A high-speed microscopy system based on deep learning to detect yeast-like fungi cells in blood.

Blood-invasive fungal infections can cause the death of patients, while diagnosis of fungal infections is challenging. A high-speed microscopy detection system was constructed that included a microfluidic system, a microscope connected to a high-speed camera and a deep learning analysis section. For training data, the sensitivity and specificity of the convolutional neural network model were 93.

Fibril-forming motifs are essential and sufficient for the fibrillization of human Tau.

Background: The misfolding of amyloidogenic proteins including human Tau protein, human prion protein, and human α-synuclein is involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease, prion disease, and Parkinson disease. Although a lot of research on such amyloidogenic proteins has been done, we do not know the determinants that drive these proteins to form fibrils and thereby induce neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we want to know the role of fibril-forming motifs from such amyloidogenic proteins in the fibrillization of human Tau protein.

Low micromolar zinc accelerates the fibrillization of human tau via bridging of Cys-291 and Cys-322.

A hallmark of a group of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease is the formation of neurofibrillary tangles, which are principally composed of bundles of filaments formed by microtubule-associated protein Tau. Clarifying how natively unstructured Tau protein forms abnormal aggregates is of central importance for elucidating the etiology of these diseases. There is considerable evidence showing that zinc, as an essential element that is highly concentrated in brain, is linked to the development or progression of these diseases.