Volume 14 Issue 1, January 2017

Neurons that are activated in response to a particular stimulus or behavior can be labeled or manipulated with a new method.

A multicolor approach specifically labels multiple targets in electron microscopy images.

A rapid mix-and-inject serial femtosecond crystallography approach enables structure determination of ligand-binding intermediates.

A synthetic hydrogel matrix gives researchers greater control over intestinal organoid culture.

The development of temperature-inducible molecular bioswitches allows on-demand activation of synthetic genetic circuits in microbes.

This Review describes the latest methods for profiling common epitranscriptomic marks, their scale, resolution and ability to quantify. It also discusses remaining challenges.

The ability to measure the metabolome on a global scale lags behind other omics techniques.

The changing face of super-resolution imaging

Having revolutionized DNA editing, CRISPR turns to RNA.

Single-cell sequencing is poised to elucidate how cells contribute to tissue function.

Cryo-electron tomography may facilitate in situ structural biology on a proteomic scale.

Higher volumetric imaging rates shed light on the dynamics in neuronal networks.

New approaches will expose microbial dependencies and environmental interactions.

Ex vivo organoid culture could revolutionize biology, but variability must be understood.

Sequencing technology drives microbiology and gives researchers new reasons to draw on classic techniques.

Three-dimensional localization microscopy can yield important biological insights. A photometric approach is described that allows users to gain 3D information from existing 2D images and to improve axial resolution obtained with existing biplane setups.

A new method, R-scape, tests whether observed sequence covariation supports a conserved secondary structure in RNA. The program finds no evidence for previously proposed conserved secondary structures in several lncRNAs.

Membrane proteins can be stabilized in a native-like setting using lipid-bilayer-based nanodiscs encircled by a membrane scaffold protein. Covalently circularized nanodiscs now offer enhanced stability and control over nanodisc diameter size, improving the quality of structural data.

An extremely bright, truly monomeric RFP, mScarlet, is described that outperforms existing RFPs in diverse labeling applications, especially in FRET with ratiometric imaging.

The authors present a computational framework for false-discovery-rate-controlled metabolite annotation from high-resolution imaging mass spectrometry data.

InWeb_InBioMap (InWeb_IM for short) is a scored, integrated human protein–protein interaction network resource aggregated from public, experimentally determined protein–protein interactions. The resource enables functional interpretation of large-scale genomics data.

The novoBreak software provides sensitive, accurate, and comprehensive detection of structural variation in somatic next-generation sequencing data.

TACO generates a consensus transcriptome with improved accuracy from multisample RNA-seq data.

An all-atom protein force field, CHARMM36m, offers improved accuracy for simulating intrinsically disordered peptides and proteins.

DMS-MaPseq enables genome-wide and target-specific RNA secondary structure probing of even rare or heterogeneously structured RNAs in vivo and was used to study structure involved in translation regulation as well as nascent transcripts.

BUM-HMM is a statistically robust modeling pipeline for interpreting high-throughput RNA structure probing data, including that from transcriptome-wide experiments.

An instrumental setup for atmospheric pressure MALDI-based mass spectrometry imaging with improved lateral resolution enables subcellular-level details to be resolved.