Streptococcus pneumoniae still causes severe morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in young children and the elderly. Much effort has been dedicated to developing protein-based universal vaccines to conquer the current shortcomings of capsular vaccines and capsular conjugate vaccines, such as serotype replacement, limited coverage and high costs. A recombinant live vector vaccine delivering protective antigens is a promising way to achieve this goal. In this review, we discuss the researches using live recombinant vaccines, mainly live attenuated Salmonella and lactic acid bacteria, to deliver pneumococcal antigens. We also discuss both the limitations and the future of these vaccines.

Cyanovirin-N (CV-N) is an antiviral lectin with potent activity against enveloped viruses, including HIV. The mechanism of action involves high affinity binding to mannose-rich glycans that decorate the surface of enveloped viruses. In the case of HIV, antiviral activity of CV-N is postulated to require multivalent interactions with envelope protein gp120, achieved through a pseudo-repeat of sequence that adopts two near-identical glycan-binding sites, and possibly involves a 3D-domain-swapped dimeric form of CV-N. Here, we present a covalent dimer of CV-N that increases the number of active glycan-binding sites, and we characterize its ability to recognize four glycans in solution. A CV-N variant was designed in which two native repeats were separated by the “nested” covalent insertion of two additional repeats of CV-N, resulting in four possible glycan-binding sites. The resulting Nested CV-N folds into a wild-type-like structure as assessed by circular dichroism and NMR spectroscopy, and displays high thermal stability with a T_m of 59 °C, identical to WT. All four glycan-binding domains encompassed by the sequence are functional as demonstrated by isothermal titration calorimetry, which revealed two sets of binding events to dimannose with dissociation constants K_d of 25 μM and 900 μM, assigned to domains B and B’ and domains A and A’ respectively. Nested CV-N displays a slight increase in activity when compared to WT CV-N in both an anti-HIV cellular assay and a fusion assay. This construct conserves the original binding specifityies of domain A and B, thus indicating correct fold of the two CV-N repeats. Thus, rational design can be used to increase multivalency in antiviral lectins in a controlled manner.

This paper aims to contribute to the evolving literature on the new landscape of scholarly journals. It builds on a series of experiences as a journal editor which span the print and digital eras, and focuses on two current activities with new journals. One was designed as a synoptic journal in a broad multidisciplinary field, supported by a commercial publisher; the other a non-revenue journal which aims to showcase the work of undergraduates in the author’s institution. Despite the uniqueness of goals and delivery, some of the experiences—and challenges—have proved remarkably similar.

Restoration projects can have varying goals, depending on the specific focus, rationale, and aims for restoration. When restoration projects use project-specific goals to define activities and gauge success without considering broader ecological context, determination of project implications and success can be confounding. We used case studies from the Middle Rio Grande (MRG), southwest USA, to demonstrate how restoration outcomes can rank inconsistently when narrowly-based goals are used. Resource managers have chosen MRG for restoration due to impacts to the natural flood regime, reduced native tree recruitment, and establishment of non-native plants. We show restoration “success” ranks differently based upon three goals: increasing biodiversity, increasing specific ecosystem functions, or restoring native communities. We monitored 12 restored and control sites for seven years. Treatments ranked higher in reducing exotic woody populations, and increasing proportions of native plants and groundwater salvage, but generally worse at removing fuels, and increasing species and habitat structural diversity. Managers cannot rely on the term “restoration” to sufficiently describe a project’s aim. Specific desired outcomes must be defined and monitored. Long-term planning should include flexibility to incorporate provisions for adaptive management to refine treatments to avoid unintended ecological consequences.

Myxoma virus (MYXV) is Leporipoxvirus that possesses a specific rabbit‐restricted host tropism but exhibits a much broader cellular host range in cultured cells. MYXV is able to efficiently block all aspects of the type I interferon (IFN)‐induced antiviral state in rabbit cells, partially in human cells and very poorly in mouse cells. The mechanism(s) of this species‐specific inhibition of type I IFN‐induced antiviral state is not well understood. Here we demonstrate that MYXV encoded protein M029, a truncated relative of the vaccinia virus (VACV) E3 double‐stranded RNA (dsRNA) binding protein that inhibits protein kinase R (PKR), can also antagonize the type I IFN‐induced antiviral state in a highly species‐specific manner. In cells pre‐treated with type I IFN prior to infection, MYXV exploits M029 to overcome the induced antiviral state completely in rabbit cells, partially in human cells, but not at all in mouse cells. However, in cells pre‐infected with MYXV, IFN‐induced signaling is fully inhibited even in the absence of M029 in cells from all three species, suggesting that other MYXV protein(s) apart from M029 block IFN signaling in a speciesindependent manner. We also show that the antiviral state induced in rabbit, human or mouse cells by type I IFN can inhibit M029‐knockout MYXV even when PKR is genetically knocked‐out, suggesting that M029 targets other host proteins for this antiviral state inhibition. Thus, the MYXV dsRNA binding protein M029 not only antagonizes PKR from multiple species but also blocks the type I IFN antiviral state independently of PKR in a highly species‐specific fashion.

Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as visual performance improvement after visual experiences. VPL is often highly specific for a visual feature presented during training. Such specificity is observed in behavioral tuning function changes with the highest improvement centered on the trained feature and was originally thought to be evidence for changes in the early visual system associated with VPL. However, results of neurophysiological studies have been highly controversial concerning whether the plasticity underlying VPL occurs within the visual cortex. The controversy may be partially due to the lack of observation of neural tuning function changes in multiple visual areas in association with VPL. Here using human subjects we systematically compared behavioral tuning function changes after global motion detection training with decoded tuning function changes for 8 visual areas using pattern classification analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals. We found that the behavioral tuning function changes were extremely highly correlated to decoded tuning function changes only in V3A, which is known to be highly responsive to global motion with human subjects. We conclude that VPL of a global motion detection task involves plasticity in a specific visual cortical area.