PLOS Biology
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PLOS Biology publishes significant advances across the biological sciences. And we push boundaries. Designed to advance science and the communities who depend upon it, we're transforming research communication to fit the research process.
PLOS Biology
20h ago
by David M. Bland, Dan Long, Rebecca Rosenke, B. Joseph Hinnebusch
Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is a highly lethal vector-borne pathogen responsible for killing large portions of Europe’s population during the Black Death of the Middle Ages. In the wild, Y. pestis cycles between fleas and rodents; occasionally spilling over into humans bitten by infectious fleas. For this reason, fleas and the rats harboring them have been considered the main epidemiological drivers of previous plague pandemics. Human ectoparasites, such as the body louse (Pediculus humanus humanus), have la ..read more
PLOS Biology
20h ago
by John G. Robinson, Danielle LaBruna, Tim O’Brien, Peter J. Clyne, Nigel Dudley, Sandy J. Andelman, Elizabeth L. Bennett, Avecita Chicchon, Carlos Durigan, Hedley Grantham, Margaret Kinnaird, Sue Lieberman, Fiona Maisels, Adriana Moreira, Madhu Rao, Emma Stokes, Joe Walston, James EM Watson
The Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), signed in 2022 by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, recognized the importance of area-based conservation, and its goals and targets specify the characteristics of protected and conserved areas (PCAs) that disproportionately contribute to biodiversit ..read more
PLOS Biology
2d ago
by Sofie De Schrijver, Thomas Decramer, Peter Janssen
Neurons responding during action execution and action observation were discovered in the ventral premotor cortex 3 decades ago. However, the visual features that drive the responses of action observation/execution neurons (AOENs) have not been revealed at present. We investigated the neural responses of AOENs in ventral premotor area F5c of 4 macaques during the observation of action videos and crucial control stimuli. The large majority of AOENs showed highly phasic responses during the action videos, with a preference for the moment that ..read more
PLOS Biology
2d ago
by Ying Wang, Tianzi Wei, Man Zhao, Aima Huang, Fan Sun, Lu Chen, Risheng Lin, Yubao Xie, Ming Zhang, Shiyu Xu, Zhihui Sun, Liang Hong, Rui Wang, Ruilin Tian, Guofeng Li
Alkenyl oxindoles have been characterized as autophagosome-tethering compounds (ATTECs), which can target mutant huntingtin protein (mHTT) for lysosomal degradation. In order to expand the application of alkenyl oxindoles for targeted protein degradation, we designed and synthesized a series of heterobifunctional compounds by conjugating different alkenyl oxindoles with bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) inhibitor JQ1. Th ..read more
PLOS Biology
2d ago
by Jacob L. Steenwyk, Nicole King
Reconstructing the tree of life remains a central goal in biology. Early methods, which relied on small numbers of morphological or genetic characters, often yielded conflicting evolutionary histories, undermining confidence in the results. Investigations based on phylogenomics, which use hundreds to thousands of loci for phylogenetic inquiry, have provided a clearer picture of life’s history, but certain branches remain problematic. To resolve difficult nodes on the tree of life, 2 recent studies tested the utility of synteny, the conserved collinearity of or ..read more
PLOS Biology
5d ago
by Masahiko Haruno
How third-party individuals respond to injustices is important for resolving conflict in society. A study in PLOS Biology shows that individuals experiencing acute stress prefer to aid victims over punishing offenders, an opposite pattern to non-stress conditions. How third-party individuals respond to injustices is important for resolving conflict in society. This Primer explores a new study that shows that individuals experiencing acute stress prefer to aid victims over punishing offenders, an opposite pattern to non-stress conditions ..read more
PLOS Biology
5d ago
by Brian P. H. Metzger
The relationship between genetic code robustness and protein evolvability is unknown. A new study in PLOS Biology using in silico rewiring of genetic codes and functional protein data identified a positive correlation between code robustness and protein evolvability that is protein-specific. The relationship between genetic code robustness and protein evolvability is unknown. This Primer explores a new PLOS Biology study which uses in silico rewiring of genetic codes and functional protein data to identify a positive correlation between code robustness and protein evolva ..read more
PLOS Biology
6d ago
by Huagen Wang, Xiaoyan Wu, Jiahua Xu, Ruida Zhu, Sihui Zhang, Zhenhua Xu, Xiaoqin Mai, Shaozheng Qin, Chao Liu
People tend to intervene in others’ injustices by either punishing the transgressor or helping the victim. Injustice events often occur under stressful circumstances. However, how acute stress affects a third party’s intervention in injustice events remains open. Here, we show a stress-induced shift in third parties’ willingness to engage in help instead of punishment by acting on emotional salience and central-executive and theory-of-mind networks. Acute stress decreased the third p ..read more
PLOS Biology
6d ago
by Hana Rozhoňová, Carlos Martí-Gómez, David M. McCandlish, Joshua L. Payne
The standard genetic code defines the rules of translation for nearly every life form on Earth. It also determines the amino acid changes accessible via single-nucleotide mutations, thus influencing protein evolvability—the ability of mutation to bring forth adaptive variation in protein function. One of the most striking features of the standard genetic code is its robustness to mutation, yet it remains an open question whether such robustness facilitates or frustrates protein evolvability. To answer this question, we ..read more
PLOS Biology
6d ago
by Davide Crombie, Martin A. Spacek, Christian Leibold, Laura Busse
The processing of sensory information, even at early stages, is influenced by the internal state of the animal. Internal states, such as arousal, are often characterized by relating neural activity to a single “level” of arousal, defined by a behavioral indicator such as pupil size. In this study, we expand the understanding of arousal-related modulations in sensory systems by uncovering multiple timescales of pupil dynamics and their relationship to neural activity. Specifically, we observed a robust coupling between spiking ..read more