Antibody-mediated clearance of an ER-resident aggregate that causes glaucoma.

Recombinant antibodies are a promising class of therapeutics to treat protein misfolding associated with neurodegenerative diseases, and several antibodies that inhibit aggregation are approved or in clinical trials to treat Alzheimer's disease. Here, we developed antibodies targeting the aggregation-prone β-propeller olfactomedin (OLF) domain of myocilin, variants of which comprise the strongest genetic link to glaucoma and cause early onset vision loss for several million individuals worldwide. Mutant myocilin aggregates intracellularly in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

Consensus Recommendations for Studies of Outflow Facility and Intraocular Pressure Regulation Using Ex Vivo Perfusion Approaches.

Intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation is the primary risk factor and currently the main treatable factor for progression of glaucomatous optic neuropathy. In addition to direct clinical and living animal in vivo studies, ex vivo perfusion of anterior segments and whole eyes is a key technique for studying conventional outflow function as it is responsible for IOP regulation. We present well-tested experimental details, protocols, considerations, advantages, and limitations of several ex vivo model systems for studying IOP regulation.

An Untold Story: The Feelings of Pediatric Residents Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic and What They Can Teach Us Today.

Objective: To understand the feelings of pediatrics residents early in the COVID-19 pandemic and to offer insights still relevant today.

Methods: We performed a thematic analysis exploring resident feelings early in the pandemic using free-text responses on a national survey distributed between May and June 2020. We analyzed responses from the following multi-part free text question embedded in the larger survey, "Which of the following feelings have you experienced in your role as a pediatric resident during the COVID-19 pandemic" with response prompts including relief, guilt, pride, sadness, worry, fear, and other.

Cellular heterogeneity and dynamics of the human uterus in healthy premenopausal women.

The human uterus is a complex and dynamic organ whose lining grows, remodels, and regenerates every menstrual cycle or upon tissue damage. Here, we applied single-cell RNA sequencing to profile more the 50,000 uterine cells from both the endometrium and myometrium of five healthy premenopausal individuals, and jointly analyzed the data with a previously published dataset from 15 subjects. The resulting normal uterus cell atlas contains more than 167K cells, representing the lymphatic endothelium, blood endothelium, stromal, ciliated epithelium, unciliated epithelium, and immune cell populations.

Structure and stability of an apo thermophilic esterase that hydrolyzes polyhydroxybutyrate.

Pollution from plastics is a global problem that threatens the biosphere for a host of reasons, including the time scale that it takes for most plastics to degrade. Biodegradation is an ideal solution for remediating bioplastic waste as it does not require the high temperatures necessary for thermal degradation and does not introduce additional pollutants into the environment. Numerous organisms can scavenge for bioplastics, such as polylactic acid (PLA) or poly-(R)-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which they can use as an energy source.