Sayers et al. reveal that heart regeneration during the neonatal period in mice extends to conduction system restoration after insult, highlighting the difference between this process and pathological remodeling in the adult heart.

Maatz, Lindberg et al. identify molecular alterations and immune response changes in endomyocardial biopsies from patients with myocarditis after COVID-19 infection, after anti-COVID-19 vaccination or from non-COVID-related causes.

Using single-cell and spatial molecular profiling of infarcted mouse and human hearts, Li, Ni, Wang and colleagues identify a subset of cardiac fibroblasts expressing CD248 that plays a critical role in fibroblast–T cell interaction, and show that disrupting this interaction with monoclonal antibodies or anti-CD248 chimeric antigen receptor T cells results in reduced cardiac fibrosis and improved function.

Lai et al. present a spatially resolved atlas of human atherosclerotic plaques, revealing cellular heterogeneity and identifying lymphoid structures and their potential functions and implications.

Lekkos et al. show that a metabolic switch toward oxidative phosphorylation is required for cardiomyocyte re-differentiation and heart regeneration after injury in fish.

Mellor et al. report that deficiency of GABARAPL1, an ATG8-specific linking protein, impairs diastolic function in diabetic mice. This effect can be reversed by gene delivery of the gene encoding GABARAPL1 in diabetic mice and a human organoid model of type 2 diabetes.

Ma et al. demonstrate that air pollution is associated with an increased risk of thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (TAAD), and that genetic susceptibility to TAAD amplifies this risk through multiplicative and additive interactions.

Achter et al. established a protocol for quantitative proteomic profiling of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded human cardiac tissues, benchmarked against fresh-frozen samples. They applied it to stratify patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and performed deep proteomic analysis of the human sinoatrial node.

Guo, Zhao and colleagues use high-resolution 7 T MRI to measure the pulsatility of cerebral small vessels and uncover age-related differences in vascular dynamics, which offer new insights into mechanisms of brain aging and vascular risks.

Khetarpal et al. show that the metabolic regulator PGC-1α is essential in heart muscle cells for exercise-driven cardiac growth, and that suppression of the stress-induced myokine GDF15 is required to enable cardiomyocyte adaptations to training.