The maturation of infant and toddler visual cortex neural activity and associations with fine motor performance.

Our understanding of how visual cortex neural processes mature during infancy and toddlerhood is limited. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), the present study investigated the development of visual evoked responses (VERs) in cross-sectional and longitudinal samples of infants and toddlers 2 months to 3 years. Brain space analyses focused on N1m and P1m latency, as well as N1m-to-P1m amplitude.

Lack of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase VPS34 in regulatory T cells leads to a fatal lymphoproliferative disorder without affecting their development.

Regulatory T (Treg) cells are essential for the maintenance of immunological tolerance, yet the molecular components required for their maintenance and effector functions remain incompletely defined. Inactivation of VPS34 in Treg cells led to an early, lethal phenotype, with massive effector T cell activation and inflammation, like mice lacking Treg cells completely. However, VPS34-deficient Treg cells developed normally, populated the peripheral lymphoid organs and effectively supressed conventional T cells .

Human placental cells are resistant to SARS-CoV-2 infection and replication.

Background: Infection during pregnancy with SARS-CoV-2 can have a serious impact on both maternal and foetal health. Clinical studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 transmission from the mother to the foetus typically does not occur. However, there is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect the placenta .

Tracking the gene expression programs and clonal relationships that underlie mast, myeloid, and T lineage specification from stem cells.

T cells develop from hematopoietic progenitors in the thymus and protect against pathogens and cancer. However, the emergence of human T cell-competent blood progenitors and their subsequent specification to the T lineage have been challenging to capture in real time. Here, we leveraged a pluripotent stem cell differentiation system to understand the transcriptional dynamics and cell fate restriction events that underlie this critical developmental process.