Current Biology最新文献

{"title":"PAK-family kinases promote cell fusion irreversibility by preventing cell-wall repair.","authors":"Julia M Coronas-Serna, Sajjita Saha, Ana J Pérez-Berná, Sophie G Martin","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.033","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cell-cell fusion is critical for the sexual life cycle, as it drives the unidirectional transition between haploid and diploid phases. In fungi, fusion requires not only plasma membrane merging but also local cell-wall removal. However, the integrity of the cell wall, which resists internal turgor pressure and is essential for survival, is normally monitored by a cell-wall integrity pathway (CIP) involving Rho1 GTPase, protein kinase C (PKC), and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling, which promotes damage repair. How the CIP allows localized cell-wall degradation is not known. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we previously identified pak2Δ mutants that exhibit transient fusion: cells briefly fuse and exchange cytoplasmic contents, which signal catastrophic haploid meiosis, but then reseal their fusion pore. Here, we show that the kinase activity of p21-activated kinases (PAK) is essential for cell-cell fusion, with major and minor contributions from Pak2 and the essential Pak1, respectively. Strikingly, osmotic stabilization largely suppresses all PAK-associated fusion defects, pointing to a role in cell-wall remodeling. Pak2 accumulates at the fusion site, where it promotes fusion pore opening and expansion. In its absence, Rho1-GTP, PKC, and beta-glucan synthase Bgs4 show elevated levels at the fusion site, and their partial loss of function rescues fusion. Pak1 mutants have elevated MAPK activity. Thus, Pak2 and Pak1 both antagonize the CIP. Furthermore, correlative light and cryo-soft-X-ray tomography reveals that resealed pores in PAK mutants rebuilt an intact cell wall. We conclude that PAKs enforce fusion directionality by antagonizing cell-wall repair mechanisms that otherwise restore separation between mating partners.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149105695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cold sensing by a glutamate receptor drives avoidance behavior in Drosophila larvae.","authors":"L Amanda Xu, Hyun-Joon Son, Xu Bai, Jize Sui, Ruonan Li, Elizabeth A Ronan, Gun-Ho Kim, Bing Ye","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.030","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.030","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to sense and avoid noxious environments is essential for animal survival. While the mechanisms of heat and cool sensation are well studied, those underlying the sensation of cold are relatively less understood. Here, we use Drosophila larvae as a model to investigate how animals sense and avoid cold temperatures. By implementing custom-built thermoelectric devices capable of delivering rapid and precise thermal stimuli, we find that cold delivered to the larval head evokes robust escape behavioral responses. We identify anterior C3da (aC3da), a group of head-located cold-sensitive neurons, as necessary and sufficient for such avoidance responses. We further demonstrate that the kainate-type glutamate receptor Clumsy acts as a novel cold sensor required for head cold sensitivity. Knockdown of Clumsy in head cold-sensing neurons suppresses their cold sensitivity. Heterologous expression of Clumsy confers cold sensitivity. Our results show that Drosophila larvae have evolved the capacity to detect and avoid cold temperatures through a previously uncharacterized cold-sensing mechanism.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13671159/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149105649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distinct oscillatory neural rhythms support representational precision and confidence in working memory.","authors":"Yang Di, Xingwei An, Hsin-Hung Li","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.041","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.041","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Working memory enables the maintenance of information to guide behavior, yet its representations are inherently noisy and variable. To act effectively, observers must track the uncertainty of their own memory. However, the neural mechanisms supporting uncertainty representations in working memory remain poorly understood, particularly at the level of neural dynamics. Here, we combined electroencephalography (EEG) with a spatial visual working memory task that elicited trial-by-trial uncertainty reports to investigate how oscillatory activity encodes memory uncertainty. We identified two forms of uncertainty supported by distinct oscillatory neural activity. Using a probabilistic encoding-decoding model, we found that memory content can be reconstructed from alpha-band activity and that the precision of these representations predicts subsequent uncertainty reports, consistent with probabilistic mnemonic representations. In parallel, beta-band activity contained a scalar, magnitude-based representation of uncertainty. This signal exhibited slow, persistent dynamics across task epochs and tracked uncertainty reports for both the current and previous trials. Together, these findings show that the human brain multiplexes two forms of memory uncertainty, representational precision and a scalar confidence signal, across distinct oscillatory rhythms, providing a neural dynamical account of metacognitive access to working memory.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"4943-4952.e4"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148929196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The proteasome promotes cytokinetic abscission by relieving an Aurora B-dependent inhibition of ESCRT-III dynamics.","authors":"Rayane Dibsy, Tamara Advedissian, Clotilde Custot, Buzz Baum, Arnaud Echard","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.073","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.073","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cytokinesis finalizes cell division by physically separating the daughter cells. After furrow ingression, the intercellular bridge (ICB) connecting the dividing cells is cut via microtubule severing, followed by membrane scission, which requires dynamic ESCRT-III polymers. Proteasomal degradation is crucial for mitotic exit and the early steps of cytokinesis, but whether it plays a role in abscission is unknown. Here, we found that inhibiting the proteasome after furrow ingression in human cells led to increased Aurora B levels at the ICB and delayed both microtubule cutting and membrane scission. Overexpression of Aurora B phenocopied these cytokinetic defects, whereas inhibiting Aurora B activity fully rescued the defects caused by proteasome inhibition. Mechanistically, proteasome inhibition increased the levels of active Aurora B, enhanced the phosphorylation of its substrate CHMP4C, and reduced the amount of the ESCRT-III remodeling ATPase VPS4 at the ICB. Consequently, this led to a reduction in the dynamics of the ESCRT-III polymer at the ICB. Remarkably, proteasome inhibition did not delay abscission in cells expressing a mutant of CHMP4C that cannot be phosphorylated by Aurora B, thus demonstrating that the function of the proteasome in abscission is to degrade Aurora B and thereby limit CHMP4C phosphorylation. Our findings reveal a key role of the proteasome in the final step of cell division by decreasing Aurora B levels and activity to enable ESCRT-III function in abscission.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"4843-4858.e6"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148812064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mechanosensory feedback circuits for copulation control in Drosophila males.","authors":"Man Wang, Kaiyu Wang, Fei Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.052","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Successful copulation requires the precise integration of sensory cues and motor actions. Here, we identify three classes of genital mechanosensory neurons in male Drosophila that are required for copulation. These neurons exhibit distinct tactile response properties and act through separate pathways that selectively recruit male-specific motor neurons. Functionally, these pathways differentially contribute to copulation initiation, maintenance, and termination. Together, our findings define neural pathways through which genital mechanosensory feedback is transformed into motor output, thus providing a circuit framework for understanding sensorimotor control of reproductive behavior.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"5000-5010.e5"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148982444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multisensory integration: How fish combine cues to make sense of dynamic water currents.","authors":"Lucas Gallart, Andrew M Hein","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A new study reveals that zebrafish navigate flowing water by dynamically shifting between flow sensation and vision as flow conditions change. These findings highlight the flexible strategies animals use to guide behavior in complex and ever-changing sensory landscapes.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"36 19","pages":"R1031-R1033"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149105794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microbiology: The burden of a bacterial weapon at times of peace.","authors":"Ying Liu, Daniel Unterweger","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.038","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Some bacteria can kill other microbes, whereas others lose this ability. A new paper reports on an experimental evolution study that identifies conditions under which a bacterial killing apparatus retains or loses its function, depending on the susceptibility of co-cultured microbes.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"36 19","pages":"R1026-R1028"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149105716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Compression as a neural mechanism of mnemonic chunking in prefrontal cortex.","authors":"Feng-Kuei Chiang, Erin L Rich","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.016","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Chunking is the mental process of grouping information into meaningful units and plays a central role in many cognitive processes such as working memory, yet the neural mechanisms that form chunks remain unknown. Here, we investigated how chunking impacts the representation of mnemonic information in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Macaque monkeys performed a self-ordered visuospatial working memory task, in which spontaneous chunking could be behaviorally characterized. We found that chunking improved memory performance overall and produced lower accuracies and longer reaction times at chunk boundaries. In the dlPFC, chunking systematically biased neural representations of spatial targets toward common chunk centers. At the same time, chunking reduced the dimensionality of population activity, indicating a compression of mnemonic information. Memory-guided behavior was also biased in the same direction as the neural distortions, which suggests that the compression mechanisms are lossy rather than lossless. Together, these results offer a mechanistic account of chunking as a form of lossy compression in neural coding that sacrifices detail within a chunk but improves overall memory retention.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"4859-4869.e4"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13540421/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148879625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Balancing growth and immunity of potato by humidity-dependent expression of a late blight resistance gene.","authors":"Sheng Yu, Yantao Wang, Zhiqing Wang, Na Li, Caiyan Ma, Tao Li, Yuwen Liu, Suomeng Dong, Peitao Lü, Sanwen Huang, Shaoqun Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.048","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.048","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Inducible expression of resistance genes is an effective approach to balance plant growth and immunity, thus facilitating the development of disease-resistant crop cultivars. While pathogen-responsive and immunity-related promoters have been adopted for this purpose, alternative design strategies remain to be explored. High relative humidity (RH) has been recognized as a crucial permissive environmental condition for the occurrence of devastating plant diseases including tomato and potato late blight. Here, we identified humidity-activated cis-regulatory elements (HAEs) in Solanum lycopersicum through an integrative analysis of transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility data. Sequence homology-inferred HAEs in S. tuberosum can predict humidity-elicited changes in downstream gene expression. Transgenic S. tuberosum lines expressing a late blight resistance gene driven by an artificial humidity-inducible promoter containing a natural S. tuberosum HAE were generated. These transgenic lines exhibited comparable late blight resistance levels to the lines overexpressing the same resistance gene in controlled zoospore inoculation bioassays, while avoiding growth suppression and tuber yield penalties in common garden experiments. Our findings highlight the importance of plant cis-regulatory elements in the transcriptional responses to high RH and provide a proof-of-concept for a humidity-inducible environment-responsive resistance gene deployment strategy to engineer disease-resistant crop cultivars without compromising growth and yield.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"4965-4978.e5"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148967214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bird feathers from a Late Cretaceous coprolite.","authors":"Jingmai K O'Connor, David G DeMar, Nathan R Carroll, Karen Chin, Elliott Armour Smith, Michael Holland, Alexander D Clark, Christian Cooper, Pei-Chen Kuo, Thomas S Tobin, Aaron J Celestian, David J Bottjer, Luis M Chiappe, Gregory P Wilson Mantilla","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.054","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2026.08.054","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Fossilized feathers are rare, yet critical for understanding the evolution of flight in pennaraptoran dinosaurs and the appearance of crown birds in the Late Cretaceous.¹^,² Feathers associated with skeletal remains are abundant in several Lower Cretaceous Lagerstätten³^,⁴^,⁵ but nearly absent from Upper Cretaceous deposits.⁶^,⁷ As such, the evolution of avian feathers close to the emergence of the crown-group Neornithes remains largely unknown. Here we report on an exceptionally preserved three-dimensional pennaceous feather preserved in a medium-sized theropod dinosaur coprolite found in the uppermost Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation in North America. Arguably the best-preserved feather ever recovered from Mesozoic lithic deposits, it demonstrates that the anatomically modern lightweight and stiff feather with a square, medulla-filled rachis was in place in Pennaraptora before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Skeletal remains from the same coprolite suggest the feather belongs to a hesperornithiform, a lineage of flightless aquatic birds within Ornithurae but outside Neornithes.⁸ Consistent with this identification, the feather exhibits a low structural index and high barb density, adaptations for reduced penetrability present in extant aquatic birds.⁹^,¹⁰^,¹¹ Tiny associated gar scales are interpreted as the bird's last meal. Microcomputed-tomography data reveal the preservation of additional associated feathers, including extinct morphotypes, within the coprolite,³ suggesting these morphotypes persisted even in crownward, non-neornithine birds until the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Differences in plumage, especially with regard to body feathers most responsible for thermal insulation, may have played a role in the extinction of all non-neornithine pennaraptorans during the hypothesized asteroid-induced impact winter.¹².</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"5107-5116.e7"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148929268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}