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Immunity 2021 Apr;54(4):605-607

Molecular Immunology in Neurodegeneration, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), 53127 Bonn, Germany; PRECISE Platform for Single Cell Genomics and Epigenomics at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the University of Bonn, 53127 Bonn, Germany. Electronic address:

What defines regulatory T (Treg) cells in healthy human tissues? In this issue of Immunity, Delacher et al. describe a human follicular helper T cell-like tissue-repair Treg cell signature governed by BATF based on chromatin accessibility data and link this on a transcriptome and protein level to important functional features like CCR8 expression. Read More

Sci Rep 2021 Apr 12;11(1):7878. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

McGill Genome Centre, Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

The olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae, is the most important pest for the olive fruit but lacks adequate transcriptomic characterization that could aid in molecular control approaches. We apply nanopore long-read RNA-seq with internal RNA standards allowing absolute transcript quantification to analyze transcription dynamics during early embryo development for the first time in this organism. Sequencing on the MinION platform generated over 31 million reads. Read More

Sci Rep 2021 Apr 12;11(1):7918. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Department of Medicine, Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, Burlington Danes, London, UK.

Single cell transcriptome profiling has emerged as a breakthrough technology for the high-resolution understanding of complex cellular systems. Here we report a flexible, cost-effective and user-friendly droplet-based microfluidics system, called the Nadia Instrument, that can allow 3' mRNA capture of ~ 50,000 single cells or individual nuclei in a single run. The precise pressure-based system demonstrates highly reproducible droplet size, low doublet rates and high mRNA capture efficiencies that compare favorably in the field. Read More

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021 Mar;118(11)

Institute for Applied Ecology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia 2617

The diversity of genome sizes across the tree of life is of key interest in evolutionary biology. Various correlates of variation in genome size, such as accumulation of transposable elements (TEs) or rate of DNA gain and loss, are well known, but the underlying molecular mechanisms driving or constraining genome size are poorly understood. Here, we study one of the smallest genomes among frogs characterized thus far, that of the ornate burrowing frog () from Australia, and compare it to other published frog and vertebrate genomes to examine the forces driving reduction in genome size. Read More

J Biotechnol 2021 Apr 6;332:72-82. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Japan. Electronic address:

Antibody-drug conjugates offers many advantages as a drug delivery platform that allows for highly specific targeting of cell types and genes. Ideally, testing the efficacy of these systems requires two cell types to be different only in the gene targeted by the drug, with the rest of the cellular machinery unchanged, in order to minimize other potential differences from obscuring the effects of the drug. In this study, we created multiple variants of U87MG cells with targeted mutation in the TP53 gene using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and determined that their major transcriptional differences stem from the loss of p53 function. Read More