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Genetic dissection of Flaviviridae host factors through genome-scale CRISPR screens

The Flaviviridae are a family of viruses that cause severe human diseases. For example, dengue virus (DENV) is a rapidly emerging pathogen causing an estimated 100 million symptomatic infections annually worldwide. No approved antivirals are available to date and clinical trials with a tetravalent dengue vaccine showed disappointingly low protection rates. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) also remains a major medical problem, with 160 million...

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Bird brains are dense—with neurons

What do you think they're using all those neurons for? (credit: Flickr user Teddy Llovet)

Birds are smart. They use tools, engage in social learning, plan for the future, and do a variety of other things that were once thought to be exclusively the stuff of primates. But hundreds of millions of years of evolution separate...

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Microsoft tests new tool to remove OEM crapware

Windows 10 already includes ways to clear out applications and data to repair misbehaving systems or prepare them to be sold, courtesy of the Refresh and Reset features added in Windows 8. Microsoft is now adding a third option: a new refresh tool.

Currently available only for Windows Insiders, the new tool fetches a copy of Windows online and performs a clean installation. The only...

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A CRISPR screen defines a signal peptide processing pathway required by flaviviruses

Flaviviruses infect hundreds of millions of people annually, and no antiviral therapy is available. We performed a genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9-based screen to identify host genes that, when edited, resulted in reduced flavivirus infection. Here, we validated nine human genes required for flavivirus infectivity, and these were associated with endoplasmic reticulum functions including translocation, protein degradation, and N-linked glycosylation. In particular, a subset of endoplasmic reticulum-associated...

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AMPK–SKP2–CARM1 signalling cascade in transcriptional regulation of autophagy

Autophagy is a highly conserved self-digestion process, which is essential for maintaining homeostasis and viability in response to nutrient starvation. Although the components of autophagy in the cytoplasm have been well studied, the molecular basis for the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of autophagy is poorly understood. Here we identify co-activator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) as a crucial component of autophagy in mammals. Notably, CARM1...

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