: Biotechnology Articles
Editorial: Calling all patientsDisease-orientated consumer online communities radically change the way in which individuals monitor their health, but they could also create new ways of testing treatments and speed patient recruitment into clinical trials. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp953-953 |
Editorial: This means warDoes a role-playing game reveal any new insights into the factors holding back the UK biotech sector? Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp954-954 |
News and Views: Dissecting microbial employmentA targeted metagenomics approach profiles the methylotrophic microbes in lake sediments. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp997-998 |
News and Views: Agrobacterium-mediated DNA transfer, and then someIn addition to its plasmid DNA, Agrobacterium tumefaciens can transfer its chromosomal DNA to plant genomes. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp998-1000 |
News and Views: Viral attenuation by designA less-virulent poliovirus generated by altering codon usage suggests a new strategy for vaccine development. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1000-1001 |
Research: T-DNA–mediated transfer of Agrobacterium tumefaciens chromosomal DNA into plantsBackbone fragments of the Agrobacterium tumor-inducing (Ti) plasmid that bears transgenes of interest have occasionally been reported to be transferred to plant genomes. Now, Ülker et al. show that Agrobacterium chromosomal DNA can also be integrated into transgenic plants at a low frequency. Gene-bearing chromosomal fragments as large as 18 kb are found in T-DNA–tagged populations of Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1015-1017 |
Research: Discovery of a hepatitis C target and its pharmacological inhibitors by microfluidic affinity analysisNew hepatitis C treatments are urgently needed. Working with a high-throughput microfluidic affinity assay for RNA-protein interactions, Quake and colleagues identify a small molecule that negatively affects HCV replication in cell culture by inhibiting the binding between the nonstructural protein 4B and the viral RNA genome. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1019-1027 |
Research: High-resolution metagenomics targets specific functional types in complex microbial communitiesMetagenomics, or shotgun sequencing of environmental DNA, is used to study complex microbial communities. Kalyuzhnaya et al. describe a method for targeting specific microbial subpopulations in environmental samples and use it to analyze microbes that metabolize C1 compounds. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1029-1034 |
Research: Photoswitchable fluorescent proteins enable monochromatic multilabel imaging and dual color fluorescence nanoscopyThe current reversibly switchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs) can not be multiplexed. Jakobs and colleagues create two RSFPs with novel switching characteristics that can be used simultaneously in fluorescence microscopy experiments using only one detection color. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1035-1040 |
Research: Predicting PDZ domain–peptide interactions from primary sequencesPDZ domains represent one of the largest families of interaction domains. Chen et al. develop a scoring matrix that enables prediction of peptide?PDZ domain interactions. Unlike previous methods, the model works to some extent for PDZ domains that were not part of the training set. Nature Biotechnology, vol. 26 #9, pp1041-1045 |