Diverse developmental abnormalities and anomalous features are evident in the Pleistocene Homo fossil record, varying from minor but rare dental, vertebral, and carpal variants to exceptional systemic disorders. There are currently 75 documented anomalies ...

Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

We explored the relationship between memory performance and conscious knowledge (or awareness) of what has been learned in memory-impaired patients with hippocampal lesions or larger medial temporal lesions. Participants viewed familiar scenes or familiar ...
Although violent crime has declined in recent decades, it remains a recurring feature of daily life in some neighborhoods. Mounting evidence indicates that such violence has a long reach, which goes beyond family and friends of the victim and undermines ...

Sustainability Science

Hydropower has been the leading source of renewable energy across the world, accounting for up to 71% of this supply as of 2016. This capacity was built up in North America and Europe between 1920 and 1970 when thousands of dams were built. Big dams ...
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QnAs with Emilio F. Moran

Biological Sciences

Anthropology

Diverse developmental abnormalities and anomalous features are evident in the Pleistocene Homo fossil record, varying from minor but rare dental, vertebral, and carpal variants to exceptional systemic disorders. There are currently 75 documented anomalies ...

Applied Biological Sciences

Baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of the most important and widely used cell factories for recombinant protein production. Many strategies have been applied to engineer this yeast for improving its protein production capacity, but productivity ...

Biochemistry

Protein assemblies consisting of structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) and kleisin subunits are essential for the process of chromosome segregation across all domains of life. Prokaryotic condensin belonging to this class of protein complexes is ...
Unlike in vivo conditions, group II intron ribozymes are known to require high magnesium(II) concentrations ([Mg2+]) and high temperatures (42 °C) for folding and catalysis in vitro. A possible explanation for this difference is the highly crowded ...
Heme A is an essential cofactor for respiratory terminal oxidases and vital for respiration in aerobic organisms. The final step of heme A biosynthesis is formylation of the C-8 methyl group of heme molecule by heme A synthase (HAS). HAS is a heme-...
Biotransformation enzymes ensure a viable homeostasis by regulating reversible cycles of oxidative and reductive reactions. The metabolism of nitrogen-containing compounds is of high pharmaceutical and toxicological relevance because N-oxygenated ...

Biophysics and Computational Biology

Multiple mutations are typically required to significantly improve protein stability or aggregation kinetics. However, when several substitutions are made in a single protein, the mutations can potentially interact in a nonadditive manner, resulting in ...
Disordered proteins play an essential role in a wide variety of biological processes, and are often posttranslationally modified. One such protein is histone H1; its highly disordered C-terminal tail (CH1) condenses internucleosomal linker DNA in ...
The 70-kDa heat shock proteins (Hsp70s) are molecular chaperones that perform a wide range of critical cellular functions. They assist in the folding of newly synthesized proteins, facilitate assembly of specific protein complexes, shepherd proteins ...
Riboswitches modulate gene expression in response to small-molecule ligands. Switching is generally thought to occur via the stabilization of a specific RNA structure conferred by binding the cognate ligand. However, it is unclear whether any such ...

Cell Biology

A hallmark of biological systems is that particular functions and outcomes are realized in specific contexts, such as when particular signals are received. One mechanism for mediating specificity is described by Fisher’s “lock and key” metaphor, ...

Developmental Biology

MicroRNA (miRNA)-124 is expressed in neurons, where it represses genes inhibitory for neuronal differentiation, including the RNA binding protein PTBP1. PTBP1 maintains nonneuronal splicing patterns of mRNAs that switch to neuronal isoforms upon neuronal ...
Substantial rates of fetal loss plague all in vitro procedures involving embryo manipulations, including human-assisted reproduction, and are especially problematic for mammalian cloning where over 90% of reconstructed nuclear transfer embryos are ...

Ecology

Montane species worldwide are shifting upslope in response to recent temperature increases. These upslope shifts are predicted to lead to mountaintop extinctions of species that live only near mountain summits, but empirical examples of populations that ...
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Escalator to extinction

Limited dispersal is classically considered as a prerequisite for ecological specialization to evolve, such that generalists are expected to show greater dispersal propensity compared with specialists. However, when individuals choose habitats that ...
Bacteria and fungi drive decomposition, a fundamental process in the carbon cycle, yet the importance of microbial community composition for decomposition remains elusive. Here, we used an 18-month reciprocal transplant experiment along a climate gradient ...

Evolution

Many behaviors are associated with heritable genetic variation [Kendler and Greenspan (2006) Am J Psychiatry 163:1683–1694]. Genetic mapping has revealed genomic regions or, in a few cases, specific genes explaining part of this variation [Bendesky and ...
Mutualisms are essential for life, yet it is unclear how they arise. A two-stage process has been proposed for the evolution of mutualisms that involve exchanges of two costly resources. First, costly provisioning by one species may be selected for if ...
All living tetrapods have a one-to-two branching pattern in the embryonic proximal limb skeleton, with a single element at the base of the limb (the humerus or femur) that articulates distally with two parallel radials (the ulna and radius or the tibia ...
Natal dispersal is a demographic trait with profound evolutionary, ecological, and behavioral consequences. However, our understanding of the adaptive value of dispersal patterns is severely hampered by the difficulty of measuring the relative fitness ...
Ecological interactions shape adaptations through coevolution not only between pairs of species but also through entire multispecies assemblages. Local coevolution can then be further altered through spatial processes that have been formally partitioned ...

Genetics

Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in men over 50 years of age, and there is a characteristic marked decrease in Zn content in the malignant prostate cells. The cause and consequences of this loss have thus far been unknown. We found that ...
How mutation and selection determine the fitness landscape of tumors and hence clinical outcome is an open fundamental question in cancer biology, crucial for the assessment of therapeutic strategies and resistance to treatment. Here we explore the ...

Immunology and Inflammation

Staphylococcus aureus is the leading cause of skin and skin structure infection (SSSI), a primary portal of entry for invasive infection. Our prior studies discovered a role for protective innate memory against recurrent methicillin-resistant S. aureus (...
The N-glycans attached to the Fab and Fc domains play distinct roles in modulating the functions of antibodies. However, posttranslational site-selective modifications of glycans in antibodies and other multiply glycosylated proteins remain a challenging ...

Medical Sciences

Transmission-mode pulse oximetry, the optical method for determining oxygen saturation in blood, is limited to only tissues that can be transilluminated, such as the earlobes and the fingers. The existing sensor configuration provides only single-point ...
Recessive Stargardt disease (STGD1) is an inherited blinding disorder caused by mutations in the Abca4 gene. ABCA4 is a flippase in photoreceptor outer segments (OS) that translocates retinaldehyde conjugated to phosphatidylethanolamine across OS disc ...
Osteosarcoma (OS), the most common primary bone tumor, is highly metastatic with high chemotherapeutic resistance and poor survival rates. Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) generated from Li–Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) patients, we investigate an ...
Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) cause epithelial proliferative diseases. Persistent infection of the mucosal epithelia by the high-risk genotypes can progress to high-grade dysplasia and cancers. Viral transcription and protein activities are intimately ...
The effects of the growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) agonist MR409 on various human cancer cells were investigated. In H446 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and HCC827 and H460 (non-SCLC) cells, MR409 promoted cell viability, reduced cell apoptosis, ...
Although diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) cells widely express the BCL2 protein, they rarely respond to treatment with BCL2-selective inhibitors. Here we show that DLBCL cells harboring PMAIP1/NOXA gene amplification were highly sensitive to BCL2 ...

Microbiology

Management of the limited number of antimicrobials currently available requires the identification of infections that contain drug-resistant isolates and the discovery of factors that promote the evolution of drug resistance. Here, we report a single ...

Neuroscience

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of age-related dementia. Neuropathological hallmarks of AD include brain deposition of β-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and accumulation of both hyperphosphorylated and acetylated tau. RGFP-966, a brain-penetrant and ...
Perceiving social and emotional information from faces is a critical primate skill. For this purpose, primates evolved dedicated cortical architecture, especially in occipitotemporal areas, utilizing face-selective cells. Less understood face-selective ...
Whereas short-term plasticity is often initiated on one side of the synapse, long-term plasticity involves coordinated changes on both sides, implying extracellular signaling. We have investigated the possible signaling role of an Aplysia neurotrophin (...
We explored the relationship between memory performance and conscious knowledge (or awareness) of what has been learned in memory-impaired patients with hippocampal lesions or larger medial temporal lesions. Participants viewed familiar scenes or familiar ...

Pharmacology

Drugs that treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by antagonizing the M3 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (M3R) have had a significant effect on health, but can suffer from their lack of selectivity against the M2R subtype, which modulates heart ...

Physiology

Genetically encoded inhibitors for voltage-dependent Ca2+ (CaV) channels (GECCIs) are useful research tools and potential therapeutics. Rad/Rem/Rem2/Gem (RGK) proteins are Ras-like G proteins that potently inhibit high voltage-activated (HVA) Ca2+ (CaV1/...

Plant Biology

The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is accumulated after drought stress and plays critical roles in the responses to drought stress in plants, such as gene regulation, stomatal closure, seed maturation, and dormancy. Although previous reports revealed ...
Plant reproduction requires long-distance growth of a pollen tube to fertilize the female gametophyte. Prior reports suggested that mutations altering synthesis of flavonoids, plant specialized metabolites that include flavonols and anthocyanins, impair ...
CO2, temperature, water availability, and light intensity were all potential selective pressures that determined the competitive advantage and expansion of the C4 photosynthetic carbon-concentrating mechanism over the last ∼30 My. To tease apart how ...

Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

Although violent crime has declined in recent decades, it remains a recurring feature of daily life in some neighborhoods. Mounting evidence indicates that such violence has a long reach, which goes beyond family and friends of the victim and undermines ...

Sustainability Science

Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction ...

Correction (Online Only)

SI Correction (Online Only)

View the cover image for PNAS Vol.115; No.47

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