Switchable Broadband Terahertz Absorbers Based on Conducting Polymer-Cellulose Aerogels.

Terahertz (THz) technologies provide opportunities ranging from calibration targets for satellites and telescopes to communication devices and biomedical imaging systems. A main component will be broadband THz absorbers with switchability. However, optically switchable materials in THz are scarce and their modulation is mostly available at narrow bandwidths.

Autocrine TGF-β/ZEB/microRNA-200 signal transduction drives epithelial-mesenchymal transition: Kinetic models predict minimal drug dose to inhibit metastasis.

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is the crucial step that cancer cells must pass before they can undergo metastasis. The transition requires the activity of complex functional networks that downregulate properties of the epithelial phenotype and upregulate characteristics of the mesenchymal phenotype. The networks frequently include reciprocal repressions between transcription factors (TFs) driving the EMT and microRNAs (miRs) inducing the reverse process, termed mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET).

Gata6, Nanog and Erk signaling control cell fate in the inner cell mass through a tristable regulatory network.

During blastocyst formation, inner cell mass (ICM) cells differentiate into either epiblast (Epi) or primitive endoderm (PrE) cells, labeled by Nanog and Gata6, respectively, and organized in a salt-and-pepper pattern. Previous work in the mouse has shown that, in absence of Nanog, all ICM cells adopt a PrE identity. Moreover, the activation or the blockade of the Fgf/RTK pathway biases cell fate specification towards either PrE or Epi, respectively.

A local source of FGF initiates development of the unmyelinated lineage of sensory neurons.

The principle by which unmyelinated primary sensory neurons transducing thermal, itch and pain perception are specified in early development is unknown. These classes of sensory neurons diversify from a common population of late-born neurons, which initiate expression of Runt homology domain transcription factor RUNX1 and the nerve growth factor receptor TrkA. Here, we report that signals emanating from within the mouse dorsal root ganglion mediated partly by early-born neurons destined to a myelinated phenotype participate in fating late-born RUNX1(+)/TrkA(+) neurons.

Basic research in HIV vaccinology is hampered by reductionist thinking.

This review describes the structure-based reverse vaccinology approach aimed at developing vaccine immunogens capable of inducing antibodies that broadly neutralize HIV-1. Some basic principles of protein immunochemistry are reviewed and the implications of the extensive polyspecificity of antibodies for vaccine development are underlined. Although it is natural for investigators to want to know the cause of an effective immunological intervention, the classic notion of causality is shown to have little explanatory value for a system as complex as the immune system, where any observed effect always results from many interactions between a large number of components.

Requirements for empirical immunogenicity trials, rather than structure-based design, for developing an effective HIV vaccine.

The claim that it is possible to rationally design a structure-based HIV-1 vaccine is based on misconceptions regarding the nature of protein epitopes and of immunological specificity. Attempts to use reverse vaccinology to generate an HIV-1 vaccine on the basis of the structure of viral epitopes bound to monoclonal neutralizing antibodies have failed so far because it was not possible to extrapolate from an observed antigenic structure to the immunogenic structure required in a vaccine. Vaccine immunogenicity depends on numerous extrinsic factors such as the host immunoglobulin gene repertoire, the presence of various cellular and regulatory mechanisms in the immunized host and the process of antibody affinity maturation.