Nature Communications

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72301-2 Author Correction: Behavioural individuality in clonal fish arises despite near-identical rearing conditions

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72653-9 Hypoxia-driven dysregulated lactate metabolism is a feature of intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), but biological metabzymes and most biomimetic counterparts are ineffective under hypoxic conditions and often yield harmful metabolites. Here, the authors report a biogenic Fe-N-C artificial metabzyme for IDD me…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72651-x Recently, there has been growing interest in realizing quantum heat engines using superconducting circuits. Here the authors demonstrate a cyclic quantum heat engine based on superconducting circuits, showing controlled heating, cooling, and positive work extraction, with measured power and efficiency in agreemen…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72694-0 Using a health-augmented macroeconomic model, this study finds that diabetes could reduce output by INT$5.2 trillion across 190 countries (2021–2050), with substantial cross-country heterogeneity in GDP losses.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72616-0 Thermoelectric devices require more scalable, cost-effective methods of manufacturing. Here, the authors ink print high-performing La3-xTe4 legs with interlocked electrodes and evaluate their interfaces with creep property measurements and modeling.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72058-8 Paleo-depositional history and hydrogeological evolution fundamentally dictate microbial. landscapes and groundwater quality in the Pearl River Delta. This study links ancient sedimentary processes to modern-day ammonium dynamics in global deltas.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72642-y Molecular characteristics of amniote lineages can inform evolutionary inference. Here, the authors present a single-cell RNA-sequencing atlas of the chicken, which is applied to compare immune cells of chicken, turtle, duck and human, determining similarities and distinctions across amniote immune system evolutio…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72791-0 Pre-existing hypoglycemia weakens the host’s interferon-based immune defense by downregulating the antiviral protein TRIM5 in the lung, thereby increasing the susceptibility to influenza infection.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72319-6 X‑linked dystonia‑parkinsonism involves disrupted transcription and mRNA processing. Here, the authors show that altering 3′ mRNA processing rescues the disease molecular signature, linking XDP pathology to a non‑canonical function of the transcriptional regulator BRD4.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72625-z Guan et al. report a molecular regulator to control crystallization kinetics in Sn-based perovskite, resulting in elongated island-like grain structure that regulates charge injection and recombination, enabling NIR-II LEDs with efficiency of 10.7%, peak radiance of 173 W sr-1 m-2, and operational lifetime of 1,3…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72816-8 Despite the proven therapeutic efficacy, CAR T cell treatment carries the risk of severe toxicities. How sex-associated differences affect therapy-associated toxicities is underexplored. Here, the authors conduct a retrospective pharmacovigilant study using the FAERS database and highlight sex-associated differen…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72920-9 Ru-catalyzed asymmetric ring-closing metathesis (ARCM) reactions are less reported and restricted to the synthesis of tertiary stereocenters. Herein, the authors report ARCM to produce chiral heterocyclic compounds with quaternary stereocenters, by synthesizing stereogenic-at-Ru catalysts via controllable C–H act…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72730-z Bacterial DNA deaminase toxins are valuable tools in genome engineering. Here, authors reveal the mechanism of cytosine deamination in double-stranded DNA by BaDTF3/DddB, which is sequence context-nonselective and potentially useful for mitochondrial base editing.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-71205-5 Using time-resolved cryo-EM, this study captures fibrillar collagen assembly as it matures from a metastable to a stable state, shedding light on tissue maintenance and disease-linked defects.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72848-0 Dead metal severely inhibited the development of alkali metal batteries. Here, authors reactivated dead Na by a reverse-pulse-interspersed charging strategy, which enhanced the rate and cycle capabilities of anode-free battery, and showed wide applicability to various alkali metal batteries.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72395-8 This study identifies a mitochondrial protection pathway that safeguards mitochondrial DNA integrity and limits liver damage. Disrupting this pathway triggers inflammation and fibrosis, while restoring protection or inhibiting DNA sensing markedly ameliorates fatty liver disease.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72467-9 How and when face perception and face memory interact is debated. Here, the authors introduce the FMP task and use it to show that these processes are largely independent, interacting only when face-specific interference forces feature-based processing.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72471-z Iron fluoride electrodes show contrasting stability in ether- and ester-based electrolytes. Here, the authors reveal that interfacial anion chemistry governs conversion pathways and phase evolution, explaining the origin of stability differences and guiding the design of high-energy lithium batteries.

Nature Communications, Published online: 04 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72413-9 Rocket introduces a self-play RL framework for automated hyperparameter optimization, handling mixed types without priors. It scales large datasets via reward approximation, achieving expert-level performance while cutting time and cost in real-world deployments.

Nature Communications, Published online: 04 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72686-0 In quantum information processing, distilling pure quantum states from noisy ones in the practical one-shot setting imposes a high overhead. Here, Fang and Liu propose a one-shot distillation scheme that exploits catalysis to arbitrarily reduce distillation overhead, and apply this to magic state distillation to …