Papers from the literature selected by the Nature Biotechnology editors. (Follow us on Twitter, @NatureBiotech #nbtHighlight)

Single-cell analysis of experience-dependent transcriptomic states in the mouse visual cortex

Hrvatin, S. et al. Nat. Neurosci. 21, 120–129 (2018).

Precision editing of the gut microbiota ameliorates colitis

Zhu, W. et al. Nature 553, 208–211 (2018).

Multi-trait analysis of genome-wide association summary statistics using MTAG

Turley, P. et al. Nat. Genet. 10.1038/s41588-017-0009-4 (2018).

Evolution of a designed protein assembly encapsulating its own RNA genome

Butterfield, G.L. et al. Nature 552, 415–420 (2017).

Spatial reconstruction of immune niches by combining photoactivatable reporters and scRNA-seq

Medaglia, C. et al. Science 358, 1622–1626 (2017).

In vivo target gene activation via CRISPR/Cas9-mediated trans -epigenetic modulation

Liao, H.-K. et al. Cell 171, 1495–1507.e15 (2017).