Glioblastoma (GBM) remains the most aggressive and lethal primary brain tumor, with a dismal prognosis despite decades of intensive research. While immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment for many cancers, GBM has proven remarkably refractory to immune-based interventions due to the absence of effective immunotherapeutic targets and the profoundly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. In this groundbreaking study, researchers employed CRISPR screening to systematically identify novel drivers of GBM progression, uncovering Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1) as a previously unrecognized key regulator of GBM pathogenesis. Mechanistically, NPC1L1 modulates cholesterol metabolism to concurrently enhance tumor cell stemness and suppress CD8+ T-cell activation, creating a dual mechanism that drives tumor progression while evading immune surveillance. Most notably, combined treatment with ezetimibe, an FDA-approved NPC1L1 inhibitor, and anti-PD-1 antibody elicited potent antitumor activity in GBM orthotopic mouse models, offering a promising translational strategy. These findings establish NPC1L1 as a critical regulator of GBM pathogenesis and underscore the therapeutic potential of targeting NPC1L1-mediated cholesterol metabolism for developing novel GBM immunotherapies, opening new avenues for treating this devastating disease.

The hidden world of quantum mechanics exists at scales many orders of magnitude smaller than living organisms, and yet scientists have long theorized that quantum effects play an important role in biology. Birds’ ability to sense magnetic fields during migration is one of the most well-known mysteries in this field, with leading theories suggesting that this sensing could be achieved by exploiting quantum entanglement. By proving the Pontryagin Maximum Principle for quantum systems, researchers have come up with a recipe to control quantum effects that may finally be able to put this avian hypothesis to the test, while also unlocking new biological platforms for quantum computing.

A novel mechanism based on Yinxie Granules and its core active ingredients (quercetin and kaempferol) to ameliorate psoriasis by blocking the STING-NF-κB signaling pathway to simultaneously suppress cutaneous inflammation and pathological angiogenesis is provided, and a new strategy for dual-targeting therapy of psoriasis is opened.

Nitrilases are critical industrial biocatalysts for converting nitriles into high-value carboxylic acids, yet their application is often hindered by the formation of insoluble inclusion bodies during heterologous expression. A new study introduces a robust engineering strategy utilizing superfolder green fluorescent protein (sfGFP) fusion to screen for solubility-enhancing mutations. By targeting surface hydrophobic residues, researchers successfully developed a triple mutant, PD1Mut3, which exhibits significantly improved soluble yield, thermostability, and catalytic efficiency, offering a generalizable platform for optimizing enzyme production.

Bovine milk extracellular vesicles (BmEVs) are emerging as natural nanocarriers for oral drug delivery and targeted therapies. However, traditional isolation methods like ultracentrifugation (UC) face limitations in scalability, purity, and vesicle integrity. A new study demonstrates that tangential flow filtration (TFF), particularly with a 750 kDa membrane, offers a scalable alternative for producing BmEV formulations.

Our findings demonstrate that hnRNPA2B1-dependent m⁶A modification of circSMAD6 accelerates aerobic glycolysis and metastasis of HCC cells by regulating miR-30d-3p/CNPY2 axis, and may provide a potential therapeutic target for HCC.