We have previously shown that the diversity of antibodies in an individual can be displayed on chips on which 130,000 peptides chosen from random sequence space have been synthesized. This immunosignature technology is unbiased in displaying antibody diversity relative to natural sequence space, and has been shown to have diagnostic and prognostic potential for a wide variety of diseases and vaccines. Here we show that a global measure such as Shannon’s entropy can be calculated for each immunosignature. The immune entropy was measured across a diverse set of 800 people and in 5 individuals over 3 months. The immune entropy is affected by some population characteristics and varies widely across individuals. We find that people with infections or breast cancer, generally have higher entropy values than non-diseased individuals. We propose that the immune entropy as measured from immunosignatures may be a simple method to monitor health in individuals and populations.
Recent infectious outbreaks highlight the need for platform technologies that can be quickly deployed to develop therapeutics needed to contain the outbreak. We present a simple concept for rapid development of new antimicrobials. The goal was to produce in as little as one week thousands of doses of an intervention for a new pathogen. We tested the feasibility of a system based on antimicrobial synbodies. The system involves creating an array of 100 peptides that have been selected for broad capability to bind and/or kill viruses and bacteria. The peptides are pre-screened for low cell toxicity prior to large scale synthesis. Any pathogen is then assayed on the chip to find peptides that bind or kill it. Peptides are combined in pairs as synbodies and further screened for activity and toxicity. The lead synbody can be quickly produced in large scale, with completion of the entire process in one week.
Metagenomic approaches are rapidly expanding our knowledge of the diversity of viruses. In the fecal matter of Nigerian chimpanzees we recovered three gokushovirus genomes, one circular replication-associated protein encoding single-stranded DNA virus (CRESS), and a CRESS DNA molecule.
Implementation of a vector-enabled metagenomics approach resulted in the identification of various gemini viruses. We identified the genome sequences of beet curly top Iran virus, turnip curly top viruses, oat dwarf viruses, the first from Iran, and wheat dwarf virus from leafhoppers feeding on beet, parsley, pumpkin, and turnip plants.
Here we report the first complete genome sequence of a cauliflower mosaic virus from Brazil, obtained from the gut content of the predator earwig (Doru luteipes). This virus has a genome of 8,030 nucleotides (nt) and shares 97% genome-wide identity with an isolate from Argentina.
A new genomovirus has been identified in three common bean plants in Brazil. This virus has a circular genome of 2,220 nucleotides and 3 major open reading frames. It shares 80.7% genome-wide pairwise identity with a genomovirus recovered from Tongan fruit bat guano.
This case study describes the copyright challenges faced by instructional designers at Arizona State Universities and the strategies implemented by an embedded scholarly communication librarian to address them.
Increasing library involvement in journal hosting and publishing is an important topic for serialists. This installment of “The Balance Point” column presents articles that offer descriptions and analyses of the current state of ideas and activities related to libraries as publishers. Featured authors discuss the publishing and journal hosting tasks libraries can perform, programs and activities related to journal hosting, titles hosted, challenges, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks foreseen in the current paths of the libraries they represent.