Fatty acid transport protein inhibition sensitizes breast and ovarian cancers to oncolytic virus therapy lipid modulation of the tumor microenvironment.

Introduction: Adipocytes in the tumour microenvironment are highly dynamic cells that have an established role in tumour progression, but their impact on anti-cancer therapy resistance is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook.

Methods: We investigated the role of adipose tissue and adipocytes in response to oncolytic virus (OV) therapy in adipose-rich tumours such as breast and ovarian neoplasms.

Results: We show that secreted products in adipocyte-conditioned medium significantly impairs productive virus infection and OV-driven cell death.

Nucleic Acid-Based Treatments Against COVID-19: Potential Efficacy of Aptamers and siRNAs.

Despite significant efforts, there are currently no approved treatments for COVID-19. However, biotechnological approaches appear to be promising in the treatment of the disease. Accordingly, nucleic acid-based treatments including aptamers and siRNAs are candidates that might be effective in COVID-19 treatment.

Luciferase-Based Biosensors in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Luciferase-based biosensors have a wide range of applications and assay formats, including their relatively recent use in the study of viruses. Split luciferase, bioluminescence resonance energy transfer, circularly permuted luciferase, cyclic luciferase, and dual luciferase systems have all been used to interrogate the structure and function of prominent viruses infecting humans, animals, and plants. The utility of these assays is demonstrated by numerous studies which have not only successfully characterized interactions between viral and host cell proteins but that have also used these systems to identify viral inhibitors.

Comprehensive Review on Neuro-COVID-19 Pathophysiology and Clinical Consequences.

Aside from the respiratory distress as the predominant clinical presentation of SARS-CoV-2 infection, various neurological complications have been reported with the infection during the ongoing pandemic, some of which cause serious morbidity and mortality. Herein, we gather the latest anatomical evidence of the virus's presence within the central nervous system. We then delve into the possible SARS-CoV-2 entry routes into the neurological tissues, with the hematogenous and the neuronal routes as the two utmost passage routes into the nervous system.

Targeted Deletion of Los1 Homologue Affects the Production of a Recombinant Model Protein in Pichia pastoris.

Background: The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris is an appealing production host for a variety of recombinant proteins, including biologics. In this sense, various genetic- and non-genetic-based techniques have been implemented to improve the production efficiency of this expression platform. Loss of supression (Los1) encodes a non-essential nuclear tRNA exporter in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which its deletion extends replicative lifespan.

MSC-derived exosomes carrying a cocktail of exogenous interfering RNAs an unprecedented therapy in era of COVID-19 outbreak.

Background: The onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has resulted in ever-increasing casualties worldwide, and after 15 months, standard therapeutic regimens are yet to be discovered.

Main Body: Due to the regenerative and immunomodulatory function of MSCs, they can serve as a suitable therapeutic option in alleviating major COVID-19 complications like acute respiratory distress syndrome. However, the superior properties of their cognate exosomes as a cell-free product make them preferable in the clinic.

Improved efficiency of genome editing by constitutive expression of Cas9 endonuclease in genetically-modified mice.

Despite its convenience and precision, CRISPR-based gene editing approaches still suffer from off-target effects and low efficiencies, which are partially rooted in Cas9, the nuclease component of the CRISPR/Cas9 system. In this study, we showed how mouse genome editing efficiency can be improved by constitutive and inheritable expression of Cas9 nuclease. For this goal, a transgenic mouse line expressing the Cas9 protein (Cas9-mouse) was generated.

CRISPR/Cas: From Tumor Gene Editing to T Cell-Based Immunotherapy of Cancer.

The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats system has demonstrated considerable advantages over other nuclease-based genome editing tools due to its high accuracy, efficiency, and strong specificity. Given that cancer is caused by an excessive accumulation of mutations that lead to the activation of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressor genes, the CRISPR/Cas9 system is a therapy of choice for tumor genome editing and treatment. In defining its superior use, we have reviewed the novel applications of the CRISPR genome editing tool in discovering, sorting, and prioritizing targets for subsequent interventions, and passing different hurdles of cancer treatment such as epigenetic alterations and drug resistance.