Qin Xie,Harry E. Walker,Michal Minczuk,Marcos R. Chiaratti,Patrick F. Chinnery
{"title":"Inheritance and selection of the mitochondrial genome","authors":"Qin Xie,Harry E. Walker,Michal Minczuk,Marcos R. Chiaratti,Patrick F. Chinnery","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01019-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01019-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":42.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149090467","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}
Barbara E. Engelhardt,Joshua S. Weinstock,Sarah K. Nyquist,Alexis Battle
{"title":"Machine learning and statistical methods for molecular quantitative trait loci","authors":"Barbara E. Engelhardt,Joshua S. Weinstock,Sarah K. Nyquist,Alexis Battle","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-00990-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-00990-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":42.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149049390","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}
Omer S Alkhnbashi, Hamad Ali, Almundher Al-Maawali, Naif A M Almontashiri, Uğur Özbek, Maha S Zaki, Mouhammed Ali Ajlouny, Issa Abu-Dayyeh, Rami Abdel-Rahim Mahfouz, Abdullah M Baghfar, Khalaf Hussein Gargary, Ali M Batarfi, Barrak Alahmad, Abdullah Alibrahim, Dana Marafi, Hind Alsharhan, Salman Al Sabah, Oktay I Kaplan, Fatma Al Jasmi, Majid Alfadhel, Bruno Reversade, Hilal A Lashuel, Khalid Fakhro, Fowzan S Alkuraya, Fahd Al-Mulla, Alawi Alsheikh-Ali, Ahmad Abou Tayoun
{"title":"A Middle East collaborative for undiagnosed diseases.","authors":"Omer S Alkhnbashi, Hamad Ali, Almundher Al-Maawali, Naif A M Almontashiri, Uğur Özbek, Maha S Zaki, Mouhammed Ali Ajlouny, Issa Abu-Dayyeh, Rami Abdel-Rahim Mahfouz, Abdullah M Baghfar, Khalaf Hussein Gargary, Ali M Batarfi, Barrak Alahmad, Abdullah Alibrahim, Dana Marafi, Hind Alsharhan, Salman Al Sabah, Oktay I Kaplan, Fatma Al Jasmi, Majid Alfadhel, Bruno Reversade, Hilal A Lashuel, Khalid Fakhro, Fowzan S Alkuraya, Fahd Al-Mulla, Alawi Alsheikh-Ali, Ahmad Abou Tayoun","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01018-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01018-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":51.4,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149002240","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}
Tyler J Buckley, Mannix J Burns, Lucas Jarry, Shuya Wang, Su May Lei Soe, Steven E Jacobsen
{"title":"Gene regulatory mechanisms downstream of DNA methylation.","authors":"Tyler J Buckley, Mannix J Burns, Lucas Jarry, Shuya Wang, Su May Lei Soe, Steven E Jacobsen","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01008-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01008-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cytosine DNA methylation is a conserved epigenetic modification that regulates gene expression, represses transposable elements and maintains genome stability across diverse eukaryotes. Although major advances have uncovered the pathways involved in the establishment, maintenance and removal of DNA methylation, the downstream mechanisms by which this mark influences transcriptional programmes and shapes chromatin structure are less well understood. Here, we review how specialized reader proteins and transcription factors interpret DNA methylation to preserve methylation patterns, recruit effector complexes, regulate chromatin accessibility and interact with parallel epigenetic systems to mediate transcriptional silencing and activation across mammals and plants. We highlight that robust transcriptional and epigenetic states emerge from overlapping, layered and partially redundant DNA methylation-dependent mechanisms. Together, these insights provide a framework for understanding how DNA methylation shapes the epigenome to regulate development, differentiation and disease progression.</p>","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":51.4,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148990714","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 shared evolutionary capacities of plasmids and extrachromosomal DNA.","authors":"Liam P Shaw, Anton G Henssen","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01012-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01012-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Our understanding of evolutionary genetics is based largely on chromosomes, but many organisms harbour extrachromosomal forms of DNA that exist in multiple copies per cell and segregate unequally on division. These alternative carriers of genetic information possess unique evolutionary capacities. Recent research on high-copy bacterial plasmids has established important principles about their role in gene amplification, increased mutational supply and the balance between selection and segregational drift. In human cancer, many tumours contain molecules known as extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) that exhibit strikingly similar dynamics. From an evolutionary perspective, cancer resembles a unicellular organism under strong selective pressure; because asymmetric segregation of ecDNA produces population-level heterogeneity, ecDNA can fulfil a similar evolutionary role to that of plasmids in bacteria. The analogy between plasmids and ecDNA has been noted previously but not explored in depth. Here, we compare their formation, expression, segregation and evolution, elucidate common principles that apply across both, and identify open questions. We propose that both plasmids and ecDNA function as 'contingency loci' that permit rapid adaptation. Despite important differences, we argue that these extrachromosomal genetic elements can be viewed as an example of convergent evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":51.4,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148970400","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":"Genomic insights into natural selection in recent human history","authors":"Pontus Skoglund,Iain Mathieson","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01010-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01010-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":42.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148933999","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}
Marco Podobnik, Yansong Lu, Uwe Irion, Peter D Currie
{"title":"Zebrafish relatives as models for functional comparative genetics and genomics.","authors":"Marco Podobnik, Yansong Lu, Uwe Irion, Peter D Currie","doi":"10.1038/s41576-026-01007-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-026-01007-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Closely related species, such as danionin fishes of the Danio, Danionella and Devario genera, often differ in their biology despite their shared evolutionary history, providing a platform for defining the molecular basis for the divergence of phenotypic traits. Such an approach requires the availability of large-scale genomic data, which have been provided by recent reports detailing the genomes of several danionins. Facilitated by the large number of genetic tools that are available for manipulation of the most studied member of this subgroup - the zebrafish, Danio rerio - the danionins have emerged as a useful comparative model system. Here we review their phylogeny and outline the phenotypic traits that are distinct to individual species or genera. We highlight how functional genetic tools such as interspecies hybridization, mutagenesis and transgenesis, as well as the recently reported genome assemblies, have enabled new avenues for hypothesis-driven and technology-driven exploration that collectively establish danionins as important genetic models for understanding a wide range of evolutionary innovations.</p>","PeriodicalId":19067,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Genetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":51.4,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148930712","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}