In this issue of Cell, Gongwer et al. and Johnson et al. identify the plasticity of intratelencephalic (IT) neuronal projections to anterior insula as a central substrate mediating the antidepressant effects of accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation. These studies suggest a revolutionary future in which brain stimulation can enable circuit-specific plasticity.

Bacterial viruses can send and receive signals to inform critical decisions. In this issue of Cell, Manley et al. and Gallego-del-Sol et al. independently identify crosstalk between bacterial viruses, leading us to wonder what the information warfare landscape between them looks like.

Mitochondria generate phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), although its export mechanism and physiological roles were unknown. In this issue of Cell, Kajimura and colleagues identify SLC25A35 as the mitochondrial PEP exporter and uncover a previously unrecognized role for mitochondrial PEP synthesis in glyceroneogenesis in adipose tissue and upon development of fatty liver disease.

Antibody-drug conjugates are among the fastest-growing anticancer therapies, delivering potent payloads directly to tumor cells with improved safety across hematologic and solid tumors. This review focuses on their biology and where the field needs to move as they expand into earlier-stage use and combinations that heighten the need for careful patient selection and toxicity management.

Multiomics profiling of healthy individuals reveals differences across molecular layers and key pathways related to immune, metabolic, and microbiome-linked processes across ethnicities, while geographic relocation reshapes these networks and influences aging trajectories.

A mouse model of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation reveals a prefrontal mechanism that links accelerated antidepressant behavioral effects to cell type-specific circuit plasticity.

An optogenetic model of accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation reveals cell type-specific plasticity mechanisms and a key role for a fronto-insular circuit in driving the antidepressant effects of this treatment in humans.

Cancers evade RAS-targeting molecular glues through distinct alterations that converge on disrupting synthetic complex formation, exposing strategies for improved drug design and rational combination therapy.

Exhausted T cells experience a breakdown of proteostasis, characterized by unfolded protein accumulation and rescuable by E3 ubiquitin ligase activity. Targeting T cell proteostasis highlights a promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy.

(Cell 188, 4567–4585.e1–e12; August 21, 2025)

Opposing oncogenic and tumor-suppressive forces establish a progenitor-like state that builds a self-reinforcing niche to drive benign-to-malignant transition in pancreatic cancer models. Disruption of p53 activity or KRAS inhibits malignancy by collapsing the niche.

Whole-brain tissue clearing and spatial transcriptomics were applied to map postnatal vascular development in the mouse brain, identifying three coordinated phases that link vascular growth to neuronal maturation.

Gallego-del-Sol et al. show that arbitrium-coding phages can sense non-cognate peptide signals from other phages to regulate lysis-lysogeny decisions. This crosstalk affects lysis-lysogeny outcomes of phage infections, mixed lysogenic communities, and polylysogens. Our results demonstrate that crosstalk is an important mechanism that drives phage interactions in microbial communities.

Arbitrium phages belonging to different species and genera can influence each other’s infection dynamics by secreting chemically similar, non-cognate signal peptides. These findings indicate that arbitrium-based communication is not as specific as previously thought.

Synergizing with senescence-inducing therapies, uPAR CAR T cells eradicate primary and metastatic solid tumors with minimal myelodepletion by targeting both tumor cells and the stroma in preclinical models.

Lyu et al. identify the STING-ER-exit motif and the mechanism of its recognition by the COPII vesicle cargo-binding protein SEC24C. This study reveals how STING achieves controlled rather than constitutive ER exit and how COPII cargo recognition of STING can be modulated to control STING signaling.

The maturation of non-spatial grid-cell-like neural codes in the entorhinal cortex provides a foundational scaffold for Piaget’s cognitive development theory, uncovering how structured knowledge schemas support inferential reasoning, assimilate new information, and track fluid intelligence from ages 8 to 25.

A pan-neurodegeneration atlas built from multilayer, deep proteomics of 2,279 brain samples across 6 major diseases integrates whole proteome, detergent-insoluble proteome, and posttranslational modifications to enable intra- and inter-disease comparisons to reveal disease-specific subtypes and dysregulated pathways, while identifying shared changes such as GPNMB upregulation and NPTX2 downregulation.

An activated CCG10-NLR WAI3 plant immune receptor forms an octameric resistosome, which induces calcium influx and immune responses through a unique channel architecture.

A platform called MIST enables quantification and genotyping of infectious influenza in expelled respiratory particles, revealing diverse, individual-specific viral loads and aerosolized variants that correlate with saliva and nasopharyngeal viral loads and symptoms. Overall, the findings indicate heterogeneity in transmission potential.