Invasion of a Shared Space: The Nightmare Roommate.

Shared sheath rupture is a rare manifestation of acute aortic syndrome. An aortic rupture into the common subadventitial space of the great vessels leads to hematoma extension along the pulmonary arterial tree, thus mimicking a pulmonary embolism. We report a case of shared sheath rupture promptly diagnosed on cross-sectional imaging and managed successfully with a root and hemiarch replacement.

Rapid curation of gene disruption collections using Knockout Sudoku.

Knockout Sudoku is a method for the construction of whole-genome knockout collections for a wide range of microorganisms with as little as 3 weeks of dedicated labor and at a cost of ∼$10,000 for a collection for a single organism. The method uses manual 4D combinatorial pooling, next-generation sequencing, and a Bayesian inference algorithm to rapidly process and then accurately annotate the extremely large progenitor transposon insertion mutant collections needed to achieve saturating coverage of complex microbial genomes. This method is ∼100× faster and 30× lower in cost than the next comparable method (In-seq) for annotating transposon mutant collections by combinatorial pooling and next-generation sequencing.

Rapid construction of a whole-genome transposon insertion collection for Shewanella oneidensis by Knockout Sudoku.

Whole-genome knockout collections are invaluable for connecting gene sequence to function, yet traditionally, their construction has required an extraordinary technical effort. Here we report a method for the construction and purification of a curated whole-genome collection of single-gene transposon disruption mutants termed Knockout Sudoku. Using simple combinatorial pooling, a highly oversampled collection of mutants is condensed into a next-generation sequencing library in a single day, a 30- to 100-fold improvement over prior methods.