Three-dimensional femtosecond snapshots of isolated faceted nanostructures.

The structure and dynamics of isolated nanosamples in free flight can be directly visualized via single-shot coherent diffractive imaging using the intense and short pulses of x-ray free-electron lasers. Wide-angle scattering images encode three-dimensional (3D) morphological information of the samples, but its retrieval remains a challenge. Up to now, effective 3D morphology reconstructions from single shots were only achieved via fitting with highly constrained models, requiring a priori knowledge about possible geometries.

A synthetic glycerol assimilation pathway demonstrates biochemical constraints of cellular metabolism.

The engineering of synthetic metabolic routes can provide valuable lessons on the roles of different biochemical constraints in shaping pathway activity. In this study, we designed and engineered a novel glycerol assimilation pathway in Escherichia coli. While the synthetic pathway was based only on well-characterized endogenous reactions, we were not able to establish robust growth using standard concentrations of glycerol.