Biotechnology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Two major advances in optical pooled screening improve substantially on sensitivity and robustness, expanding its applicability to a broader range of biological contexts.

Sample, financial and labor requirements are key barriers to scaling up high-content phenotypic discovery efforts. A broadly applicable method overcomes these challenges through experimental compression (by pooling various perturbations) and computational deconvolution (of their individual effects), empowering the use of phenotypic screening to advance therapeutic discovery.

A CRISPR-based assay both recognizes and amplifies target mRNA, achieving sub-attomolar sensitivity with single-nucleotide resolution. This method enables the detection of low-abundance mRNA in extracellular vesicles, providing clinically relevant information for precision oncology.

Kallisto, bustools and kb-python are a set of tools for quantifying bulk, single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq. Together, this set of free, open-source software tools can produce gene expression quantification from raw sequencing reads.

There are many barriers to gene and protein delivery to plant mitochondria, such as cell walls, cell membranes, and cytosolic localization. Functional peptides have been used to overcome these barriers. Peptides have a characteristic function depending on their sequence and high-order structure. The cytotoxicity of these peptides is also low. Therefore, functional peptides have attracted attention for their ability to improve gene and protein delivery efficiency to plant mitochondria.

The antibody response to infection and vaccination is an essential component of the anti-infective immune response. Here the authors present a de novo protein sequencing method for antibody discovery from polyclonal IgG from human plasma and characterise the antibody response to the Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine.

Digital twins provide a framework to advance the field of personalized medicine by generating clinically actionable strategies that leverage individualized data as well as current and emerging research. Strong interdisciplinary teamwork, specific funding mechanisms and integration of key biological details such as somatic evolution are necessary for the effective adoption of digital twins in medicine.

Two major advances in optical pooled screening improve substantially on sensitivity and robustness, expanding its applicability to a broader range of biological contexts.

Sample, financial and labor requirements are key barriers to scaling up high-content phenotypic discovery efforts. A broadly applicable method overcomes these challenges through experimental compression (by pooling various perturbations) and computational deconvolution (of their individual effects), empowering the use of phenotypic screening to advance therapeutic discovery.

A CRISPR-based assay both recognizes and amplifies target mRNA, achieving sub-attomolar sensitivity with single-nucleotide resolution. This method enables the detection of low-abundance mRNA in extracellular vesicles, providing clinically relevant information for precision oncology.