[Nature] To devise a strategy to protect allogeneic CAR T cells from host immune cells, researchers turned to lymphotropic viruses that have evolved integrated mechanisms for the immune escape of virus-infected lymphocytes.

[Nature Microbiology] Scientists showed that HD5 induced abundant filopodial extensions in epithelial cells that captured Shigella, a major human enteroinvasive pathogen that was able to exploit these filopodia for invasion, revealing a mechanism for HD5-augmented bacterial invasion.

[Genome Medicine] Scientists presented MixInfect2, a new tool to accurately detect mixed samples from Mycobacterium tuberculosis short-read whole genome sequence data.

[PLOS Biology] Investigators showed that mRNAs highly induced in synMuv B mutants were congruent with those induced by Orsay RNA virus infection, suggesting that the enhanced RNAi of synMuv B mutants may also be triggered by down-regulation of synMuvB gene activity in an Orsay virus infection of wild type.

[Journal of Virology] The authors hypothesized that diversifying T-cell responses, particularly targeting conserved viral proteins such as the influenza A virus (IAV) nucleoprotein, could protect against both epidemic and pandemic IAV strains.

[Communications Biology] Investigators highlighted the importance of considering fluctuations in vector immunity in relation to the length of a thermal challenge to understand natural variation in vector response to viruses and frame realistic transmission models.

[Acta Tropica] Researchers investigated the modulation of different splenic subsets of B cells during Plasmodium yoelii infection. Balb/c mice infected with each Plasmodium yoelii XL and XNL parasite were used for phenotypic characterization of splenic B cell subsets through flow cytometry.

[Nature Medicine] Researchers measured plasma biomarkers linked to Alzheimer’s disease pathology in the UK Biobank before and after serology-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections.

[Journal of Medical Virology] Investigators showed that the SARS-CoV-2 accessory protein, ORF9b, but not other SARS-CoV-2 accessory proteins, strongly activated inflammasome-dependent caspase-1 in A549 lung carcinoma cells and THP-1 monocyte-macrophage cells.

[Scientific Reports] The COVIVAX study assessed the association between COVID-19 vaccination and the risk of common neurological disorders in a multicenter case-control design.

[PLOS Pathogens] The authors review the factors affecting the disease severity, the genetics of host–parasite interaction, immune evasion mechanisms, and approaches potentially to improve host immune response for vaccine development.

[Pfizer, Inc.] Pfizer, Inc. announced positive topline results from the progression-free survival analysis of the Phase III BREAKWATER study of BRAFTOVI® in combination with cetuximab and mFOLFOX6 in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer harboring a BRAF V600E mutation.