Journal: The Journal of Infectious Diseases

Article Title: Cytomegalovirus DNAemia in Hospitalized Adults With SARS-CoV-2 Infection Requiring Supplemental Oxygen: Virologic and Clinical Characteristics and Association With Outcomes

doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf649

Figure Lengend Snippet: Multivariate analysis of maximum SARS-CoV-2 viral load between baseline and day 15 ( A ) and between day 15 and 29 ( B ) among day 15 survivors. Mean differences refer to cycle threshold values obtained by polymerase chain reaction. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; CMV, cytomegalovirus; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

Article Snippet: In CMV-seropositive trial participants, baseline and longitudinal plasma samples were tested by quantitative CMV plasma polymerase chain reaction (PCR; Abbott RealTime CMV assay, Abbott Laboratories, Chicago, IL, USA).

Techniques: Polymerase Chain Reaction

Journal: Science Advances

Article Title: Intestinal resident effector–memory CD4 T cells on the adaptive-innate spectrum comprise IL-18 reactivity and adaptive CMV specificity

doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aed0028

Figure Lengend Snippet: ( A ) Relative abundance of TCRα chains (defined by TRA genes) within each memory CD4 T cell subset and ( B ) overlap in number of TRA clones between subsets. ( C ) Overlap of the top five largest TRA clones between memory CD4 T cell subsets. ( D ) Individual memory CD4 T cell clones with predicted reactivity against viral (black) or nonviral (red) antigen highlighted on UMAP. Blue outline and shade indicate CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cell cluster. ( E ) Abundance of TRA clones with antigen specificity identified by reverse-epitope prediction against database included in Trex algorithm within all memory CD4 T cells. ( F ) Relative fraction of TRA clones within the CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cell cluster or all other memory CD4 T cells with reactivity against various viruses or ( G ) specifically CMV. ( H ) T cell activation–induced marker assay after 12 hours of stimulation of PBMCs with CMV peptide pool and flow cytometry of TNF and CD69 ( n = 6). Boxplots show responses of CD4 T cell populations defined by CD161 and CD56 to the CMV peptide pool. ( I ) Frequency of CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cells as fraction of total T cells present in PBMCs, separated by CMV-IgG serostatus. Data point shape indicates gender of blood and tissue donors. ( J ) Spearman correlation of CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cell frequency in CMV-seropositive individuals between peripheral blood and ileum tissue. ( K ) CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cell frequency in CMV-seropositive donor-matched blood and intestinal tissue, separated by gender. ( L ) Spearman correlation of CD161 + CD56 + CD4 T cell frequency against donor age. Statistical comparison between CD4 T cell subsets is made by Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons with * P < 0.05 and ** P < 0.01.

Article Snippet: Alternatively, PBMCs were stimulated with a CMV peptide pool including 42 CMV peptides of which 14 are MHC-II restricted (Mabtech).

Techniques: Clone Assay, Activation Assay, Marker, Flow Cytometry, Comparison

Journal: bioRxiv

Article Title: Protocol for designing and interpreting minigene assays to validate candidate splice altering variants

doi: 10.64898/2026.05.05.723105

Figure Lengend Snippet: Example minigene construct. A. Example of a gene insert designed and synthesised for validating the effect of a predicted splicing variant in vitro . Restriction sites () on the 5’ and 3’ ends are selected to allow for ligation into an expression plasmid. For this construct these are Not1 and BamH1. Primer sites (denoted in dark green) allow for selective amplification of the gene insert for downstream analysis. The variant of interest in this case is a splice acceptor within an intron, which is predicted to result in a cryptic exon. The two bordering exons are also included in the designed gene fragment. B. Gene fragment in the expression plasmid (pTwist CMV) under control of the strong CMV promoter.

Article Snippet: We used pTwist CMV from Twist Bioscience.

Techniques: Construct, Variant Assay, In Vitro, Ligation, Expressing, Plasmid Preparation, Amplification, Control