Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026.
Science Journals
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceOur work reveals how the D614G mutation in the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein reshapes its internal communication pathways and speeds up receptor binding domain (RBD) opening, providing mechanistic ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThe basis for the selective activity of saponins across organisms, and for plant self-resistance during their biosynthesis and storage, is not fully understood. Here, we show that membrane sterol identity governs susceptibility to saponins and ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceWhy does inhibiting the endosomal lipid kinase PIKfyve, which generates PI(5)P and PI(3,5)P2, block entry of some enveloped viruses but spare vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-G)? Using single-round infectivity and live-cell three-dimensional (...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceCytotoxic T cells [cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs)] play a critical role in antitumor immunity; however, cancer cells have evolved immune evasion strategies that impair CTL recognition and effector function. Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-positive ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificancePhysical conditions at the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions are ideal for constructing an ultrastable optical resonator. This passively cooled optical cavity will stabilize a laser with unprecedentedly long phase coherence time, surpassing ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceLarge language models (LLMs) enable the generation of data that could potentially be analyzed for social research. While the need for assessing the validity of such AI-generated data is widely recognized, we do not yet have a coherent ...
Demonstrating real advantage of machine learning–enhanced Monte Carlo for combinatorial optimization
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceIn this work, we address a question that has attracted intense interest in recent years: whether machine learning-assisted algorithms can genuinely outperform classical approaches in challenging combinatorial optimization problems. While ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceHow has evolution shaped the diverse gene repertoires of extant genomes? We find that current methods seeking to reconcile a genome phylogeny with complex gene sequence histories quickly hit a crisis-point where the phylogenetic signal for ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceUnderstanding the structure of biomolecules is key to explaining their function. Cryoelectron microscopy is a method for reconstructing the electrostatic potential distribution of a biological macromolecule, a quantity which contains ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThere is growing attention and concern about racial biases in some of the decision tools that clinicians use to decide on medical interventions, but considerably less evidence on the downstream consequences of these biases for patient ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceIn a time of accelerating climate change, we need a predictive theory of species’ range shifts, adaptation, and resilience of populations. Currently, predictions rely on theory that fails to incorporate the effects of interactions between ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. Global crop movement has traditionally been viewed as a major driver of emerging plant diseases through the introduction of pathogens into naïve environments. Here we show that the reverse process, introducing crops into regions containing endemic ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceInflammasomes are supramolecular complexes that activate caspase-1 and other inflammatory caspases in response to pathogenic and damage stimuli. While inflammasomes play important roles in host defense, their excessive activation leads to ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThe ordered arrangement of mechanosensory hair cells in vertebrate auditory epithelia relies on mechanical interactions among multiple cell types. Yet, how local mechanical heterogeneity produces tissue-scale organization remains unresolved. ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceRibonucleotide reductases (RNRs) are ancient enzymes responsible for the synthesis of deoxyribonucleotides from ribonucleotides. RNRs catalyze this reaction via a long-range proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) process, involving the ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceA potent protein kinase A (PKA)-selective kinase inhibitor, BLU0588, stabilizes the PKA catalytic subunit in an unusual open conformation and also abolishes the synergistic high-affinity binding of the physiological pseudosubstrate inhibitor ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceLogistic regression is a statistical method used to model binary outcome variables, such as whether a patient recovers or not, using a set of predictors. There are many competing methods for addressing uncertainty when selecting predictors, ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThe light-harvesting complex 2 (LH2) antenna of purple bacteria is a model system for photosynthetic light harvesting. The discovery of its delocalized excited states established a picture in which delocalization and associated rapid energy ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceExtravillous trophoblast (EVT) cells are a specialized cell type of the placenta that possess transformative actions on the uterine environment critical for a successful pregnancy outcome. Understanding how trophoblast stem (TS) cells ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThis study identifies a critical role for amino acid side chain chirality in low-complexity domain (LCD) self-association. Using synthetic protein chemistry, we introduce targeted L-to-D amino acid inversions in LCDs without altering side ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceAchieving durable, broad-spectrum crop protection remains difficult because plant immunity models often rely on limited species and overlook natural genetic diversity. To understand how plant defense networks shift across diverse lineages, we ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. SignificanceThe prefrontal cortex (PFC) controls higher-order cognitive processes that define mammals and distinguish humans. Although timing actions are critical for cognitive function, it is unclear how the PFC exerts temporal control of action. We ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026.