Technology Development Initiative Paper of the Month

Nanoparticle single-cell multiomic readouts reveal that cell heterogeneity influences lipid nanoparticle-mediated messenger RNA delivery. Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University’s School of Medicine have developed a system that makes nanoparticle delivery to subsets of cells more predictable by combining DNA barcoding with a nanoparticle delivery system called single-cell nanoparticle targeting-sequencing (SENT-seq). Using SENT-seq, the investigators identified how different nanoparticles deliver DNA barcodes and mRNA into cells to affect the transcriptome and proteome with single cell resolution. [Read More]

Transgenic mice for in vivo epigenome editing with CRISPR-based systems. Nature Methods.

Gemberling et al. generated and validated two new Cre-dependent transgenic mouse lines harboring LSL-dCas9-p300 (gene activator/histone acetyltransferase) and LSL-dCas9-KRAB (gene repressor/histone methyltransferase). The authors demonstrated that guide RNAs targeting gene enhancers and the gene promoter are effective at modulating both histone modification state and gene transcription. [Read More]

Dense functional and molecular readout of a circuit hub in sensory cortex. Science.

The Comprehensive readout of activity and cell type markers (CRACK) platform combines multi-area two photon calcium imaging microscopy with hybridization chain reaction–fluorescence in situ hybridization (HCR-FISH) to label and track mRNA. CRACK allows researchers to first observe the electrical firing of neurons in the brain of a live mouse during a behavioral task, and then track the expression of specific genes in slices of the animal’s brain, ultimately linking specific cells and their molecular signatures to behaviors. [Read More]

SMART: An Open-Source Extension of WholeBrain for Intact Mouse Brain Registration and Segmentation. eNeuro.

Jin et al. presents an optimized protocol for Fos staining, a marker of neuronal activation, in a cleared mouse brain and provide an open-source R package called SMART (Semi-Manual Alignment to Reference Templates) as an extension to the Wholebrain pipeline (PMID: 29203898). SMART is designed to make whole-brain activity mapping more accessible to researchers looking to implement the technique and analysis into their research program. [Read More]

An integrated wearable microneedle array for the continuous monitoring of multiple biomarkers in interstitial fluid. Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Tehrani et al, describes the development and implementation of a wearable sensor that contains an array of microneedles for real-time monitoring of lactate and glucose or alcohol and glucose from interstitial fluid. This paper highlights the potential for garnering clinical data from individuals with alcohol abuse disorder, liver disease, and metabolic diseases. [Read More]

Verification of technical characteristics and performance of VeinViewer Flex, ICEN IN-G090-2 and AccuVein AV400 transillumination devices. Clinica Chimica Acta.

The authors describe a transillumination device that uses near infrared light-emitting diodes to visualize superficial veins and project a real-time image of the veins directly on the surface of the skin. This emerging technology has potential applications both clinically and pre-clinically to improve successful venipuncture for blood sampling and injection of therapeutics in challenging patient populations. [Read More]

Enhancer viruses for combinatorial cell-subclass-specific labeling. Neuron.

Two studies published last year harnessed single-cell chromatin accessibility to define and test cell-type-distinguishing enhancers for generating AAVs to express transgenes in discrete cell populations, and to study expression correspondence between species. These approaches provide researchers with one avenue to access specific cell types in the brain for targeted population studies and gene therapies. [Read More]

A chromatin integration labelling method enables epigenomic profiling with lower input. Nature Cell Biology.

Here in the article, authors introduce chromatin integration labelling (ChIL), a technique that combines immunostaining, transposase tagging and linear amplification for low-input epigenome/protein-binding profiling even from single cells. Using ChIL followed by sequencing (ChIL–seq), authors reliably detected the distributions of histone modifications and DNA-binding factors in 100–1,000 cells. [Read More]

Closed-loop wearable naloxone injector system. Scientific Reports.

Chan et al. (2021) have developed a wearable device to detect and reverse an opioid overdose by automatically injecting naloxone to a person who has stopped breathing and moving. This proof-of-principal technology has wide-ranging clinical and commercial potential, including helping to reduce the number of fatal opioid overdoses that could have been prevented if naloxone was available. [Read More]