Bottom-up design of calcium channels from defined selectivity filter geometry.

Native ion channels play key roles in biological systems, and engineered versions are widely used as chemogenetic tools and in sensing devices . Protein design has been harnessed to generate pore-containing transmembrane proteins, but the capability to design ion selectivity based on the interactions between ions and selectivity filter residues, a crucial feature of native ion channels , has been constrained by the lack of methods to place the metal-coordinating residues with atomic-level precision. Here we describe a bottom-up RFdiffusion-based approach to construct Ca channels from defined selectivity filter residue geometries, and use this approach to design symmetric oligomeric channels with Ca selectivity filters having different coordination numbers and different geometries at the entrance of a wide pore buttressed by multiple transmembrane helices.

Propensity Score Analysis of Possible Medication Effects on Outcomes in Patients With Systemic Right Ventricles.

Background: Patients with systemic right ventricle (SRV), either d-transposition of the great arteries following an atrial switch procedure or congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries, develop severe right ventricular dysfunction, prompting appropriate medical therapy. However, the efficacy of beta-blockers and angiotensin receptor blockers or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) in SRV patients is unproven.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the effects of ACEI/ARB and beta-blockers on outcomes in SRV patients after accounting for likely cofounders affecting their use.

Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in children: evaluating the importance of diagnosis and follow-up during childhood.

Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (vEDS) is a rare inherited connective tissue disorder predominantly caused by pathogenic COL3A1 variants. Characteristic arterial and intestinal fragility and generalised severe tissue friability can lead to clinical events from childhood. We highlight a paucity of literature regarding children diagnosed with vEDS, possibly explained by a restraint in predictive testing, and present data on 63 individuals (23 index cases) with a clinical and genetic diagnosis of vEDS in childhood (<18 years) to address this.