Mechanical transmission of dengue virus by Aedes aegypti may influence disease transmission dynamics during outbreaks.

Background: Dengue virus outbreaks are increasing in number and severity worldwide. Viral transmission is assumed to require a minimum time period of viral replication within the mosquito midgut. It is unknown if alternative transmission periods not requiring replication are possible.

Excitotoxic stimulation activates distinct pathogenic and protective expression signatures in the hippocampus.

Excitotoxic events underlying ischaemic and traumatic brain injuries activate degenerative and protective pathways, particularly in the hippocampus. To understand opposing pathways that determine the brain's response to excitotoxicity, we used hippocampal explants, thereby eliminating systemic variables during a precise protocol of excitatory stimulation. N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) was applied for 20 min and total RNA isolated one and 24 h later for neurobiology-specific microarrays.

Correction: Broad dengue neutralization in mosquitoes expressing an engineered antibody.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.

Broad dengue neutralization in mosquitoes expressing an engineered antibody.

With dengue virus (DENV) becoming endemic in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, there is a pressing global demand for effective strategies to control the mosquitoes that spread this disease. Recent advances in genetic engineering technologies have made it possible to create mosquitoes with reduced vector competence, limiting their ability to acquire and transmit pathogens. Here we describe the development of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes synthetically engineered to impede vector competence to DENV.

Engineered resistance to Zika virus in transgenic expressing a polycistronic cluster of synthetic small RNAs.

Recent Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreaks have highlighted the necessity for development of novel vector control strategies to combat arboviral transmission, including genetic versions of the sterile insect technique, artificial infection with to reduce population size and/or vectoring competency, and gene drive-based methods. Here, we describe the development of mosquitoes synthetically engineered to impede vector competence to ZIKV. We demonstrate that a polycistronic cluster of engineered synthetic small RNAs targeting ZIKV is expressed and fully processed in , ensuring the formation of mature synthetic small RNAs in the midgut where ZIKV resides in the early stages of infection.

Sequential deposition: optimization of solvent swelling for high-performance polymer solar cells.

Organic solar cells based on a typical DPP polymer were systematically optimized by a solvent swelling assisted sequential deposition process. We investigated the influence of solvent swelling on the morphology and structure order of the swollen film and the resultant device performance. Morphological and structural characterization confirmed the realization of ideal bulk heterojunctions using a suitable swelling solvent.

Azulene methacrylate polymers: synthesis, electronic properties, and solar cell fabrication.

We report the synthesis of novel azulene-substituted methacrylate polymers by free radical polymerization, in which the azulene moieties represent hydrophobic dipoles strung pendant to the polymer backbone and impart unique electronic properties to the polymers. Tunable optoelectronic properties were realized by adjusting the azulene density, ranging from homopolymers (having one azulene group per repeat unit) to copolymers in which the azulene density was diluted with other pendant groups. Treating these polymers with organic acids revealed optical and excitonic behavior that depended critically on the azulene density along the polymer chain.

Machine learning-based methods for prediction of linear B-cell epitopes.

B-cell epitope prediction facilitates immunologists in designing peptide-based vaccine, diagnostic test, disease prevention, treatment, and antibody production. In comparison with T-cell epitope prediction, the performance of variable length B-cell epitope prediction is still yet to be satisfied. Fortunately, due to increasingly available verified epitope databases, bioinformaticians could adopt machine learning-based algorithms on all curated data to design an improved prediction tool for biomedical researchers.

A local average distance descriptor for flexible protein structure comparison.

Background: Protein structures are flexible and often show conformational changes upon binding to other molecules to exert biological functions. As protein structures correlate with characteristic functions, structure comparison allows classification and prediction of proteins of undefined functions. However, most comparison methods treat proteins as rigid bodies and cannot retrieve similarities of proteins with large conformational changes effectively.

Preparation of Low Band Gap Fibrillar Structures by Solvent-Induced Crystallization.

Solvent-induced crystallization of the low band gap polymer poly[-9″-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4',7'-di-2-thienyl-2',1',3'-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT) was shown to give fibril-like structures of 40-60 nm width and ∼0.5 μm length. These structures, formed by heating and cooling PCDTBT in a marginal solvent for the polymer, were characterized by AFM, TEM, GI-WAXS, and steady state absorption and emission spectroscopy.

Protein-ligand binding region prediction (PLB-SAVE) based on geometric features and CUDA acceleration.

Background: Protein-ligand interactions are key processes in triggering and controlling biological functions within cells. Prediction of protein binding regions on the protein surface assists in understanding the mechanisms and principles of molecular recognition. In silico geometrical shape analysis plays a primary step in analyzing the spatial characteristics of protein binding regions and facilitates applications of bioinformatics in drug discovery and design.

The influence of operating parameters on the drug release and antibacterial performances of alginate fibrous dressings prepared by wet spinning.

Wet spinning was used to manufacture fibrous alginate hydrogel wound dressings. Samples manufactured using varied operating parameters (decreased air pressure and calcium concentration or increased nozzle diameter and alginate concentration) were compared with the control samples. The changes in the fiber size, Young's modulus, swelling ratio, fetal bovine serum (BSA) release efficacy, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and bacterial inhibition potential due to alterations of the operating parameters were measured.

Helical phase from blending of chiral block copolymer and homopolymer.

The phase behavior of the binary blends of polystyrene-b-poly(L-lactide) chiral block copolymer (BCP*) and polystyrene homopolymer (HS) is found to be strongly dependent on the molecular weight (M(n)) of the HS. A helical phase is formed in the blends with low-M(n) HS due to an enhancement of helical steric hindrance.

Prediction of B-cell linear epitopes with a combination of support vector machine classification and amino acid propensity identification.

Epitopes are antigenic determinants that are useful because they induce B-cell antibody production and stimulate T-cell activation. Bioinformatics can enable rapid, efficient prediction of potential epitopes. Here, we designed a novel B-cell linear epitope prediction system called LEPS, Linear Epitope Prediction by Propensities and Support Vector Machine, that combined physico-chemical propensity identification and support vector machine (SVM) classification.

BiMFG: bioinformatics tools for marine and freshwater species.

Biomolecule sequences and structures of land, air and water species are determined rapidly and the data entries are unevenly distributed for different organisms. It frequently leads to the BLAST results of homologous search containing undesirable entries from organisms living in different environments. To reduce irrelevant searching results, a separate database for comparative genomics is urgently required.

An experimental investigation of masking in the US FDA adverse event reporting system database.

Background: A phenomenon of 'masking' or 'cloaking' in pharmacovigilance data mining has been described, which can potentially cause signals of disproportionate reporting (SDRs) to be missed, particularly in pharmaceutical company databases. Masking has been predicted theoretically, observed anecdotally or studied to a limited extent in both pharmaceutical company and health authority databases, but no previous publication systematically assesses its occurrence in a large health authority database.

Objective: To explore the nature, extent and possible consequences of masking in the US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) database by applying various experimental unmasking protocols to a set of drugs and events representing realistic pharmacovigilance analysis conditions.

Detection and alignment of 3D domain swapping proteins using angle-distance image-based secondary structural matching techniques.

This work presents a novel detection method for three-dimensional domain swapping (DS), a mechanism for forming protein quaternary structures that can be visualized as if monomers had "opened" their "closed" structures and exchanged the opened portion to form intertwined oligomers. Since the first report of DS in the mid 1990s, an increasing number of identified cases has led to the postulation that DS might occur in a protein with an unconstrained terminus under appropriate conditions. DS may play important roles in the molecular evolution and functional regulation of proteins and the formation of depositions in Alzheimer's and prion diseases.

Block copolymers with a twist.

Chiral block copolymers (BCPs*) comprising chiral entities were designed to fabricate helical architectures (i.e., twisted morphologies) from self-assembly.

HDAC3 impacts multiple oncogenic pathways in colon cancer cells with effects on Wnt and vitamin D signaling.

Histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) is overexpressed in approximately half of all colon adenocarcinomas. We took an RNAi approach to determine how HDAC3 influenced chromatin modifications and the expression of growth regulatory genes in colon cancer cells. A survey of histone modifications revealed that HDAC3 knockdown in SW480 cells significantly increased histone H4-K12 acetylation, a modification present during chromatin assembly that has been implicated in imprinting.

Expression profile of osteoblast lineage at defined stages of differentiation.

The inherent heterogeneity of bone cells complicates the interpretation of microarray studies designed to identify genes highly associated with osteoblast differentiation. To overcome this problem, we have utilized Col1a1 promoter-green fluorescent protein transgenic mouse lines to isolate bone cells at distinct stages of osteoprogenitor maturation. Comparison of gene expression patterns from unsorted or isolated sorted bone cell populations at days 7 and 17 of calvarial cultures revealed an increased specificity regarding which genes are selectively expressed in a subset of bone cell types during differentiation.