RESEARCH | I N S C I E N C E J O U R NA L S

tumor necrosis factor. MAIT cell that rotation was induced by

activation positively correlated
with vaccine-mediated T cell
responses in human subjects,
and mice deficient in MAIT cells
showed impaired CD8+ T cell
immunity to target antigens
after vaccination. This work
suggests an additional pathway
that could be exploited to
enhance the efficacy of vac-
cines. —STS
Science, this issue p. 521;
see also p. 460
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
Shuttling halide pairs
back and forth
The transfer of adjacent
hydrogens from a saturated
to an unsaturated organic
compound is a fairly common
reaction. However, analogs that
shuttle two heavy atoms back
and forth are much harder to
catalyze. Dong et al. report an
electrochemical approach that
changes in the coverage of Edited by Caroline Ash
adsorbed molecular oxygen at IN OTHER JOURNALS and Jesse Smith
the interface. —PDS
Science, this issue p. 517
GEOLOGY
What matters for
mudrocks
Rock such as slate and
shale, which form from mud,
suddenly start appearing in
the geologic record around
450 million years ago. Their
appearance at about the same
time as certain plants seems
to implicate plant roots in the
formation of these ubiquitous
rocks. Zeichner et al. found
a different route for creating
the flocculation required for
mudrock. Using analog experi-
ments, the authors found that
organic matter from plants
alone was sufficient for the PLANT SCIENCE
formation of flocs—aggregates
of small silt and clay particles—
Roots hunt nutrients

transfers a pair of adjacent
chlorines or bromines from
an alkyl compound to an
olefin. The method could help
to remediate halogenated
pollutants while concurrently
producing fine chemicals. —JSY
Science, this issue p. 507
CATALYSIS
Rotation during reaction
Determining changes in het-
erogeneous catalysts under
reaction conditions can provide
insight into mechanisms.
Under reaction conditions, not
only can metal nanoparticles
change shape but their interac-
tion with the oxide support
could also be affected. Yuan et
al. used aberration-corrected
environmental transmission
electron microscopy to study
gold nanoparticles on titanium
which are required to deposit
mudrock. This observation
could explain the appearance
of these rocks in places where
the plants did not have deep
roots. —BG
Science, this issue p. 526
GENE THERAPY
The sooner, the better
Gene therapy approaches
hold promise for the treat-
ment of spinal muscular
atrophy (SMA). However, these
therapies show variable clinical
response, and treatment at
earlier ages is associated with
better outcome. Using tissues
from patients and a mouse
model, Kong et al. found that
motor neuron axons were
already developmental delayed
in the fetus and experienced
early postnatal death. In
S
oil nutrients such as nitrogen sources are not uniformly
distributed. Neither are plant roots. Nonetheless, roots
of Arabidopsis seedlings seek out pockets of soil ammo-
nium and nitrate. Ötvös et al. clarify how root growth and
branching are regulated to optimize nitrogen uptake.
The auxin efflux carrier PIN-FORMED 2 (PIN2) is regulated
posttranscriptionally by phosphorylation at its serine-439
in response to shifts in ammonium or nitrate availability.
Phosphorylation in turn triggers changes in PIN2 subcel-
lular localization, which drives changes in auxin distribution
between root cortex and epidermis, causing altered root
growth rate or direction. —PJH EMBO J. e106862 (2020).
In Arabidopsis, hormone localization in roots directs root growth
toward pockets of nutrients.
PROTEIN DESIGN to those found most frequently
in the designs, but critical core
Function-focused residues were allowed limited
protein design variability constrained by these
De novo design allows the cre- designs. This approach enabled
ation of new types of stable folds the authors to discover five folds
in proteins; however, building that accommodated four differ-
PHOTO: DAMIEN LOVEGROVE/SCIENCE SOURCE

surfaces at low electron beam
doses. During carbon mon-
oxide (CO) oxidation at total
pressures of a few millibars
and 500°C, they observed that
gold nanoparticles rotated by
about 10° but returned to their
original position when CO was
removed. Density function
theory calculations indicated
utero therapeutic interven-
tion prevented motor neuron
degeneration and improved
axonal function and motor
behavior in mice. The results
suggest that fetal treatment
might increase the efficacy
of current therapies for SMA.
—MM
Sci. Transl. Med. 13, eabb6871 (2021).
in successful function remains
challenging. Yang et al. describe
a bottom-up approach in which
they conceived structures around
functional motifs and then used
targeted screening to optimize
their composition. Based on
thousands of blueprints, they
screened yeast libraries in which
most residues were restricted
ent binding motifs, including a
protein that displays two motifs.
They then built proteins that
are functional as biosensors of
specific antibody epitopes and
others that act as ligands to
regulate synthetic receptors in
mammalian cells. —VV
Nat. Chem. Biol. 10.1038/
s41589-020-00699-x (2020).

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Published by AAAS
 MICROBIOTA
Transmissible bone mass
Human skeletal mass tends
to be genetically determined,
but there is an unexplained
component. The occurrence of
segmented filamentous bacteria
(SFB; spore-forming organ-
isms in the class Clostridiales)
in the mouse gut is associated
with physiological effects,
including potent induction of T
helper cell 17 (TH17) cells. Tyagi
et al. transferred SFB from
mouse to mouse in various
ways, including from mother
to offspring, by cohousing, or
by fecal transplantation. They
found that skeletal maturation
was impaired and that young
animals were predisposed to
osteoporosis as they aged.
Antibiotic treatments that
removed the SFB were also
associated with changes in bone
volume, structure, and turnover.
Interleukin-17 from TH17 cells is
known to increase expression of
a cytokine (TNFSF11) involved
in osteoclast differentiation.
Therefore, that members of
the gut microbiota seem to
be communicable regulators
of bone development in mice
implies that similar effects in
humans are possible. —CA
eLife 10, e64237 (2021).
ECONOMICS
Environmental bias
in trade policy
“Dirty” industries that emit
large amounts of carbon
dioxide per output value enjoy
hundreds of billions of dollars
of implicit annual subsidies
because trade policies in most
countries impose higher tariffs
and trade barriers on “clean”
industries. Shapiro suggests
that this is because firms
lobby for low tariffs on their
inputs but protections for their
outputs, because “downstream”
industries in the value chain (for
example, selling pans), which
generally have lower emissions,
also typically have higher tariffs
than “upstream” industries
(for example, coal, which is
used to create steel to make
pans). Global emissions would
decrease, with little change in
real income, if trade policies
treated clean and dirty goods
similarly. —BW
Q. J. Econ. 10.1093/qje/qjaa042
(2020).
NANOMATERIALS
Less strength
but greater toughness
Although two-dimensional
materials such as molybdenum
disulfide (MoS2) can exhibit high
strength, their usefulness is
limited by ready propagation of
cracks through the lattice that
limits their fracture toughness.
To create nanometer-scale
holes, Manzaneres-Negro et al.
irradiated suspended monolay-
ers of MoS2 with argon ions to
introduce single-atom lattice
vacancies and gallium ions.
Mechanical testing showed
that a defect density of 0.2%
reduced the breaking strength
by as much as 50% and
decreased the crack propaga-
tion length by a factor of 5.
Increasing the defect density
such that the mean distance
between defects decreased by
about 50% increased a mea-
sure of fracture toughness by
about 40%. —PDS.
ACS Nano. 10.1021/
acsnano.0c08235 (2021).
OZONE POLLUTION
Oh, Oh, Oh
Tropospheric zone (O3) is a
secondary pollutant (meaning
that it is formed by reaction
rather than being directly emit-
ted) that has major impacts on
climate, human health, crops,
and ecosystems. Zhang et al.
show how emissions of a range
of anthropogenic pollutants
contributed to the growth of
the global O3 burden from 1980
to 2010. Methane concentra-
tion increases caused more
than one-fourth of the rise of
global ozone. Pollutant emission
increases in Southeast Asia,
East Asia, and South Asia drove
most of the increase in ozone,
whereas emission reductions
in North America and Europe
helped to decrease ozone abun-
dance. —HJS
Geophys. Res. Lett.
10.1029/2020GL089184 (2020).

PARASITISM

Sniffing out the enemy

I
mmune cells are generated and
activated to fight injury and disease.
Curiously, environmental odors can
mediate cellular response in the
immune system. Madhwal et al. stud-
ied the Drosophila larval olfactory system
PHOTO: DR. CHIA-HUA LUE, IN COLLABORATION WITH USDA AND SMITHSONIAN NMNH

during attack by parasitoid wasps. They

show that olfactory stimulation results in
the release of g-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
from neurons, which is then used by blood
progenitor cells to stabilize a protein called
Sima/HIFa. This then promotes differ-
entiation in cells known as lamellocytes
that are involved in encapsulating and
eliminating wasp eggs. When flies live in
wasp-infected areas, they enhance survival
by using this olfactory-immune mecha-
nism to protect against parasitic wasp
infection. —BAP eLife 9, e60376 (2020).

Fruit fly larvae can detect the smell

of the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina boulardi
and initiate defensive responses.

29 JANUARY 2021 • VOL 37 1 ISSUE 6528 479

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