Bone measurements interact with phenotypic measures in canine Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked muscle disease with weakness, loss of ambulation, and premature death. DMD patients have reduced bone health, including decreased femur length (FL), density, and fractures. The mouse model has paradoxically greater FL, density, and strength, positively correlating with muscle mass.

Adaptive Lambda Scheduling: A Method for Computational Efficiency in Free Energy Perturbation Simulations.

Recent increases in the availability of computational power have improved the accessibility of ligand-protein relative binding free energy (RBFE) calculations; however, these calculations remain resource-intensive, which can limit their practical application. RBFE calculations typically use a set of thermodynamic intermediates mediated by the transformation coordinate λ. Optimizing λ offers a way to tune the computational efforts required for a given RBFE calculation.

The IL-2 SYNTHORIN molecule promotes functionally adapted Tregs in a preclinical model of type 1 diabetes.

Deficits in IL-2 signaling can precipitate autoimmunity by altering the function and survival of FoxP3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) while high concentrations of IL-2 fuel inflammatory responses. Recently, we showed that the non-beta IL-2 SYNTHORIN molecule SAR444336 (SAR'336) can bypass the induction of autoimmune and inflammatory responses by increasing its reliance on IL-2 receptor α chain subunit (CD25) to provide a bona fide IL-2 signal selectively to Tregs, making it an attractive approach for the control of autoimmunity. In this report, we further demonstrate that SAR'336 can support non-beta IL-2 signaling in murine Tregs and limit NK and CD8+ T cells' proliferation and function.

Study of silver nanoparticles bioaccumulation in cultured red and green seaweed.

The bioaccumulation of polyvinylpyrrolidone-coated silver nanoparticles (PVP-AgNPs) in Palmaria palmata and Ulva sp. seaweed was investigated by ICP-MS and SP-ICP-MS (determination of nanoparticles and size distribution after an enzymatic extraction). Seaweeds were exposed to 0.

Directed evolution of the multicopper oxidase laccase for cell surface proximity labeling and electron microscopy.

Enzymes that oxidize aromatic substrates have shown utility in a range of cell-based technologies including live cell proximity labeling (PL) and electron microscopy (EM), but are associated with drawbacks such as the need for toxic HO. Here, we explore laccases as a novel enzyme class for PL and EM in mammalian cells. LaccID, generated via 11 rounds of directed evolution from an ancestral fungal laccase, catalyzes the one-electron oxidation of diverse aromatic substrates using O instead of toxic HO, and exhibits activity selective to the surface plasma membrane of both living and fixed cells.