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Ancient bat antiviral protein blocks SARS-CoV-2

November 28, 2023

Ancient bat antiviral protein blocks SARS-CoV-2

The human OAS1 protein restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication, but the horseshoe bat OAS1 has lost this ability. Spyros Lytras, Sam Wilson and colleagues resurrect the functional 60-million-year-old OAS1 protein ancestral to all horseshoe bats, and reveal how this ancient antiviral mechanism was lost in the bats.

Image credit: Spyros Lytras & DALL-E 3

PLOS Biologue

Community blog for PLOS Biology, PLOS Genetics and PLOS Computational Biology.

PLOS BIOLOGUE

11/29/2023

Research Article

Making friends... and keeping them

For social interaction to be successful, two conditions must be met: the motivation to initiate it and the ability to maintain it. Karolina Rojek-Sito, Ewelina Knapska and co-workers use optogenetic and chemogenetic approaches to reveal the specific neural pathways that selectively influence those two social interaction components. Also read the accompanying Primer by Natália Madeira and Cristina Márquez.

Image credit: pbio.3002343

Making friends... and keeping them

Recently Published Articles

Current Issue

Current Issue October 2023

11/28/2023

Research Article

Heart over head?

Human cognition and action can be influenced by internal bodily processes such as heartbeats. By studying motor excitability and muscle activity across the cardiac cycle of humans, Esra Al, Vadim Nikulin and colleagues reveal previously unknown heart-brain interactions that suggest distinct time windows optimized for either action or perception.

Image credit: pbio.3002393

Heart over head?

11/20/2023

Research Article

Forming long-term memories while asleep

Understanding how individual memories are reactivated during sleep is essential in understanding memory consolidation. Jing Liu, Tatia Lee, Xiaoqing Hu and co-workers show that during human slow-wave sleep, unobtrusively re-presenting memory reminders elicits fine-grained item-specific neural representations that support the formation of long-term memories.

Image credit: pbio.3002399

Forming long-term memories while asleep

11/20/2023

Research Article

Centriole duplication... explained by Turing

How do mother centrioles generate only a single daughter centriole? Zachary Wilmott, Alain Goriely and Jordan Raff show that Polo-like kinase 4 (PLK4), the master regulator of centriole biogenesis, may form a simple two-component Turing-system to allow it to break symmetry and form a single site for daughter centriole assembly.

Centriole duplication... explained by Turing

Image credit: pbio.3002391

11/20/2023

Research Article

Meningeal trypanosomiasis and autoimmunity

Juan Quintana, Neil Mabbott and co-authors show that chronic brain infection with African trypanosomes induces broad meningeal responses resulting in the development of ectopic lymphoid aggregates containing autoreactive B cells; myelin basic protein is one of the autoantigens detected by autoreactive B cells, consistent with the cortical demyelination observed in experimental infections.

Meningeal trypanosomiasis and autoimmunity

Image credit: pbio.3002389

11/20/2023

Research Article

Midbrain role in fear response

Fear responses to threat represent an essential survival instinct. While previous work has focused primarily on the forebrain and limbic system, Hyoseo Lee, Hannah Weinberg-Wolf, Hae-Lim Lee, Andrii Rudenko, In-Jung Kim and colleagues examine the midbrain visual circuitry, identifying specific molecular mechanisms underlying its organization and fear-related behavioral function.

Midbrain role in fear response

Image credit: pbio.3002386

11/27/2023

Perspective

It’s time for chronobiology

Circadian clocks are everywhere, yet we still have not translated the vast knowledge on the properties of circadian clocks into practical applications. Martha Merrow looks at the past, present and future of chronobiology.

It’s time for chronobiology

Image credit: Pixabay user Gerd Altmann

11/21/2023

Essay

Open access illustrations of eukaryotic microbes

Patrick Keeling and Yana Eglit provide a series of technical diagrams to aid with teaching and communication on the complexity and diversity of microbial eukaryotes.

Open access illustrations of eukaryotic microbes

Image credit: pbio.3002395

11/20/2023

Perspective

How many species?

How many species are there on Earth? Projections have ranged from the millions to the trillions. John Wiens looks at how a 2011 PLOS Biology study transformed this field and what is still to be done to find a definitive answer.

How many species?

Image credit: John Wiens

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PLOS Biology | ISSN: 1545-7885 (online)