How can trial designs better serve the needs of children and young people with juvenile idiopathic arthritis?

In juvenile idiopathic arthritis we have seen remarkable progress in the number of available licensed biological and small molecule treatments in the past two decades, leading to improved outcomes for patients. Designing clinical trials for these therapeutics is fraught with ethical, legislative, and practical challenges. However, many aspects of current clinical trial design in juvenile idiopathic arthritis do not meet the needs of patients and clinicians.

Juxta-membrane S-acylation of plant receptor-like kinases is likely fortuitous and does not necessarily impact upon function.

S-acylation is a common post-translational modification of membrane protein cysteine residues with many regulatory roles. S-acylation adjacent to transmembrane domains has been described in the literature as affecting diverse protein properties including turnover, trafficking and microdomain partitioning. However, all of these data are derived from mammalian and yeast systems.

Variable Effects of C-Terminal Fusions on FLS2 Function: Not All Epitope Tags Are Created Equal.

Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are the largest family of proteins in plants and are responsible for perceiving the vast majority of extracellular stimuli. Thus, RLKs function in diverse processes, including sensing pathogen attacks, regulating symbiotic interactions, transducing hormone and peptide signals, and monitoring cell wall status. However, despite their fundamental role in plant biology, very few antibodies are available against RLKs, which necessitates the use of epitope tags and fluorescent protein fusions in biochemical analyses such as immunoblot analysis and intracellular visualization.