The relationship between protein domains and homopeptides in the proteome.

The proteome of the malaria parasite is notable for the pervasive occurrence of homopeptides or low-complexity regions (i.e., regions that are made from a small subset of amino-acid residue types).

A pooled genome-wide screening strategy to identify and rank influenza host restriction factors in cell-based vaccine production platforms.

Cell-derived influenza vaccines provide better protection and a host of other advantages compared to the egg-derived vaccines that currently dominate the market, but their widespread use is hampered by a lack of high yield, low cost production platforms. Identification and knockout of innate immune and metabolic restriction factors within relevant host cell lines used to grow the virus could offer a means to substantially increase vaccine yield. In this paper, we describe and validate a novel genome-wide pooled CRISPR/Cas9 screening strategy that incorporates a reporter virus and a FACS selection step to identify and rank restriction factors in a given vaccine production cell line.

An electroactive alginate hydrogel nanocomposite reinforced by functionalized graphite nanofilaments for neural tissue engineering.

To address the need to biodegradable, electroactive conduits accelerating nerve regeneration, here we develop a nanocomposite hydrogel made of alginate reinforced by citric acid functionalized graphite nanofilaments. The green, simple functionalization enhances the nanofillers distribution and their biocompatibility, as verified using mesenchymal stem cells in vitro. The uniformly distributed nanofilaments raise mechanical stability of the nanocomposite hydrogel versus the neat one up to three times.