Contents
30 September 2015
Vol 7, Issue 307
Vol 7, Issue 307
Contents
Focus
- Asthma: Undoing millions of years of coevolution in early life?
Early microbiome composition can predict asthma risk, and asthma development can be subverted when missing protective microbes are restored (Arrieta et al., this issue).
- Endogenous retroviruses in ALS: A reawakening?
New data incriminate the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K in the pathogenesis of ALS and document that the HERV-K envelope protein can be neurotoxic (Li et al., this issue).
Research Articles
- Early infancy microbial and metabolic alterations affect risk of childhood asthma
Supplementing bacterial genera reduced in infants at high risk for asthma ameliorates lung inflammation in mice.
- Human endogenous retrovirus-K contributes to motor neuron disease
Human endogenous retrovirus-K is activated in the cortical neurons of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and expression of the viral envelope protein in mouse brain reproduces the clinical and pathological phenotype of this disease.
- Human IFNAR2 deficiency: Lessons for antiviral immunity
Human IFNAR2 deficiency causes fatal susceptibility to live viral vaccines.
- DEL-1 restrains osteoclastogenesis and inhibits inflammatory bone loss in nonhuman primates
Developmental endothelial locus–1 (DEL-1) is an endogenous homeostatic regulator of osteoclasts that blocks inflammatory bone loss in nonhuman primates.
- Efficient modification of CCR5 in primary human hematopoietic cells using a megaTAL nuclease and AAV donor template
Therapeutic coding sequences can be targeted to the CCR5 locus of primary human T cells with high efficiency by using megaTAL nuclease and an AAV donor template.
Review
- Lessons from Ebola: Improving infectious disease surveillance to inform outbreak management
A maximally effective public health response to infectious disease outbreaks requires the framework of an integrated surveillance system.
Editors' Choice
- Predicting drug resistance before it occurs
Koch and colleagues define possible resistance mechanisms to a small molecule inhibitor before it is tested in cancer patients.
- The heavy toll of influenza
The lung cells of obese individuals may be more susceptible to severe influenza infection.
- Super model
A mathematical model of fluid flow in a tube allows drug delivery to precise regions of the lung.
- Platelet impersonation
Nanoparticles disguised with platelet membranes target vascular injury and infection.
- Boosting the success of retinal gene therapy
Delivering enough therapeutic gene to photoreceptor cells prevents their loss even during the later stages of retinal disease.
Podcast
- Science Translational Medicine Podcast: 30 September 2015
Blythe Sather, Guillermo Romano Ibarra, Andy Scharenberg, and David Rawlings describe their new efficient method for repairing or replacing human genes using homologous recombination.
About The Cover
ONLINE COVER A Healthy Smile (or Snarl). Periodontitis is chronic inflammation of the tissues surrounding teeth, and is not only the primary cause of tooth loss in adults, but also raises the likelihood of heart disease. Shin and colleagues discovered that an anti-inflammatory protein natural to the human body, called DEL-1, also works to prevent bone loss by acting directly on osteoclasts—the cells that resorb bone. Giving DEL-1 to mice and cynomolgus monkeys (on cover) with periodontitis stopped inflammation, restored healthy tissues, and prevented bone loss, suggesting that this endogenous protein holds therapeutic promise for gum disease and other inflammatory bone loss diseases. [CREDIT: A. SHAH/CORBIS]