Phage susceptibility to a minimal, modular synthetic CRISPR-Cas system in is nutrient dependent.

CRISPR-Cas systems can provide adaptive, heritable immunity to their prokaryotic hosts against invading genetic material such as phages. It is clear that the importance of acquiring CRISPR-Cas immunity to anti-phage defence varies across environments, but it is less clear if and how this varies across different phages. To explore this, we created a synthetic, modular version of the type I-F CRISPR-Cas system of .

Influence of Alzheimer's associated Aβ oligomers and oxidative stress on blood-brain barrier dysfunction.

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction is an early event observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Two characteristics of AD brain and brain vasculature contribute to BBB dysfunction: the accumulation of aggregated amyloid-β protein (Aβ) and an increase in oxidative stress. This work uses a BBB model of primary human brain microvascular endothelial cells to investigate the individual and synergistic influence of both pathogenic Aβ oligomers and oxidative stress on BBB transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER), an indicator of barrier integrity.

Developmental time course of social touch, parvalbumin interneurons, perineuronal nets and Mef2c expression reveals a sensitive period of somatosensory cortex development in prairie voles.

Social touch facilitates our attachment to others, especially early in life, which may be linked to the maturation of parvalbumin interneurons (PVI) in the somatosensory cortex (S1). These neurons respond to social touch, mature in a sensory experience-dependent manner, and influence both somatosensory processing and social behavior in models of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Prairie voles ( ) are an ideal rodent model for studying these concepts since they engage in a species-typical social touch called "huddling".