Cover image

In this issue, Wang and colleagues report that VEGFA, a ligand that mainly exists outside the cell with fundamental function in establishing blood vessels, is able to traverse the cytoplasm, enter the nuclei, interact with chromatin, and control the expression of a large spectrum of genes. Remarkably, on chromatin, VEGFA prominently uses distal dynamic epigenetic and transcriptional factors, some of which are a million base pairs away from their controlled genes, to stimulate their transcription. The cover highlights this biological remote control by illustrating VEGFA operating like a mobile phone, communicating at long range and orchestrating a complex and dynamic transcriptional network. (Cover artwork by Depth Communication Group, www.sdpr.com.cn, and conceptually inspired by Bing Zhang. [For details, see Wang et al., pp. 193–207.])