🧬 biology

2-pyridone mycotoxins act as novel actin depolymerizing agents and function endogenously to regulate cytoskeleton dynamics

This study reveals that fungal 2-pyridone mycotoxins, such as tenellin and fumosorinone, function as conserved actin depolymerizing agents that regulate cytoskeleton dynamics to control fungal growth and stress responses, thereby providing a mechanistic basis for their biological roles and potential applications in drug discovery.

Yanhua Fan, Junyao Wang, Xueping Xu, Shengan Zhu, Xin Liu, Shouhao Jiao Jiao, Hui Zhang, Dan Jin, Xianbi Li, Fangjie Xio (…)2026-07-13
🧬 biology

Trypanosoma cruzi genetic diversity associates with serological diagnostic assay performance

This study demonstrates that the genetic diversity of *Trypanosoma cruzi* strains, particularly within the TcI, TcII, and TcVI DTUs, significantly influences serological diagnostic performance and explains geographic variations in test discordance, highlighting the need to account for local strain diversity in developing improved diagnostic assays.

Julie Thompson, Eric Dumonteil, Claudia Herrera2026-07-13
🧬 biology

Whole-genome investigations of Salmonella enterica isolates from poultry meat uncovered multidrug-resistant and outbreak-associated serovars circulating in Accra, Ghana

This study reveals a high prevalence of multidrug-resistant and outbreak-associated *Salmonella enterica* serovars in poultry meat sold in Accra, Ghana, highlighting a significant public health threat driven by specific resistance genes and plasmids.

Felicia A. Owusu, Harriet Ayebea Ofori-Antwi, Christian Owusu-Nyantakyi, Hawa Ahmed, Justice Kwesi Danso, Agnes Oclu, Wi (…)2026-07-13
🧬 biology

Prediction of the self-association of the nuclear inhibitor of DNA binding and differentiation proteins

This study utilizes computational biophysics and molecular dynamics simulations to demonstrate that ID1 and ID4 proteins form stable HLH-mediated dimers, revealing key interaction patterns that regulate their nuclear concentration and function, thereby offering potential targets for disrupting pathological interactions in cancer.

Youssef Ahmed, Sohila Mo'men, Esraa Ali, Heba Hany, Sama Sayed, Nada A. Elbendary, Rehab Hassan, Abdo A. Elfiky2026-07-13
🧬 biology

The Decomposition of Conscious Access: Working Memory for Masked Sequences in Monkey Prefrontal Cortex

This study demonstrates that conscious access in the monkey prefrontal cortex involves a two-stage process where objective sensory inputs are transiently encoded in a shared neural subspace before being actively gated into orthogonal, rank-ordered subspaces that undergo all-or-none ignition to sustain subjective percepts.

Liping Wang, Hao Zhou, Wen Fang, Guobin Fu, Yiteng Zhang, Bin Min, Stanislas Dehaene2026-07-13
🧬 biology

Effects of high light and elevated temperature on the structure of Photosystem II core complexes isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana

This study utilizes cryo-electron microscopy to reveal that high light and elevated temperature cause the disassembly of peripheral subunits, the loss of a bicarbonate ligand near the non-heme iron, and a conformational shift in the D1 subunit that may trigger its auto-proteolysis in *Arabidopsis thaliana* Photosystem II complexes.

Jack Forsman, André Graça, Michael Hall, Wolfgang P. Schröder, Johannes Messinger2026-07-13