Noncanonical Amino Acid Incorporation in Animals and Animal Cells.

Noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) are synthetic building blocks that, when incorporated into proteins, confer novel functions and enable precise control over biological processes. These small yet powerful tools offer unprecedented opportunities to investigate and manipulate various complex life forms. In particular, ncAA incorporation technology has garnered significant attention in the study of animals and their constituent cells, which serve as invaluable model organisms for gaining insights into human physiology, genetics, and diseases.

tRNA engineering strategies for genetic code expansion.

The advancement of genetic code expansion (GCE) technology is attributed to the establishment of specific aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs. While earlier improvements mainly focused on aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, recent studies have highlighted the importance of optimizing tRNA sequences to enhance both unnatural amino acid incorporation efficiency and orthogonality. Given the crucial role of tRNAs in the translation process and their substantial impact on overall GCE efficiency, ongoing efforts are dedicated to the development of tRNA engineering techniques.

Bioorthogonal CRISPR/Cas9-Drug Conjugate: A Combinatorial Nanomedicine Platform.

Bioconjugation of proteins can substantially expand the opportunities in biopharmaceutical development, however, applications are limited for the gene editing machinery despite its tremendous therapeutic potential. Here, a self-delivered nanomedicine platform based on bioorthogonal CRISPR/Cas9 conjugates, which can be armed with a chemotherapeutic drug for combinatorial therapy is introduced. It is demonstrated that multi-functionalized Cas9 with a drug and polymer can form self-condensed nanocomplexes, and induce significant gene editing upon delivery while avoiding the use of a conventional carrier formulation.

Acceptability of a Health Care App With 3 User Interfaces for Older Adults and Their Caregivers: Design and Evaluation Study.

Background: The older population needs solutions for independent living and reducing the burden on caregivers while maintaining the quality and dignity of life.

Objective: The aim of this study was to design, develop, and evaluate an older adult health care app that supports trained caregivers (ie, formal caregivers) and relatives (ie, informal caregivers). We aimed to identify the factors that affect user acceptance of interfaces depending on the user's role.

A Versatile Strategy for Screening Custom-Designed Warhead-Armed Cyclic Peptide Inhibitors.

Demand for peptide-based pharmaceuticals has been steadily increasing, but only limited success has been achieved to date. To expedite peptide-based drug discovery, we developed a general scheme for cell-based screening of cyclic peptide inhibitors armed with a user-designed warhead. We combined unnatural amino acid incorporation and split intein-mediated peptide cyclization techniques and integrated a yeast-based colorimetric screening assay to generate a new scheme that we call the custom-designed warhead-armed cyclic peptide screening platform (CWCPS).