Show newer

"A major challenge is that relatively few enhancers are functionally characterized in vivo, making it difficult to draw generalized conclusions about enhancer-promoter looping during developmental gene activation. Here, we investigate the 3D conformation of enhancers during mammalian development by generating high-resolution tissue-resolved contact maps for nearly a thousand mammalian enhancers with known in vivo activities in ten murine embryonic tissues. We performed enhancer knockouts in mice, which validated newly identified enhancer-promoter chromatin interactions. "

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

"His own evolution at La Ribaute, a former silk factory where Kiefer lived with his family from 1992 to 2007, has spawned an unlikely settlement of structures and pavilions inhabited not by people but by works of art. Spread over almost 100 acres, connected by footbridges and underground passageways, layered like an archaeological dig, the property opened to the public for the first time this year. It is now a permanent exhibit, open annually from May to October."

nytimes.com/2022/11/18/arts/de

"We probed the B cell repertoire from peripheral blood of mothers with primary and secondary ZIKV infections and established 9 ZIKV-binding B lymphoblastoid cell lines (B-LCL). One of them produced an IgM antibody, DH1017.IgM, in its native pentameric conformation. DH1017.IgM was somatically mutated, did not cross-react with other flaviviruses, displayed ultrapotent ZIKV neutralization that depended on its isotype and protected mice from viremia more efficiently than the respective IgG upon lethal ZIKV challenge."


sciencedirect.com/science/arti

If you're looking for some quality science writing, my friend Olivia Judson has a new piece over at Aeon (no paywall).

"Darwin, of course, is famous for his work on evolution. His book On the Origin of Species (1859) laid out a wealth of evidence that evolution occurs, and proposed a mechanism – natural selection – for how it does so. Although much has been learned since, and many of his ideas have been extended, corrected or refined, the Origin remains the founding text of modern biology, and is the pinnacle of Darwin’s work. But Darwin’s first scientific monograph and his last – the two bookends of his thoughts, so to speak – were both about how animals have, over vast spans of time, transformed the landscape."

aeon.co/essays/the-insight-of-

"We therefore took advantage of PLX5622-mediated depletion of these myeloid cell subsets to examine their functional role in C. neoformans lung infection and extrapulmonary dissemination. We found that PLX5622-treated mice had significantly reduced fungal lung infection and reduced extrapulmonary dissemination to the CNS but not to the spleen or liver. Fungal lung infection mapped to MHCIIhi interstitial lung macrophages, which underwent significant expansion during infection following monocyte replenishment and not local division."

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

"Here, we establish microglia as a new cellular component of the sleep homeostasis circuit. Using quantitative phosphoproteomics of the mouse frontal cortex, we demonstrate that microglia-specific deletion of TNFα perturbs thousands of phosphorylation sites during the sleep period. Substrates of microglial TNFα comprise sleep-related kinases such as MAPKs and MARKs, and numerous synaptic proteins, including a subset whose phosphorylation status encodes sleep need and determines sleep duration."

embopress.org/doi/abs/10.15252

"China’s doctors have a blunt message for Xi Jinping: the country’s healthcare system is not prepared to deal with a huge nationwide coronavirus outbreak that will inevitably follow any easing of strict measures to contain Covid-19."

ft.com/content/392a603d-5f6f-4

Fm 'La mirada invertida del arte povera en la fotografía' in El Pais

“Italia se convertirá en un centro emergente de vídeo, y es también allí donde se observa en ese momento el vínculo más fuerte entre los artistas y la fotografía. Existía realmente una comunidad de pensamiento interesada en integrar estos medios al nuevo lenguaje contemporáneo. Ello se debe, quizás, a la importancia que habían alcanzado dentro de la sociedad. Una presencia a la que la vanguardia respondía de forma crítica, casi política”.

elpais.com/babelia/2022-11-17/

Entamoeba & Shigella: they like to move it move it

"Our results show that peristalsis accelerates the destruction and invasion of intestinal tissue by Entamoeba histolytica and colonization by Shigella flexneri. Local tension facilitates parasite penetration and activates virulence genes in the bacteria."

science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv

"Ambos apontam para o mesmo: o Chega e o seu ideário racista e xenófobo, neofascista para quem não tiver receio de usar a palavra, estão profundamente infiltrados nas forças de segurança. Não podemos continuar a ignorar esta realidade."
- Carmo Afonso no Publico de hoje

publico.pt/2022/11/18/opiniao/

My latest Clinical Pipeline column at is just out.

This was an interesting piece for me, to see what's going with drugs targeting family molecules in a clinical setting, in this case an activin receptor 2a/IgG1 Fc domain fusion protein selectively mopping up ligands. The drug's been through trials in oncology, thalassemia & other conditions, but it looks like it had a good hit in pulmonary arterial .

nature.com/articles/d41591-022

"Dysbiosis in the gut microbiota impacts several systemic diseases. One possible mechanism is the migration of perturbed intestinal immunocytes to extra-intestinal tissues. Combining the Kaede photoconvertible mouse model and single-cell genomics, we generated a detailed map of migratory trajectories from the colon, at baseline and during intestinal and extra-intestinal inflammation."

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

'As the 1950s wound down, the proliferation of mass-produced, heavily marketed light lagers took an increasing toll on America’s—and San Francisco’s—small brewers. But a number of local establishments still proudly featured Anchor’s signature product, in particular the Crystal Palace Market between Market and Mission at 8th Street. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it was a “sprawling, pungent, cheap and exotic carnival of delicatessen and delicacy.”

lithub.com/the-model-for-ameri

Half-way through the latest Robert Harris novel, Act of Oblivion - it's great, almost as good as An Officer and a Spy.

"The most up-to-date concepts on the control of cell metabolism through cell intrinsic signaling mechanisms, the effect of the tissue microenvironment and nutrient availability on metabolism, and the potential for these pathways to be targeted or modified in disease are reviewed here and this volume"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/fu

"Here, we show that neuronal signal-regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα) is a permissive cue for microglial in the developing murine retina. Removal of neuronal, but not microglial, SIRPα reduced microglial phagocytosis, increased synpase numbers, and impaired circuit function. Conversely, prolonging neuronal SIRPα expression extended developmental microglial phagocytosis. These outcomes depended on the interaction of presynaptic SIRPα with postsynaptic CD47."

cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S10

"Acontece que este movimento é apenas mais um de um enorme esforço de apoio às empresas que o Estado português tem feito, sem evidência de que esteja a funcionar no sentido de promover ciência ou inovação e sem a esperada canalização de fundos para investigação académica."

Joana Sa on the recent (very disturbing) trends in Portugal

publico.pt/2022/11/17/opiniao/

"A new study, based on 25 years of data from Australia, suggests that environmental changes have been driving these spillovers by radically altering the ecology of black flying foxes. Deforestation, coupled with climate-linked food shortages, has driven the bats into human-dominated habitats like farms, where food is readily available but may be of poorer quality, scientists reported in Nature on Wednesday."

nytimes.com/2022/11/16/health/

"We show that memories of mitotic duration are integrated by a p53-based mitotic stopwatch pathway to exert tight control over proliferation. The stopwatch halts proliferation of the products of a single significantly extended mitosis or of successive modestly extended mitoses. Time in mitosis is monitored via mitotic kinase-regulated assembly of stopwatch complexes that are transmitted to daughter cells."

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

Show older
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.