April 21, 2026
Bats harbor many zoonotic viruses yet remain asymptomatic, and the evolutionary basis of their antiviral tolerance remains unclear. Amandine Le Corf, Peter Sudmant, David Enard, Lucie Etienne and colleagues show that bat GBP5 evolved under positive selection, driving virus-specific restriction and lineage-specific loss of a prenylation motif that reshaped antiviral function.
Image credit: Sarah Maesen
04/24/2026
Research Article
Spatial structure shapes microbial community function, but how it emerges in the gut is unclear. Giorgia Greter, Markus Arnoldini and co-workers reveal that bacterial growth in the viscoelastic matrix of gut contents generates clusters that are periodically broken by peristalsis, linking microbiota organization to gut mechanics.
Image credit: pbio.3003772
04/24/2026
Research Article
How does the human brain stop movements under realistic conditions? Using intracranial recordings and multi-variate EEG decoding, Cheol Soh, Mario Hervault, Jan Wessel and co-authors show that a fronto-basal ganglia circuit featuring the subthalamic nucleus rapidly engages and releases inhibition of specific movements, depending on the environmental context.
Image credit: pbio.3003635
04/23/2026
Discovery Report
Development in the sea has long been thought to be a nutritional gamble that ends in starvation. Tyler Carrier, Ute Hentschel and colleagues show that sea urchin eggs contain a plastid-derived structure and that the light-dependent activity of this structure influences phytohormone and lipid metabolism, as well as offspring development and survival. Don't miss the accompanying Primer by Jillian Lewis and Spencer Nyholm.
Image credit: pbio.3003705
04/22/2026
Research Article
P2X receptors are ion channels that are targets for treating chronic pain and cough. Zhixuan Zhao, Dong-Ping Wang, Chang-Run Guo, Motoyuki Hattori and co-workers use the cryo-EM structure of the human P2X3 receptor in complex with the next-generation negative allosteric modulator Sivopixant to reveal how the drug stabilizes inhibitory conformations of P2X3.
Image credit: pbio.3003777
04/16/2026
Research Article
Dopamine has been implicated in both effort and reward learning, but how do these processes interact? Huw Jarvis, Trevor Chong and co-workers show through pharmacology and computational modeling that dopamine supports the relationship between effort and learning, offering new insights on how humans learn from the consequences of their actions.
Image credit: pbio.3003765
04/16/2026
Research Article
Circadian clocks are known to regulate metabolism, but the details of how they regulate glucose processing remain unclear. By integrating human metabolite profiling with isotope-tracing in Drosophila, Dania Malik, Pinky Kain, Seth Rhoades, Aalim Weljie and co-authors define daily rhythms in glucose utilization that are influenced by circadian timing. Don't miss the Primer by Yao Cai and Joanna Chiu.
Image credit: Pinky Kain
04/22/2026
Community Page
Cilia dysfunction is implicated in a range of disorders. This Community Page presents CiliaKB, a knowledge base that serves as a one-stop platform for researchers to rapidly access mechanistic data and mine for translational clues about cilia.
Image credit: Donghui Zhang
04/21/2026
Essay
In this Essay, the evolution of life is construed as a ribosomal takeover, whereby the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensured the propagation of the ribosome, the ultimate biological selfish element.
Image credit: pbio.3003780
04/20/2026
Perspective
Equal contribution designations are on the rise, yet this information is routinely lost, creating inequity in recognition and crediting. This Perspective calls for improvements in transferring this information to indexing sites such as PubMed.
Image credit: Roli Roberts
04/16/2026
Consensus View
Evidence-based solutions are needed to help improve reproducibility in research. This Consensus View presents a consensus-based list of core reproducibility items for research.
Image credit: pbio.3003726
This PLOS Biology collection aims to shine a light on the many facets of immunometabolism, highlighting how molecular and cellular mechanisms impact diverse tissue and organismal functions and the exciting potential for leveraging immunometabolism for therapeutic interventions.
Recent technological advancements in omics have unveiled the mechanisms governing tumor progression across spatial and temporal scales. This collection reveals the complexities of the crosstalk between cancer cells and the tumor microenvironment.
Neurotechnology offers unprecedented opportunities to treat neural disorders, restore brain function and enhance cognitive abilities. This collection explores the present and possible futures of neurotechnology to improve human health and cognition.
Translating conservation and biodiversity research from the field into the real world is a complex problem. This collection discusses issues around economics, policy, and how to do research that answers questions that decision makers have.
Symbiosis research has become a holistic and pervasive field with a mature theoretical basis. This collection showcases symbiotic relationships across the tree of life, exploring their evolutionary basis and underlying mechanisms.
May 5 - 7
Meet Editor in Chief Nonia Pariente (npariente@plos.org)
May 11 - 15
Meet Associate Editor Melissa Vazquez Hernandez (mvazquezhernandez@plos.org)
May 18 - 22
Meet Senior Editor Ines Alvarez-Garcia (ialvarez-garcia@plos.org)
June 3 - 5
Meet Editor in Chief Nonia Pariente (npariente@plos.org)
June 8 - 11
Meet Magazine Senior Editor Joanna Clarke (jclarke@plos.org)