Lifeboat Foundation

Plant viruses infect many economically important crops, including wheat, cotton, maize, cassava, and other vegetables. These viruses pose a serious threat to agriculture worldwide, as decreases in cropland area per capita may cause production to fall short of that required to feed the increasing world population. Under these circumstances, conventional strategies can fail to control rapidly evolving and emerging plant viruses. Genome-engineering strategies have recently emerged as promising tools to introduce desirable traits in many eukaryotic species, including plants. Among these genome engineering technologies, the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats)/CRISPR-associated 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system has received special interest because of its simplicity, efficiency, and reproducibility. Recent studies have used CRISPR/Cas9 to engineer virus resistance in plants, either by directly targeting and cleaving the viral genome, or by modifying the host plant genome to introduce viral immunity. Here, we briefly describe the biology of the CRISPR/Cas9 system and plant viruses, and how different genome engineering technologies have been used to target these viruses. We further describe the main findings from recent studies of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated viral interference and discuss how these findings can be applied to improve global agriculture. We conclude by pinpointing the gaps in our knowledge and the outstanding questions regarding CRISPR/Cas9-mediated viral immunity.

Keywords: plant virus, CRISPR/Cas9, genome engineering, geminivirus, virus resistance.

In the context of the rapidly growing global population, food security has emerged as one of the major challenges facing our generation (Cheeseman, 2016). The global population has increased by 60%, but per capita production of grains has fallen worldwide in the last 20 years (Suweis et al., 2015). If the population growth rate, which is 1.13 percent per year for 2016¹ persists, the world population will double again within a mere 50 years, and it is estimated that food production will need to at least double till 2050 to meet demand (Suweis et al., 2015). Increases in food production per unit of land have not kept pace with increases in population and cropland area per capita has fallen by more than half since 1960 (Cheeseman, 2016).

An optical fiber made of agar has been produced at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. This device is edible, biocompatible and biodegradable. It can be used in vivo for body structure imaging, localized light delivery in phototherapy or optogenetics (e.g., stimulating neurons with light to study neural circuits in a living brain), and localized drug delivery.

Another possible application is the detection of microorganisms in specific organs, in which case the probe would be completely absorbed by the body after performing its function.

The research project, which was supported by São Paulo Research Foundation—FAPESP, was led by Eric Fujiwara, a professor in UNICAMP’s School of Mechanical Engineering, and Cristiano Cordeiro, a professor in UNICAMP’s Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics, in collaboration with Hiromasa Oku, a professor at Gunma University in Japan.

Scientists discover that oxytocin could be used to treat cognitive disorder like Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disorder in which the nerve cells (neurons) in a person’s brain and the connections among them degenerate slowly, causing severe memory loss, intellectual deficiencies, and deterioration in motor skills and communication. One of the main causes of Alzheimer’s is the accumulation of a protein called amyloid β (Aβ) in clusters around neurons in the brain, which hampers their activity and triggers their degeneration.

Studies in animal models have found that increasing the aggregation of Aβ in the hippocampus—the brain’s main learning and memory center—causes a decline in the signal transmission potential of the neurons therein. This degeneration affects a specific trait of the neurons, called ‘synaptic plasticity,’ which is the ability of synapses (the site of signal exchange between neurons) to adapt to an increase or decrease in signaling activity over time. Synaptic plasticity is crucial to the development of learning and cognitive functions in the hippocampus. Thus, Aβ and its role in causing cognitive memory and deficits have been the focus of most research aimed at finding treatments for Alzheimer’s.

Now, advancing this research effort, a team of scientists from Japan, led by Professor Akiyoshi Saitoh from the Tokyo University of Science, has looked at oxytocin, a hormone conventionally known for its role in the female reproductive system and in inducing the feelings of love and well-being. “Oxytocin was recently found to be involved in regulating learning and memory performance, but so far, no previous study deals with the effect of oxytocin on Aβ-induced cognitive impairment,” Prof Saitoh says. Realizing this, Prof Saitoh’s group set out to connect the dots. Their findings are published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communication.

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face_with_colon_three circa 2016.

Tough ‘water bears’ defy intense radiation by apparently wrapping their genetic material in a bizarre protein that can also protect human cells.

It’s been a long time since there’s been anything like “regular order” in the congressional appropriations process: individual bills passed by the House and Senate, their differences resolved in conference to produce a final version that’s signed into law before the beginning of the fiscal year October 1. Instead, there are usually stopgap funding bills, called continuing resolutions, that extend for weeks or months before a massive omnibus bill, combining up to a dozen different bills, is eventually passed.

Fiscal year 2021 is not going to be the year regular order returns to the appropriations process. The pandemic took hold in the early phases of the appropriations process, just as Congress was starting its usual series of hearings on various parts of the administration’s budget proposal released in early February. Congress instead devoted its attention to series of relief packages during the limited time it was in session this spring.

With no hearings about NASA’s budget proposal by either House or Senate appropriators, the first sign of their views about the agency’s budget had to wait until a few weeks ago. On July 7, the House Appropriations Committee released its draft of the commerce, justice, and science (CJS) spending bill that includes NASA. That bill provides $22.6 billion for NASA, the same amount the agency received in 2020. The White House, by comparison, asked for $25.2 billion for NASA.

Scientists from the University of Missouri, the University of Illinois and Yale University have demonstrated that a combination of pencils and paper could be used to create on-skin bioelectronic devices that might be used to monitor personal health. They’ve fabricated and evaluated a rich variety of pencil-paper-based bioelectronic devices, ranging from biophysical sensors and sweat biochemical sensors to thermal stimulators, ambient humidity energy harvesters, and transdermal drug-delivery systems.

Two groups of nerve cells may serve as “on-off switches” for male mating and aggression, suggests a new study in rodents. These neurons appear to send signals between two parts of the brain—the back tip, or posterior, of the amygdala and the hypothalamus—that together regulate emotions including fear, anxiety, and aggression.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study showed that male mice struggled to have sex in experiments that blocked signals from one amygdala cell group that communicates with the hypothalamus (MPN-signaling cells). When the same signals were instead bolstered, the animals were not only able to mate but would repeatedly court unreceptive females, something they would not do normally.

Similarly, when the action of a second cell group in the amygdala that also communicates with the hypothalamus (VMHvl-signaling cells) was blocked, the rodents attacked unfamiliar males half as often. When these same neurons were triggered, the mice became unusually aggressive, even attacking their female mates and familiar males.

In the fight against pathogens, most researchers have focused on the diverse immune system arsenal that protects people against infection. However, the lab of Yale microbiologist Jorge Galan explored an evolutionarily ancient defense system possessed by every individual cell in the body.

In work published July 24th in the journal Science, Galan’s lab describes the role played by the mitochondria, the cell’s energy-producing organelle, in creating an anti-microbial compound capable of combatting Salmonella Typhi, the cause of typhoid fever. Using advanced imaging technology, Galan and colleagues show how the compound itaconate, produced in the mitochondria, can penetrate cellular defenses that protect the pathogen and disrupt its metabolism and ability to grow.

Bioprinting could be used for testing potential treatments for Covid-19, cancer and other diseases.

Bioprinting’s importance for pharmaceutical analysis is paramount now, not only for potential Covid-19 treatments, but also for testing treatments for cancer and other diseases. Dr. Atala says that the organoids allow researchers to analyze a drug’s impact on an organ “without the noise” of an individual’s metabolism.

He cited Rezulin, a popular diabetes drug recalled in 2000 after there was evidence of liver failure. His lab tested an archived version of the drug, and Dr. Atala said that within two weeks, the liver toxicity became apparent. What accounts for the difference? An organoid replicates an organ in its purest form and offers data points that might not occur in clinical trials, he said, adding that the testing is additive to, rather than in lieu of, clinical trials.