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Luminescent conjugated polymers (LCPs) bind to prion aggregates and emit different fluorescent spectra depending on their binding conformation. As such, they are promising tools for investigating the biophysical basis of prion strains.
Parasite infections such as malaria threaten the lives of millions of people around the globe. New genetic tools have been developed to evaluate parasite proteins as targets for urgently needed drug and vaccine development.
Methods relying on dense arrays of synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides to target specific subsets of the human genome may enable routine resequencing of all human exons or multi-megabase-pair chromosomal regions.
An aspirin-modulated gene expression control circuit provides a powerful method to regulate expression of bacterial genes inside an infected host. This should provide a safe and easy way to study host-pathogen interactions, and may have direct therapeutic applications.
MicroRNAs are not amenable to classical RNAi-based knockdown strategies, but genetic 'sponges' that compete microRNAs away from their natural targets create a microRNA 'knockdown'.
The adaptation of the protein misfolding cyclic amplification assay (PMCA) to use recombinant hamster prion protein (PrP) as a substrate shows promise for both basic research applications and clinical diagnostic assays.
Two research groups describe different but complementary advances in bioluminescent-probe design that improve this often underappreciated relative of fluorescence imaging. In addition to being brighter, bioluminescent probes now span a larger color range.