Volume 23 Issue 5, May 2021

Epigenetic barriers need to be surmounted in order to increase the efficiency of cardiac reprogramming. A new study now reports that the histone reader PHF7 enhances cardiac reprogramming via recruiting the chromatin remodelling SWI/SNF complex and key transcription factors to the cardiac super enhancers.

Overcoming immune resistance mechanisms in patients with cancer is critical for successful immunotherapy. A new study now identifies LIMIT as an immunogenic long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) that intrinsically regulates anti-tumour immune responses, thereby highlighting the therapeutic potential of targeting lncRNAs to improve the outcome of cancer immunotherapy.

Monocytes, plasmacytoid and conventional dendritic cells are crucial for antiviral immune responses. A new study now compares severe and moderate cases of COVID-19 and links defects in viral sensing, interferon and antigen presentation pathways, associated with upregulated apoptosis and inflammatory pathways, to high COVID-19 severity.

In this Review, Hurley and colleagues cover the most recent discoveries and the emerging molecular understanding of the mechanisms of autophagosome formation.

Salvi et al. show that GLUT1 is critical for glucose uptake in response to external forces and that ankyrin G is required to retain GLUT1 at sites of E-cadherin force transmission, linking mechanotransduction and glucose uptake.

Garry et al. report that the histone reader PHF7 cooperates with the SWI/SNF complex at cardiac super enhancers to increase accessibility to core cardiac transcription factors, thus facilitating direct cardiac reprogramming.

Sangbum Park, Catherine Matte-Martone and colleagues track Langerhans cells, dendritic epidermal T cells and epithelial basal cells in living mice over time and show that immune cells coordinate with epidermal cells to maintain their positions.

Perochon et al. show in Drosophila that gut-derived reactive oxygen species and FGF induce tracheal remodelling after intestinal damage, which in turn promotes intestinal regeneration by activating intestinal stem cells.

Tamamouna, Rahman et al. show that midgut-associated tracheae in Drosophila increase their branching in response to infection, oxidative stress and tumours, driving intestinal regeneration as well as tumour growth.

McGinn et al. show that mechanical stretch in the developing oesophagus promotes the YAP-dependent emergence of a KLF4⁺ committed basal cell population, revealing how physiological strain triggers the transition to adult homeostasis.

Li et al. identify LIMIT as a lncRNA that modulates MHC-I expression through HSP90 and HSF1, thereby regulating antitumour immune response and the efficacy of immunotherapy.

Saichi et al. performed single-cell RNA-seq analysis of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) isolated from the peripheral blood of patients with moderate and severe COVID-19 and uncovered defects in antiviral immune response in specific APC subsets.

Wang et al. developed a transformer base editor system in which the enzyme activity of the base editor is turned on only at the on-target site, therefore minimizing genome-wide and transcriptome-wide off-target mutations.