Commercial bioinoculants improve colonization but do not alter the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community of greenhouse-grown grapevine roots.

Background: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are beneficial root symbionts contributing to improved plant growth and development and resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. Commercial bioinoculants containing AMF are widely considered as an alternative to agrochemicals in vineyards. However, their effects on grapevine plants grown in soil containing native communities of AMF are still poorly understood.

Absolute membrane protein abundance of P-glycoprotein, breast cancer resistance protein, and multidrug resistance proteins in term human placenta tissue and commonly used cell systems: Application in physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling of placental drug disposition.

The placenta acts as a barrier, excluding noxious substances while actively transferring nutrients to the fetus, mediated by various transporters. This study quantified the expression of key placental transporters in term human placenta (n = 5) and BeWo, BeWo b30, and JEG-3 placenta cell lines. Combining these results with pregnancy physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling, we demonstrate the utility of proteomic analysis for predicting placental drug disposition and fetal exposure.

A novel method for recombinant mammalian-expressed S-HBsAg virus-like particle production for assembly status analysis and improved anti-HBs serology.

The Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) as the only lipid-associated envelope protein of the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) acts as cellular attachment and entry mediator of HBV making it the main target of neutralizing antibodies to provide HBV immunity after infection or vaccination. Despite its central role in inducing protective immunity, there is however a surprising lack of comparative studies examining different HBsAgs and their ability to detect anti-HBs antibodies. On the contrary, various time-consuming complex HBsAg production protocols have been established, which result in structurally and functionally insufficiently characterized HBsAg.

Natural History of High-Risk Human Papillomavirus in Kenyan and South African Women: Implications for Vaccination Campaigns and Cervical Cancer Screening Programs.

Objective: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines and DNA testing roll out in resource-constrained settings. We evaluated the natural history of HPV infections in African women to contribute to normative guidance.

Methods: Women aged 16 to 35 years were enrolled from 3 sites in South Africa and Kenya and followed quarterly for 18 months.

Improving the suppressive power of homing gene drive by co-targeting a distant-site female fertility gene.

Gene drive technology has the potential to address major biological challenges. Well-studied homing suppression drives have been shown to be highly efficient in Anopheles mosquitoes, but for other organisms, lower rates of drive conversion prevent elimination of the target population. To tackle this issue, we propose a gene drive design that has two targets: a drive homing site where drive conversion takes place, and a distant site where cleavage induces population suppression.