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Bacteria reinvent their weapons through selection, chance and gene swapping

Many of the most potent antibiotics originate from bacteria. A large proportion belong to a class of compounds known as nonribosomal peptides (NRP). They are produced by large bacterial enzyme machineries—the nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPS for short. These function like molecular assembly lines: Similar to the stations in a car factory, where new parts are added to the car at each step, several specialized modules string together amino acid by amino acid to build a peptide.

The finished product is used in nature as a weapon in microbial competition—and by us humans, chemically optimized, as an active ingredient in medicines. The research group of Helge Bode at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology aims to engineer the NRPS machinery at the genetic level to create entirely new drug candidates. Their latest paper, “Drift, selection and recombination bias drive the evolution of a non-ribosomal peptide,” is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Like ordinary proteins, NRPs are subject to evolution—but the way they change is unusual. While ordinary proteins evolve mainly through random mutations of individual DNA building blocks, NRPS exchange entire gene segments with one another. This process is called recombination. The result is new combinations of modules—and thus new peptides with altered chemical properties.

Southampton scientists explore immune cell reprogramming to fight common viruses

Scientists have started work on a new way to fight cold and flu viruses by reprogramming the cells in our immune system to respond faster to infections.

Experts at the University of Southampton are developing a type of white blood cell, called killer cells, with a pre-installed memory of how to fight off respiratory diseases.

It is a different approach to traditional jabs, which contain a weakened and harmless pathogen used to train the immune system to destroy future infections.

Drought shifts more plant root cells into newly discovered environmental response mode

Scientists have discovered a hidden layer of identity in plant root cells: an “environmental mode” that switches on in some cells and becomes more common when water is scarce. The study, led by Dr. Marina Oliva and professor Ryan Lister, from the ARC Center of Excellence in Plants for Space and The University of Western Australia’s School of Molecular Sciences, examined how plant cells responded to drought conditions. The work is published in Nature

“Roots have long been described as a set of well-defined, distinct cell types, each following a single path from young cell to mature cell,” Oliva said.

Researchers read the gene activity of hundreds of thousands of individual cells from the root tip of the model plant Arabidopsis. They found that almost every cell type splits into two groups: cells that switch on a shared set of hundreds of genes involved in responding to environmental conditions and cells that do not switch these on.

World-first touchscreen built into garment showcased, displays videos, responds to finger presses

Researchers have showcased the world’s first touchscreen built into a garment. The team from the National University of Singapore’s College of Design and Engineering (CDE) have developed a fibre that functions as pixels and senses touch at the same time, integrating 54 of them into a sleeve to create the world’s first touchscreen built into a garment.

“What made this possible was our ability to construct the GUI system from electronic building blocks in fibre form — similar to traditional yarn, but with the sophisticated electronic functionality built directly into the fibres,” said Asst Prof Khudiyev.