Probabilistic approaches for investigating species co-occurrence from presence-absence maps.

Background: In this research, we propose probabilistic approaches to identify pairwise patterns of species co-occurrence by using presence-absence maps only. In particular, the two-by-two contingency table constructed from a presence-absence map of two species would be sufficient to compute the test statistics and perform the statistical tests proposed in this article. Some previous studies have investigated species co-occurrence through incidence data of different survey sites.

Tailor-made three-dimensional printing vaginal pessary to treat pelvic organ prolapse: a pilot study.

Objective: This study aimed to apply three-dimensional (3D) printing technology to treat women with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and to evaluate efficacy based on the improvement by quality of life (QOL) questionnaires.

Methods: This was a pilot study at a tertiary urogynecology unit in Taiwan. Between January 2021 and June 6, 2021, participants who opted for self-management using Gellhorn pessaries to treat symptomatic POP were enrolled.

Combining CRISPR and CRISPRi Systems for Metabolic Engineering of E. coli and 1,4-BDO Biosynthesis.

Biosynthesis of 1,4-butanediol (1,4-BDO) in E. coli requires an artificial pathway that involves six genes and time-consuming, iterative genome engineering. CRISPR is an effective gene editing tool, while CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is repurposed for programmable gene suppression.

CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) for gene regulation and succinate production in cyanobacterium S. elongatus PCC 7942.

Background: Cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 holds promise for biochemical conversion, but gene deletion in PCC 7942 is time-consuming and may be lethal to cells. CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is an emerging technology that exploits the catalytically inactive Cas9 (dCas9) and single guide RNA (sgRNA) to repress sequence-specific genes without the need of gene knockout, and is repurposed to rewire metabolic networks in various procaryotic cells.

Results: To employ CRISPRi for the manipulation of gene network in PCC 7942, we integrated the cassettes expressing enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (EYFP), dCas9 and sgRNA targeting different regions on eyfp into the PCC 7942 chromosome.

CRISPR-Cas9 for the genome engineering of cyanobacteria and succinate production.

Cyanobacteria hold promise as a cell factory for producing biofuels and bio-derived chemicals, but genome engineering of cyanobacteria such as Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 poses challenges because of their oligoploidy nature and long-term instability of the introduced gene. CRISPR-Cas9 is a newly developed RNA-guided genome editing system, yet its application for cyanobacteria engineering has yet to be reported. Here we demonstrated that CRISPR-Cas9 system can effectively trigger programmable double strand break (DSB) at the chromosome of PCC 7942 and provoke cell death.

The transactivation domain of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K overlaps its nuclear shuttling domain.

The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K (hnRNP K) protein is a versatile molecule that interacts with RNA, DNA, and a number of transcription factors, implicating it in transcription, splicing, and translation processes. The underlying mechanism of transcription stimulation by hnRNP K is not well understood. To explore the possibility of a putative transactivation activity of hnRNP K, we produced constructs in which the yeast Gal4 DNA-binding domain was fused to various hnRNP K fragments in one-hybrid mammalian cells.