PLOS Biology (@plosbiology.org)

@plosbiology.org Oct 10, 2026, 4:03 PM

Visualizing #RNA dynamics in living plant cells at single transcript resolution is limited by high background fluorescence. This study develops a high signal-to-noise imaging platform that overcomes this barrier, revealing mRNA trafficking dynamics.
🧪 #AcademicSky #imaging #plants
plos.io/4ARoa5k

Confocal fluorescence microscopic image showing colocalization of dCas13X–SunTag (green) with smFISH signals (red). ACT2 mRNA was used as reporter RNA. Nuclei are stained with DAPI (blue).
image’s creator: Jiayu Zhang

@plosbiology.org Oct 10, 2026, 12:15 PM

Symbiotic #rhizobia form nitrogen-fixing partnerships with #plant roots. This study by @albinteulet.bsky.social & @dromius.bsky.social uses structural modelling to predict how secreted proteins may mimic plant factors in a strategy shared with pathogens.
🧪 #AcademicSky #symbiosis
plos.io/4j6bWj0

Network-based identification of structural units (SUs) present in multiple Nop effectors.
(A) Structural similarity network of the 96 structural units (SU) extracted from AlphaFold models of the 33 Nop effectors. Each node represents one region, and edges connect pairs of regions that are structurally similar with a TM-score above 0.5. Coloured circles delimit the 13 communities containing at least two members (SU1–SU13). The remaining grey nodes correspond to the 9 singleton units. (B–N) Overlays of all structural regions belonging to each community (SU1–SU13). The putative fold or function inferred from Foldseek analysis is indicated below each panel, with the number of occurrences in each community given in parentheses.

@plosbiology.org Oct 10, 2026, 12:10 PM

How are the #temporal patterns of sounds represented across the #auditory system at millisecond scale? This study shows that distinct click-train patterns evoke discriminable behavioral and neural responses, mapping this across the brain.
🧪 #NeuroSky
plos.io/4hTU6O5

Neuronal responses to temporally merged click-train and complex tones across cortical layers in A1 in the oddball paradigm.
Left: Distribution of current source density (CSI) in the oddball paradigm (RN10, TW50) across cortical layers: supra layer (layers Ⅰ/Ⅱ, n = 30, top row), middle layer (layers Ⅲ/Ⅳ, n = 176, middle row), and deep layer (layers Ⅴ/Ⅵ, n = 465, bottom row). Arrows point to the mean.
Right: Comparison of CSI among supra, middle, and deep layers.

@plosbiology.org Oct 10, 2026, 12:05 PM

What are the #epigenetic mechanisms regulating cellular proteostasis? This study shows that a subunit of the COMPASS histone methyltransferase complex controls ultradian proteostasis gene expression through methylation at #proteostasis gene promoters.
🧪 #AcademicSky
plos.io/4emgONz

This research article is titled "The histone methyltransferase complex subunit RBBP5 serves as a central epigenetic regulator of proteostasis dynamics," by Syeda Kubra, Michelle Sun, William Dion, Yu Bian, Ahmet Catak, Hannah Luong, Haokun Wang, Yinghong Pan, Jia-Jun Liu, Aishwarya Ponna, Lijun Liu, Ian Sipula, Jian-Hua Luo, Michael J Jurczak, Silvia Liu, Bokai Zhu

@plosbiology.org Oct 10, 2026, 12:01 PM

Poorly validated #antibodies generate misleading results and waste research resources. @johanduchene.bsky.social explores two new @PLOSBiology.org studies quantifying these costs and identifying solutions.
🧪
Article 1 plos.io/3Ui0czP
Article 2 plos.io/4s1Ccxl
Primer plos.io/4hQh7kI

This Primer is titled, "Better antibodies, better science" by Johan Duchêne.

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 4:35 PM

#TrendingNow | This study presents a genome-scale #phylogeny of Opisthokonta, the major lineage that includes animals, fungi, and their unicellular relatives. It also establishes the geological timeline of opisthokont diversification 🧪 #ICYMI #genetics #evolution plos.io/3XrOD6U

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 1:10 PM

This piece is accompanied by a study on the wasteful consequences of poor antibody validation in research plos.io/4s1Ccxl

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 1:10 PM

Poorly validated #antibodies misdirect research, wasting an estimated billion dollars and millions of biological samples each year. In this multi-stakeholder Delphi consensus study, experts agree on priority practical fixes, and who should deliver them, by 2030.
🧪 #AcademicSky
plos.io/3Ui0czP

Title: Actionable solutions to address antibody validation failures. By Katherine Blades, Michael Biddle, Robert Froud, Eva M Krockow, and Harvinder Virk.

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 12:05 PM

This piece is accompanied by a multi-stakeholder consensus study on practical fixes for poor antibody validation in research plos.io/3Ui0czP

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 12:05 PM

Researchers often select antibodies based on previous use or peer recommendations. This study shows that poor #antibody validation contributes to substantial avoidable consumption of animal and human biological samples, proposing interventions to improve #reliability.
🧪 #AcademicSky
plos.io/4s1Ccxl

Self-reported antibody validation practices among researchers. Distribution of IWGAV pillar usage among survey respondents (n = 107). Of 107 respondents, 77 (72.0%) used at least one IWGAV-aligned validation strategy, while 30 (28.0%) used no IWGAV pillars, relying instead on technical controls only (n = 26) or performing no validation (n = 4). Among IWGAV users, 44 used a single pillar, 22 used two pillars, 10 used three pillars, and 1 used five pillars.

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 12:01 PM

Visualizing #RNA dynamics in living plant cells at single transcript resolution is limited by high background fluorescence. This study develops a high signal-to-noise imaging platform that overcomes this barrier, revealing mRNA trafficking dynamics.
🧪 #AcademicSky #imaging #plants
plos.io/4ARoa5k

@dromius.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 9:36 AMReposted by @plosbiology.org

How do "friendly" rhizobia build a legume nodule?
@albinteulet.bsky.social found that

Type III effectors of symbiotic Rhizobia include diverse predicted transcriptional and post-transcriptional modulators.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Now @plosbiology.org
More information below.

@lmu-osc.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 10:00 AMReposted by @plosbiology.org

🎉 We’re proud to highlight OSC member @johanduchene.bsky.social 's new comment published in @plosbiology.org ! Highlighting the need for antibody validation, it deals with the implications of unreliable antibodies for reproducibility.

#OpenScience #LMU #Reproducibility

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 8:15 AM

Symbiotic #rhizobia form nitrogen-fixing partnerships with #plant roots. This study by @albinteulet.bsky.social & @dromius.bsky.social uses structural modelling to predict how secreted proteins may mimic plant factors in a strategy shared with pathogens.
🧪 #AcademicSky #symbiosis
plos.io/4j6bWj0

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 8:10 AM

How are the #temporal patterns of sounds represented across the #auditory system at millisecond scale? This study shows that distinct click-train patterns evoke discriminable behavioral and neural responses, mapping this across the brain.
🧪 #NeuroSky
plos.io/4hTU6O5

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 8:05 AM

What are the #epigenetic mechanisms regulating cellular proteostasis? This study shows that a subunit of the COMPASS histone methyltransferase complex controls ultradian proteostasis gene expression through methylation at #proteostasis gene promoters.
🧪 #AcademicSky
plos.io/4emgONz

@plosbiology.org Oct 9, 2026, 8:00 AM

Poorly validated #antibodies generate misleading results and waste research resources. @johanduchene.bsky.social explores two new @PLOSBiology.org studies quantifying these costs and identifying solutions.
🧪
Article 1 plos.io/3Ui0czP
Article 2 plos.io/4s1Ccxl
Primer plos.io/4hQh7kI

@plosbiology.org Oct 8, 2026, 4:35 PM

#TrendingNow | Human complex traits differ in the number of associated gene variants, their frequencies, and effect sizes. This study suggests that these differences can largely be explained by two simple scaling laws 🧪 #ICYMI #genetics plos.io/47mZXqT

@plosbiology.org Oct 8, 2026, 4:15 PM

Why do some neurons die in #neurodegeneration while closely related neighbors survive? This Essay by Dong Won Kim argues that disease resistance may depend on maintenance of a neuron's #cell identity and proposes tests of the model.
🧪 #AcademicSky
plos.io/4y7cGbA

Reversible cell-state remodeling vs. identity-maintenance failure in adult neurons.
An adult neuron with stable subtype identity (left) depends on continued operation of four interrelated regulatory components, shown in the inset legend: (1) identity transcription factors; (2) accessible identity enhancers; (3) coherent terminal effector gene modules; and (4) active repression of alternative gene programs belonging to other cell types. Under stress (metabolic, proteostatic, inflammatory, or pathological), the neuron can follow one of two trajectories. (A) In reversible cell-state remodeling, the neuron mounts adaptive responses such as the heat-shock response and the unfolded protein response (UPR), while identity transcription factor activity, enhancer accessibility, terminal effector modules, and repression of alternative programs remain intact. When the stress is removed, the neuron returns to its prior identity state. (B) In identity-maintenance failure, similar stress responses occur, but the regulatory machinery that stabilizes subtype identity itself weakens: identity transcription factor activity falls, identity enhancers lose accessibility, terminal effector modules decohere, and repression of alternative or neighboring-cell programs (orange) fails, allowing those programs to be expressed. After sustained disruption of this machinery, return to the prior identity state may be incomplete, delayed, or unstable even after the initiating stress is removed (broken recovery arrow), and degeneration may follow. The stress-response components are shown at comparable intensity in both panels to emphasize that the framework concerns identity-regulatory outcomes under matched stress exposure, not differences in stress response itself. Neuron illustration adapted from NIH BioArt Source, “Healthy neuron” (BIOART-000197), Public Domain, Courtesy of NIAID.

@plosbiology.org Oct 8, 2026, 4:10 PM

Moral and perceptual decisions may share computational mechanisms, but do they rely on the same neural systems? This study shows that both follow similar evidence-accumulation computations, yet engage distinct neural representations.
🧪 #NeuroSky #morality #cognition
plos.io/4AM2V57