Electroporation is a technique to introduce DNA constructs into cells using electric current. Here, we present a protocol to electroporate DNA plasmids into Ciona robusta embryos at the 1-cell stage. We describe steps for setting up and conducting electroporation. We then detail procedures for collecting, fixing, and mounting embryos and counting e...
Recapitulating spontaneous metastasis in preclinical models is crucial for understanding mechanisms underlying cancer progression and testing effective therapeutic interventions. We present a protocol for establishing and characterizing the spontaneous metastasis model in mice. We describe steps for generating primary tumors, tumor resection, monit...
Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) is the most well-established model plant to date. Being the first plant to have its genome mapped, studies on Arabidopsis have provided insurmountable insights into the physiological and biochemical nature of plants. Methods that allow us to computationally study the metabolism of organisms include the use of geno...
peer reviewed
The Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, UK, is a pioneer in basic biology research. Since the 1950s, this research institute --- currently with around 700 staff --- has produced a dozen Nobel prize winners, including DNA decipherers James Watson, Francis Crick and Fred Sanger. In the last 15 years, the LMB...
peer reviewed / The feral cattle of the subantarctic island of Amsterdam provide an outstanding case study of a large mammalian population that was established by a handful of founders and thrived within a few generations in a seemingly inhospitable environment. Here, we investigated the genetic history and composition of this population using geno...
peer reviewed / [en] UNLABELLED: Branching/tillering is a critical process for plant architecture and grain yield. However, Branching is intricately controlled by both endogenous and environmental factors. The underlying mechanisms of tillering in wheat remain poorly understood. In this study, we identified Less Tiller 1 (LT1) as a novel regulator ...
peer reviewed / A fundamental challenge in neuroscience is accurately defining brain states and predicting how and where to perturb the brain to force a transition. Here, we investigated resting-state fMRI data of patients suffering from disorders of consciousness (DoC) after coma (minimally conscious and unresponsive wakefulness states) and health...
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a common herpesvirus that infects a majority of the population and can be particularly harmful for immunocompromised individuals and transplant patients. An important aspect of HCMV biology is its ability to become latent and later reactivate, establishing a lifelong infection. The RL11 region of HCMV contains genes ...
peer reviewed / Infection with bovine leukemia virus (BLV) leads to enzootic bovine leukosis, the most prevalent neoplastic disease in cattle. Due to the lack of commercially available vaccines, reliable eradication of the disease can be achieved through the testing and elimination of BLV antibody-positive animals. In this study, we developed a nov...
