Existing functional genomics datasets are European-centric. The Asian Immune Diversity Atlas incorporated single-cell RNA-sequencing data from approximately 1 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells from around 500 donors of diverse Asian ancestries. Mapping of splicing quantitative trait loci revealed context-specific regulation of alternative splicing, as well as cell-type and ancestry-specific genetic effects on complex diseases.

The Atlantic herring is one of the world’s most abundant vertebrates and a typical plankton feeder of major ecological importance. This study shows that a piscivorous (fish-eating) ecotype of herring has evolved after the colonization of the brackish Baltic Sea within the last 8,000 years.

This study suggests that enhanced imputation quality in genome-wide association studies, using a Japanese population-specific reference panel, leads to the discovery of rare, trait-associated loci.

Simulating a metapopulation of human evolution without Neanderthal introgression into Homo sapiens still identifies Neanderthal fragments in simulated genomes, and an admixture event that never took place. This indicates that population structure must be accounted for in human evolutionary genomics and that putative ancient hybridization events should be reinterpreted in this light.

The genotype representation graph (GRG) is a compact data structure that encodes 200,000 human genomes in just 5–26 gigabytes per chromosome. Computation on GRG via graph traversal greatly accelerates genome-wide analysis.

Existing functional genomics datasets are European-centric. The Asian Immune Diversity Atlas incorporated single-cell RNA-sequencing data from approximately 1 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells from around 500 donors of diverse Asian ancestries. Mapping of splicing quantitative trait loci revealed context-specific regulation of alternative splicing, as well as cell-type and ancestry-specific genetic effects on complex diseases.

The Australian bearded dragon is so called for its distinctive ‘beard’ of spiky scales that can darken and expand during social and defensive displays. This lizard has become a reptilian model system to study the evolution, function and dynamics of neurons and neural circuits (including during sleep) in the amniote brain.

Abderrahman Khila highlights an important 2015 paper by Barson et al. that demonstrated how sexual conflict in Atlantic salmon affects genetic evolution.

Lingzhao Fang recalls how a 2002 paper by Brem et al., which investigated the genetic basis of natural variation in gene expression in budding yeast, and the GTEx atlas of genetic regulatory effects across human tissues inspired the FarmGTEx project to accelerate precision agriculture.

To understand the genetic basis of disease, it is essential to study diverse populations. We conducted the largest study to date of African men to evaluate the evolutionary genetics and causes of prostate cancer. Our findings reveal novel genetic associations, including those that were not observed in studies of non-African populations.