Splicing suppression alters the STING transcription start site to attenuate antiviral innate immunity.

September 29, 2026| Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

The cGAS (cyclic GMP-AMP synthase)-STING (Stimulator of interferon genes) pathway plays a central role in antiviral innate immunity in vertebrates. Recent studies have shown that invertebrates possess a related cGLR (cGAS-like receptor)-STING pathway. However, due to the lack of direct evidence demonstrating viral evasion of cGLR-STING-mediated immunity, the functional importance of cGLR-STING pathway in antiviral responses remains uncertain in invertebrates. Here, we show that an insect picorna-like virus CrPV (Cricket Paralysis virus) inhibits STING-mediated antiviral activity by altering the transcription start site of STING . Mechanistically, CrPV infection down-regulates several spliceosomal genes and disrupts pre-mRNA splicing. This splicing impairment is sufficient to stall RNA polymerase II in transcriptional initiation condensates, reduce global transcription efficiency, and reprogram the transcription start site of STING . Such a shift diverts STING expression from a functional antiviral isoform to a nonantiviral variant that partially suppresses STING activity, thereby disabling the cGLR-STING pathway. Our findings uncover an unconventional viral immune evasion strategy and an unexpected link between splicing suppression and STING-mediated antiviral response. Given the evolutionary conservation of splicing mechanisms and STING-like pathways, this mechanism may represent a broadly applicable regulatory principle in immune defense across species.

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Intuitive knowledge of object acoustics enables perceptual separation of physical variables from impact sounds.

Upon hearing objects collide, humans can estimate physical attributes such as material and mass. Although the physics of sound generation is well established, the inverse problem that listeners solve-of inferring physical parameters from sound-remains poorly understood. Classical accounts posit the use of acoustic cues that correlate with physical variables but do not explain how humans might distinguish multiple concurrent physical causes. To study this problem, we measured impulse responses fr

Physical/TechNovember 10, 2026

Mark A. Ratner (1942-2026): Founded molecular electronics while spearheading the growth of science at Northwestern University.

Recently, we lost one of the original developers of the field of molecular electronics. Mark A. Ratner wrote a famous paper in 1974 that developed the theoretical framework for making a molecule act as a rectifier. This idea, and a host of further ideas that were stimulated by this and other papers, led to a huge amount of experimental and theoretical studies that continue to this day. But Mark's career was much more than that, with leadership at Northwestern University and beyond that continues

Physical/TechNovember 10, 2026

Bayesian knockoff filter for controlling false discovery rate.

In many scientific fields, researchers are interested in discovering features with substantial effects on the response from a large number of candidate features while controlling the proportion of false discoveries. By incorporating the knockoff procedure in a Bayesian framework, we develop the Bayesian knockoff filter (BKF) for selecting important features. The BKF is built upon a tight upper bound for the posterior probability of the null hypothesis, which is derived under the Bayesian "flip-s

Physical/TechNovember 4, 2026

A two-dimensional reticular triaxial molecularly woven fabric.

Inspired by macroscopic weaving techniques 1-4 , molecular weaving, which interlaces molecular strands into ordered networks, has emerged as a powerful strategy for designing functional materials with emergent properties 5,6 . However, so far, molecular weaving has relied mainly on linear building blocks and biaxial structures. Higher-order weaving (≥3 axes) of nonlinear building blocks is expected to produce intriguing architectures and bring new and unforeseen functions

Physical/TechNovember 3, 2026

Historical trends show more declining than increasing species among European pollinators.

Anthropogenic global change presents a growing threat to insect pollinators. Yet, long-term, continental-scale assessments of their population trends remain limited. Here, we leveraged a curated database of over four million occurrence records, covering 88% of extant bee and hoverfly species in Europe, to assess persistence, richness, and occupancy trends over the past century. Species persistence at the European level was relatively high, with modern records available for 87% of bee and 89% of