I. Research Background and Scientific Significance Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) is a common monogenic hereditary kidney disease that affects millions of people worldwide. ADPKD is primarily caused by mutations in the renal polycystin family (especially the PKD1 and PKD2 genes), which encode channel subunits pivotal for ion c...

New Insights into the Molecular Dynamics and Allosteric Network Regulation Mechanisms of the Common Cushing’s Syndrome Mutation L205R in Protein Kinase A: Interpreting the Latest Original Research from PNAS I. Research Background and Scientific Questions Protein kinase A (PKA) is a key intracellular signal transduction molecule that regulates a var...

A Milestone in Cross-Species Modeling of Plant Genomes: Creation and Breakthrough Application of the PlantCaduceus DNA Language Model I. Academic Background and Research Motivation In the past two decades, with the rapid development of high-throughput sequencing technology, over 1,000 plant genomes have been published, and this number is expected t...

Unlocking a New Mechanism for the Regulation of Neurotransmitter Release: A Review of Munc13-1’s Novel Autoinhibitory Structure and Its Calcium-Modulated Role I. Academic Background and Research Motivation Signal transmission between neurons relies on chemical synapses, with precise neurotransmitter release from presynaptic terminals via synaptic e...

Accelerating Single-Molecule Structure Identification with Simulation-Based Inference — Research Report on “Amortized Template Matching of Molecular Conformations from Cryoelectron Microscopy Images using Simulation-Based Inference” Research Background and Significance In the fields of molecular biology and structural biology, understanding how bio...

Revealing Global Contraction and Local Diffusion of Cytoskeletal Active Matter Networks through Optogenetic Motors and Photobleaching: Interpretation of the Original Study “motor-driven microtubule diffusion in a photobleached dynamical coordinate system” Academic Research Background Active matter systems have recently become a frontier topic in th...

Revealing “Rich Node” Bias in Link Prediction Algorithms and Countermeasures — An Interpretation of “Bias-aware Training and Evaluation of Link Prediction Algorithms in Network Biology” 1. Academic Background and Motivation Over the past decade, network biology has played an increasingly important role in uncovering associations and functions of bi...

1. Academic Background: From Lifespan Extension to the Enhancement of Healthspan With the improvement of global medical and socioeconomic standards since the 20th century, overall human lifespan has significantly increased, especially in developing countries. However, healthspan—the number of years an individual lives in a state of complete health,...

Academic Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the leading causes of cognitive impairment and vision loss in the elderly population worldwide. Although they affect different organs (the brain and the retina, respectively), recent studies have revealed shared pathological features, such as β-amyloid (Aβ) ...

Academic Background Microglia are the only resident macrophages in the central nervous system (CNS) and play critical roles in development, homeostasis, and disease. Traditionally, microglia were viewed as homogeneous “resting” or “activated” states, but the advent of single-cell sequencing technologies has revealed their remarkable transcriptional...