The video for Kenny’s talk at the Mutational Scanning Symposium talk held in Boston in May 2024 can now be found at the CMAP_CEGS Youtube channel, at this link: https://youtu.be/C4bFAmKl4Q4?si=OhuPfVPEFtEkREYe
Pseudotyped Virus Entry Assay with Multiplexed Receptor Libraries
May 30th, 2024 update:
Now published in PLoS Pathogens! Find it at this link: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1012044
Originally posted February 25th 2024:
We made a pseudotyped virus entry assay with barcoded receptor protein constructs for pooled single-cycle infection experiments, tested a small library of ACE2 mutants and orthologs, and saw ways in which SARS2 variant spikes shifted ACE2 engagement: https://t.co/1Fme8DXoQl
— Kenneth Matreyek (@kmatreyek) February 14, 2024
Open Research Assistant Position
Our lab space issues were recently resolved, so I’m now able to spend some of my remaining start-up funds to hire more personnel. I also have a bunch of starts to various research directions, and nobody aside from me to push parts of them forward in various aspects (eg. tissue culture, data analysis, experimental planning). I’m curious to see if I can find a relatively recent college graduate that is interested in pursuing a PhD program, but wants to take a year or two beforehand to gain more hands-on research experience. Well, if so, here’s an open position on the CWRU hiring website that can be applied to (if you’re like me and already a CWRU employee, you may need to open that link in an incognito window since existing cookies can get in the way otherwise).
6/3/24 update: We were able to hire someone for the position! Update to the personnel page of the lab website when they start in August.
Recombinastics paper in ACS Synth Biol
Our new paper, describing double landing pad cells and some other nifty tricks or assay configurations you can do with having orthogonal Bxb1 recombinase sites, is now published in ACS Synthetic Biology.
Phenotypic homogeneity of cells with genomic “landing pad” transgene integration can simplify assays for protein function. We made double landing pad HEK cells that reproducibly allow two independent single-copy integrations, with some new possibilities. https://t.co/ynbm4VQQpA
— Kenneth Matreyek (@kmatreyek) November 3, 2023
Kenny gets an R21 to study Sarbecovirus receptor interactions
The Matreyek lab is awarded a 2-year R21 grant to study how various Sarbecovirus (ie. SARS-like coronavirus) receptor binding domain sequences correspond to binding and infection with various ACE2 receptor sequences (eg. variants of human ACE2, or sequences of diverse ACE2 orthologs across mammals) to find the rules governing molecular compatibilities between these viruses and their potential hosts. More information here.
Nidhi and Nisha get travel awards for Discover BMB 2023
Both Nidhi and Nisha receive travel awards to offset costs of attending and presenting at the Discover BMB 2023 in March in Seattle! Good job you two, and thanks ASBMB for providing these travel award opportunities to trainees!
ACE2 dependency paper in PLoS Biology
Our paper, entitled “Expanded ACE2 dependencies of diverse SARS-like coronavirus receptor binding domains” (Roelle et al), is published in PLoS Biology!
New preprint! SARS-like CoVs sequenced from bats in Europe and Africa use various horseshoe bat ACE2s for entry. Viruses found in Russia and Kenya also have the ability to at least weakly use human ACE2. Molecular insights for understanding zoonosis. 1/3https://t.co/gkIfSYtXFO
— Kenneth Matreyek (@kmatreyek) December 29, 2021
Now published in @PLOSBiology! (https://t.co/Yhibhfwkao) IMO, the coolest new data is Fig 7D, where we toggle RBD compatibility with human ACE2 by introducing Q or K amino acids in BtKY72 or Khosta2 RBDs at the residue across from ACE2 K31. Parallels to original SARS adaptation! https://t.co/d3OFFplye1 pic.twitter.com/4X2UxmujCr
— Kenneth Matreyek (@kmatreyek) July 27, 2022
Which viruses are primed for #zoonotic transmission? @kmatreyek &co show that SARS-like bat #coronaviruses from Europe & Africa can use a range of horseshoe bat ACE2s for entry; some viruses from Russia & Kenya can also (weakly) use human ACE2 #PLOSBiology https://t.co/3Fgxzy4PKe pic.twitter.com/U22glsGfOC
— PLOS Biology (@PLOSBiology) August 2, 2022
Kenny gives a talk at ASV2022
Kenny gave a workshop talk at the American Society for Virology Annual Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, in July 2022. Here’s a link to the practice version of that talk, posted onto YouTube (It’s almost an exact replica of the actual talk, minus a few minor changes).
Anh graduates from the lab
Anh officially leaves the lab, as he graduates from CWRU (in three years!), and will be attending the Rice University Dept of Bioengineering in the fall to start his PhD. Good luck, Anh!
Olivia joins the lab!
Olivia Delsignore joins the lab as an RA1. Welcome, Olivia!