Correction to: Abiotic resource depletion potentials (ADPs) for elements revisited—updating ultimate reserve estimates and introducing time series for production data

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake which was missed during typesetting. The caption to Fig. 5 was...     

Ex ante life cycle assessment of GaAs/Si nanowire–based tandem solar cells: a benchmark for industrialization

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The goal of this study is to perform an ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA) of the emerging gallium-arsenide nanowire tandem solar cells on...     

Sensitivity to weighting in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Weighting in life cycle assessment (LCA) incorporates stakeholder preferences in the decision-making process of comparative LCAs. Research...     

CRISPR-based DNA and RNA detection with liquid-liquid phase separation

The ability to detect specific nucleic acid sequences allows for a wide range of applications such as the identification of pathogens, clinical diagnostics, and genotyping. CRISPR-Cas proteins Cas12a and Cas13a are RNA-guided endonucleases that bind and cleave specific DNA and RNA sequences, respectively. After recognition of a target sequence, both enzymes activate indiscriminate nucleic acid cleavage, which has been exploited for sequence-specific molecular diagnostics of nucleic acids. Here, we present a label-free detection approach that uses a readout based on solution turbidity caused by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Our approach relies on the fact that the LLPS of oppositely charged polymers requires polymers to be longer than a critical length. This length dependence is predicted by the Voorn-Overbeek model, which we describe in detail and validate experimentally in mixtures of polynucleotides and polycations. We show that the turbidity resulting from LLPS can be used to detect the presence of specific nucleic acid sequences by employing the programmable CRISPR-nucleases Cas12a and Cas13a. Because LLPS of polynucleotides and polycations causes solutions to become turbid, the detection of specific nucleic acid sequences can be observed with the naked eye. We furthermore demonstrate that there is an optimal polynucleotide concentration for detection. Finally, we provide a theoretical prediction that hints towards possible improvements of an LLPS-based detection assay. The deployment of LLPS complements CRISPR-based molecular diagnostic applications and facilitates easy and low-cost nucleotide sequence detection.     

Regulatory KIR+RA+ T cells accumulate with age and are highly activated during viral respiratory disease

Severe respiratory viral infectious diseases such as influenza and COVID‐19 especially affect the older population. This is partly ascribed to diminished CD8⁺ T‐cell responses a result of aging. The phenotypical diversity of the CD8⁺ T‐cell population has made it difficult to identify the impact of aging on CD8⁺ T‐cell subsets associated with diminished CD8⁺ T‐cell responses. Here we identify a novel human CD8⁺ T‐cell subset characterized by expression of Killer‐cell Immunoglobulin‐like Receptors (KIR⁺) and CD45RA (RA⁺). These KIR⁺RA⁺ T cells accumulated with age in the blood of healthy individuals (20–82 years of age, n = 50), expressed high levels of aging‐related markers of T‐cell regulation, and were functionally capable of suppressing proliferation of other CD8⁺ T cells. Moreover, KIR⁺RA⁺ T cells were a major T‐cell subset becoming activated in older adults suffering from an acute respiratory viral infection (n = 36), including coronavirus and influenza virus infection. In addition, older adults with influenza A infection showed that higher activation status of their KIR⁺RA⁺ T cells associated with longer duration of respiratory symptoms. Together, our data indicate that KIR⁺RA⁺ T cells are a unique human T‐cell subset with regulatory properties that may explain susceptibility to viral respiratory disease at old age.     

Lipoarabinomannan mannose caps do not affect mycobacterial virulence or the induction of protective immunity in experimental animal models of infection and have minimal impact on in vitro inflammatory responses

Mannose‐capped lipoarabinomannan (ManLAM) is considered an important virulence factor of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, while mannose caps have been reported to be responsible for various immunosuppressive activities of ManLAMobserved in vitro, there is conflicting evidence about their contribution to mycobacterial virulence in vivo. Therefore, we used Mycobacterium bovis BCG and M. tuberculosis mutants that lack the mannose cap of LAM to assess the role of ManLAM in the interaction of mycobacteria with the host cells, to evaluate vaccine‐induced protection and to determine its importance in M. tuberculosis virulence. Deletion of the mannose cap did not affect BCG survival and replication in macrophages, although the capless mutant induced a somewhat higher production of TNF. In dendritic cells, the capless mutant was able to induce the upregulation of co‐stimulatory molecules and the only difference we detected was the secretion of slightly higher amounts of IL‐10 as compared to the wild type strain. In mice, capless BCG survived equally well and induced an immune response similar to the parental strain. Furthermore, the efficacy of vaccination against a M. tuberculosis challenge in low‐dose aerosol infection models in mice and guinea pigs was not affected by the absence of the mannose caps in the BCG. Finally, the lack of the mannose cap in M. tuberculosis did not affect its virulence in mice nor its interaction with macrophages in vitro. Thus, these results do not support a major role for the mannose caps of LAM in determining mycobacterial virulence and immunogenicity in vivo in experimental animal models of infection, possibly because of redundancy of function.