Synthetic Biology

Cell-free protein synthesis as a method to rapidly screen machine learning-directed protease variants

1. Ella Lucille Thornton
2. Jeremy T. Boyle
3. Nadanai Laohakunakorn
4. Lynne Regan

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

A practical DNA data storage using an expanded alphabet introducing 5-methylcytosine

1. Deruilin Liu
2. Demin Xu
3. Liuxin Shi
4. Jiayuan Zhang
5. Kewei Bi
6. Bei Luo
7. Chen Liu
8. Yuxiang Li
9. Guangyi Fan
10. Wen Wang
11. Zhi Ping

• Curated by GigaByte

  Editors Assessment:

  DNA has huge potential as a data storage medium because of its incredibly high storage density and stability. This work addresses the potential of modified bases, specifically 5-methylcytosine (5mC), in enhancing DNA data storage systems. This paper introduces a transcoding scheme named R+, which incorporates this modified 5mC base to increase information density beyond the standard limits. By encoding various file types into DNA sequences of between 1.3 to 1.6 kb in size, this method achieves an average recovery rate of 98.97% (with reference), validating the effectiveness of the method. On top of a wet-lab protocol (hosted in protocols.io) for the experimental validation of the transcoding scheme, it also includes open source code for in-silico simulation tests. Peer review scruitinising the protocols and validation are reusable and provide convincing results. As nanopore sequencing has enabled reading of these modified bases, it is timely making them applicable as extra letters in the molecular alphabet for DNA data storage

  This evaluation refers to version 1 of the preprint

Reviewed by GigaByte

Spheroplasted cells: a game changer for DNA delivery to diatoms

1. E.J.L. Walker
2. M. Pampuch
3. L. Deng.
4. Y. Li
5. G. Tran
6. T. Mock
7. B.J. Karas

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Mapping targetable sites on the human surfaceome for the design of novel binders

1. Petra E. M. Balbi
2. Ahmed Sadek
3. Anthony Marchand
4. Ta-Yi Yu
5. Jovan Damjanovic
6. Sandrine Georgeon
7. Joseph Schmidt
8. Simone Fulle
9. Che Yang
10. Hamed Khakzad
11. Bruno E. Correia

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Chai-1: Decoding the molecular interactions of life

1. Chai Discovery
2. Jacques Boitreaud
3. Jack Dent
4. Matthew McPartlon
5. Joshua Meier
6. Vinicius Reis
7. Alex Rogozhnikov
8. Kevin Wu

Reviewed by PREreview

De novo-designed minibinders expand the synthetic biology sensing repertoire

1. Zara Y Weinberg
2. Sarah S Soliman
3. Matthew S Kim
4. Devan H Shah
5. Irene P Chen
6. Melanie Ott
7. Wendell A Lim
8. Hana El-Samad

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a useful investigation of the use of small, de novo-designed protein binding domains (mini-binders) against the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and EGFR, as ligand binding domains on two classes of synthetic receptors, second-generation synNotch (SNIPR) and CAR. The methods and evidence supporting the focused claims are solid. This work will be of interest to synthetic biologists and cell engineers as a starting point to map out the rules for receptor engineering based on mini-binders and ultimately to advance them in biomedical applications.

Reviewed by eLife