Recent discoveries of glymphatics and meningeal lymphatics have redefined our understanding of CNS immunosurveillance. Kim and Kipnis illustrate how the clearance of brain-derived antigens creates an “immune code” that, when presented by meningeal antigen-presenting cells, instructs T cells to safeguard neural homeostasis. They review how inflammation, aging, and neurodegeneration disrupt this finely tuned process and highlight emerging therapeutic opportunities.

How tumor cells overcome anti-tumor immune responses and drive cancer recurrence is not well understood. Yu et al. demonstrate how therapy-resistant breast cancer cells synthesize and secrete arachidonic acid-rich lipids to reprogram tumor-infiltrating neutrophils. These immunosuppressive tumor-associated neutrophils promote T cell exhaustion and enable cancer cells to escape therapeutic immunosurveillance.

Rare taxa are an important constituent of the microbiome and play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics. However, little is known about rare taxa within the core microbiome (i.e., core rare taxa), nor do we understand the factors that drive their distribution and occupancy in ecosystems. In this opinion article, we define and explore the role of core rare taxa and the ecological and genetic drivers of their persistence. We also discuss ‘innate’ and ‘adaptive’ resilience in relation to core rare taxa and their drivers. Finally, we emphasize the need to develop appropriate metrics to quantify core rare taxa and their functions, as this can have significant implications for biodiversity conservation and microbiome engineering in the long run.

Particle exposure drives inflammation through unknown regulatory mechanisms. Cobo et al. identified a bifurcated transcriptional response in macrophages: an AMPK-TFEB/TFE3-DNMT3A/DOT1L axis controlling lysosomal acidification and a JNK-AP-1 pathway…