Primers and PrimeViews

This PrimeView highlights how electrospray ionization produces gas phase ions that can be analysed by mass spectrometry.

Analytes can be ionized and brought into the gas phase using electrospray ionization (ESI). Coupling ESI with mass spectrometry enables a wide range of molecules to be studied, including proteins and polymers. This Primer introduces the ESI method, describing the underlying mechanism, common variants and instrument setups.

This PrimeView highlights the use of mitoNucleases and mitoBase Editors in editing of mitochondrial DNA to study and treat mitochondrial diseases.

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA can cause several life-limiting diseases, raising interest in mitochondrial gene editing via nucleases and base editors. In this Primer, Shoop et al. discuss mitochondrial gene editing tools, analyses and limitations in the field.

This PrimeView highlights how isothermal titration calorimetry can be used to study molecular interactions.

Isothermal titration calorimetry uses the heat of a reaction to study molecular interactions in solution. This Primer introduces the method, from fundamental principles and experimental set-up, to applications involving complex biological interactions.

This PrimeView highlights the use of extended reality techniques across a range of biomedical research applications, including data visualization and training.

Extended reality allows users to be immersed in a virtual environment, with implications for biomedical research and applications. Yuan, Hassan et al. discuss the adoption of extended reality in biomedical research, with a focus on technical advances that overcome current limitations.

This PrimeView highlights chemical reactions that can be improved by using nanostructure-based surface plasmons to create milder conditions.

Plasmon-mediated chemical reactions use nanostructure-based surface plasmons as mediators to drive chemical reactions. Zhan et al. outline the primary considerations and techniques for designing and constructing plasmonic catalysts and describe the typical methods used to characterize plasmonic catalysts and their reaction mechanisms.

This PrimeView highlights the use of different twin study designs in behavioural genetics research to probe causal pathways.

Behavioural genetics examines the underlying factors associated with individual differences in behaviours and capacities. In this Primer, Willoughby et al. discuss the methods used in behavioural genetics analysis, in particular twin studies, genome-wide association studies and statistical modelling.

This PrimeView highlights the techniques used for single-cell pathogen diagnostics to accelerate treatment and contribute to responsible antimicrobial use.

Single-cell pathogen diagnostic tools are increasingly being used to identify and monitor bacterial infections and antimicrobial resistance. In this Primer, Li et al. discuss the assessment, design and implementation of single-cell pathogen diagnostics.

This PrimeView highlights the analytical steps involved in molecular QTL mapping to identify associations between variants and molecular phenotypes.

Molecular quantitative trait locus (molQTL) mapping associates genetic variation with molecular traits that can be measured as gene expression, splicing and chromatin accessibility. In this Primer, Aguet et al. discuss the study design and implementation of molQTL mapping in various applications, with a focus on technical developments for functional characterization.

This PrimeView highlights how the diverse properties of covalent organic frameworks can be used for a range of applications

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are a class of crystalline porous polymers consisting of highly ordered organic structures formed by polymerization. In this Primer, Tan et al. discuss the design principle, experimental methods, characterization and applications of COFs.

This PrimeView highlights how the PCA workflow reduces the dimensions of the original dataset to produce a biplot.

Principal component analysis is a multivariate statistical method that reduces a large number of variables into fewer variables, called principal components. This Primer describes how the method can be used for data analysis, explaining the mathematical background, analytical workflows, how to interpret a biplot and variants of the method.