Calpain activity in plasma of patients with essential tremor and Parkinson's disease: a pilot study.

: Essential tremor (ET) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are the two most common movement disorders in adults with similar clinical symptoms, which is hinting towards existence of coincident pathogenesis steps.: The objective of this report is to characterize the relationship between ET and PD severity and the activity of calcium-dependent proteases calpain in plasma.: The study enrolled 12 volunteers for each condition: ET, PD, healthy.

Synthetic biology-based cellular biomedical tattoo for detection of hypercalcemia associated with cancer.

Diagnosis marks the beginning of any successful therapy. Because many medical conditions progress asymptomatically over extended periods of time, their timely diagnosis remains difficult, and this adversely affects patient prognosis. Focusing on hypercalcemia associated with cancer, we aimed to develop a synthetic biology-inspired biomedical tattoo using engineered cells that would (i) monitor long-term blood calcium concentration, (ii) detect onset of mild hypercalcemia, and (iii) respond via subcutaneous accumulation of the black pigment melanin to form a visible tattoo.

Directional R-Loop Formation by the CRISPR-Cas Surveillance Complex Cascade Provides Efficient Off-Target Site Rejection.

CRISPR-Cas systems provide bacteria and archaea with adaptive immunity against foreign nucleic acids. In type I CRISPR-Cas systems, invading DNA is detected by a large ribonucleoprotein surveillance complex called Cascade. The crRNA component of Cascade is used to recognize target sites in foreign DNA (protospacers) by formation of an R-loop driven by base-pairing complementarity.

Direct observation of R-loop formation by single RNA-guided Cas9 and Cascade effector complexes.

Clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) systems protect bacteria and archaea from infection by viruses and plasmids. Central to this defense is a ribonucleoprotein complex that produces RNA-guided cleavage of foreign nucleic acids. In DNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas systems, the RNA component of the complex encodes target recognition by forming a site-specific hybrid (R-loop) with its complement (protospacer) on an invading DNA while displacing the noncomplementary strand.