Nat Med. 2026 Jan 14. doi: 10.1038/s41591-025-04105-8. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The human metabolome reflects complex metabolic states affected by genetic and environmental factors. However, metabolites associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk and their determinants remain insufficiently characterized. Here we integrated blood metabolomic, genomic and lifestyle data from up to 23,634 initially T2D-free participants from ten cohorts. Of 469 metabolites examined, 235 were associated with incident T2D during up to 26 years of follow-up, including 67 associations not previously reported across bile acid, lipid, carnitine, urea cycle and arginine/proline, glycine and histidine pathways. Further genetic analyses linked these metabolites to signaling pathways and clinical traits central to T2D pathophysiology, including insulin resistance, glucose/insulin response, ectopic fat deposition, energy/lipid regulation and liver function. Lifestyle factors-particularly physical activity, obesity and diet-explained greater variations in T2D-associated versus non-associated metabolites, with specific metabolites revealed as potential mediators. Finally, a 44-metabolite signature improved T2D risk prediction beyond conventional factors. These findings provide a foundation for understanding T2D mechanisms and may inform precision prevention targeting specific metabolic pathways.

PMID:41535386 | DOI:10.1038/s41591-025-04105-8

Medicine (Baltimore). 2025 Dec 5;104(49):e45942. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000045942.

ABSTRACT

The tumor immune microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is complex, yet the causal relationship between immune cell subpopulations and HCC risk remains incompletely elucidated. This study aims to systematically evaluate the causal association between immune cell subpopulations and HCC using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis, and to validate the biological mechanisms underlying these associations through multi-omics data. Bidirectional two-sample MR analysis was performed to examine causal relationships between 731 immune cell subpopulations and HCC. Inverse-variance weighting (IVW) served as the primary analysis method, with robustness validation through Bayesian weighted MR (BWMR) and machine learning algorithms. Therefore, for significantly associated immune subpopulations, independent analyses of gene expression, prognosis, and tumor immune microenvironment were conducted using HCC data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) LIHC cohort. MR analysis and validation identified 21 immune cell subpopulations with significant causal associations to HCC risk. Among these, 12 were identified as risk factors, and 9 as protective factors. Validation in the TCGA cohort revealed that risk-associated immune subpopulations were predominantly enriched for markers of T cell exhaustion and immunosuppressive microenvironments, whereas protective subpopulations likely represented a distinct regulatory B cell subset whose function was associated with the anti-inflammatory factor interleukin-10. This study genetically confirms that specific immune cell functional subpopulations constitute causal risk factors for HCC. These subpopulations exert their effects by shaping distinct tumor immune microenvironments. These findings provide novel mechanisms for understanding the immunopathogenesis of HCC and identify potential targets for developing novel immune intervention strategies.

PMID:41366997 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000045942

Nat Commun. 2025 Oct 17;16(1):9232. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-64292-3.

ABSTRACT

Recent advancements in spatial transcriptomics technologies have significantly enhanced resolution and throughput, underscoring an urgent need for systematic benchmarking. Here, we generate serial tissue sections from colon adenocarcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and ovarian cancer samples for systematic evaluation. Using these uniformly processed samples, we generate spatial transcriptomics data across four high-throughput platforms with subcellular resolution: Stereo-seq v1.3, Visium HD FFPE, CosMx 6K, and Xenium 5K. To establish ground truth datasets, we profile proteins on tissue sections adjacent to all platforms using CODEX and perform single-cell RNA sequencing on the same samples. Leveraging manual nuclear segmentation and detailed annotations, we systematically assess each platform's performance across capture sensitivity, specificity, diffusion control, cell segmentation, cell annotation, spatial clustering, and concordance with adjacent CODEX. The uniformly generated and processed multi-omics dataset could advance computational method development and biological discoveries. The dataset is accessible via SPATCH, a user-friendly web server for visualization and download.

PMID:41107232 | PMC:PMC12534522 | DOI:10.1038/s41467-025-64292-3

Cell Stem Cell. 2025 Jun 6:S1934-5909(25)00191-2. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.05.011. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Deciphering interactions between tumor micro- and systemic immune macroenvironments is essential for developing more effective cancer diagnosis and therapeutic strategies. Here, we established a gel-liquid interface (GLI) co-culture model of lung cancer organoids (LCOs) and paired peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), featuring enhanced interactions between immune cells and tumor organoids for optimized simulation of in vivo systemic anti-tumor immunity. By constructing a cohort of lung cancer patients, we demonstrated that the responses of GLI models under αPD1 treatment reflected the immunotherapy outcomes of the corresponding patients precisely. Furthermore, we dissected the various tumor immune processes mediated by PBMC-derived T cells within GLI models through functional multi-omics analyses, along with the characterization of circulating tumor-reactive T cells (GNLY⁺CD44⁺CD9⁺) with effector memory-like phenotypes as a potential indicator of immunotherapy efficacy. Our findings indicate that the GLI co-culture model can be used to develop diagnostic strategies for precision immunotherapies, as well as understanding the underlying mechanisms.

PMID:40513558 | DOI:10.1016/j.stem.2025.05.011