Respiratory viruses evolve to maintain infectivity levels that permit spread yet prevent host and virus extinction, resulting in surprisingly low infection rates. Respiratory viruses harnessed as gene therapy vectors have illustrated this limitation. We used directed evolution in an organotypic human airway model to generate a highly infectious adeno-associated virus. This virus mediated gene transfer more than 100-fold better than parental strains and corrected the cystic fibrosis epithelial Cl(-) transport defect. Thus, under appropriate selective pressures, viruses can evolve to be more infectious than observed in nature, a finding that holds significant implications for designing vectors for gene therapy and for understanding emerging pathogens.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0813365106 | DOI Listing |
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
January 2025
Chinese Academy of Sciences Qingdao Industrial Energy Storage Technology Institute, Department of Energy Science and Energy Technology, Songling Road, 189, 266101, Qingdao City, CHINA.
Membrane-assisted direct seawater splitting (DSS) technologies are actively studied as a promising route to produce green hydrogen (H2), whereas the indispensable use of supporting electrolytes that help to extract water and provide electrochemically-accelerated reaction media results in a severe energy penalty, consuming up to 12.5% of energy input when using a typical KOH electrolyte. We bypass this issue by designing a zero-gap electrolyzer configuration based on the integration of cation exchange membrane and bipolar membrane assemblies, which protects stable DSS operation against the precipitates and corrosion in the absence of additional supporting electrolytes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHarm Reduct J
January 2025
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Mannerheimintie 166, 00271, Helsinki, Finland.
Background: Taxation can be used to direct consumption and provision of harmful commodities. Prior research on gambling taxation has nevertheless been inconclusive on whether this can also apply to gambling. In gambling policy, optimal taxation rates have particularly been debated from the perspective of channelling consumption from offshore markets to regulated markets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Chem Biol
January 2025
Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Directed evolution in mammalian cells offers a powerful approach for advancing synthetic biology applications. However, existing mammalian-based directed evolution methods face substantial bottlenecks, including host genome interference, small library size and uncontrolled mutagenesis. Here we engineered an orthogonal alphaviral RNA replication system to evolve RNA-based devices, enabling RNA replicase-assisted continuous evolution (REPLACE) in proliferating mammalian cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
December 2024
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, No. 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, People's Republic of China.
Water electrolysis suffers from electron transfer barriers during oxygen evolution reactions, which are spin-related for magnetic materials. Here, the electron transfer at the Fe_{64}Ni_{36}-FeNiO_{x}H_{y} interface is effectively accelerated when the electrode is heated to trigger the Invar effect in Fe_{64}Ni_{36} Invar alloy, providing more unoccupied orbitals as electron transfer channels without pairing energy. As a result of thermally stimulated changes in electronic states, Fe_{64}Ni_{36}/FeNiO_{x}H_{y} achieved a cascaded oxidation of the catalytic center and water.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Agric Food Chem
January 2025
School of Biotechnology and Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
d-Tagatose, a rare sugar endowed with a low-calorie property, superior taste quality, and probiotic functionality, has garnered significant research attention. However, the prevailing biological production methods relying on β-galactosidase and l-arabinose isomerase face challenges including high cost and suboptimal conversion efficiency. Consequently, it is of great research significance to find efficient alternative routes for d-tagatose synthesis.
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