Discovery of Next-Generation Antimicrobials through Bacterial Self-Screening of Surface-Displayed Peptide Libraries.

Peptides have great potential to combat antibiotic resistance. While many platforms can screen peptides for their ability to bind to target cells, there are virtually no platforms that directly assess the functionality of peptides. This limitation is exacerbated when identifying antimicrobial peptides because the phenotype, death, selects against itself and has caused a scientific bottleneck that confines research to a few naturally occurring classes of antimicrobial peptides.

Critical role for arginase 2 in obesity-associated pancreatic cancer.

Obesity is an established risk factor for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). Despite recent identification of metabolic alterations in this lethal malignancy, the metabolic dependencies of obesity-associated PDA remain unknown. Here we show that obesity-driven PDA exhibits accelerated growth and a striking transcriptional enrichment for pathways regulating nitrogen metabolism.

Starved epithelial cells uptake extracellular matrix for survival.

Extracellular matrix adhesion is required for normal epithelial cell survival, nutrient uptake and metabolism. This requirement can be overcome by oncogene activation. Interestingly, inhibition of PI3K/mTOR leads to apoptosis of matrix-detached, but not matrix-attached cancer cells, suggesting that matrix-attached cells use alternate mechanisms to maintain nutrient supplies.