S. Maharjan

Alanine-scanning mutagenesis library of MreB reveals distinct roles for regulating cell shape and viability

The paper systematically analyzes MreB mutations to show that it has distinct roles in cell shape maintenance and viability, with some mutations causing spherical cells that remain viable.

Discovering and exploring the hidden diversity of human gut viruses using highly enriched virome samples

The paper presents a method to discover new human gut viruses using enriched virome samples and reports over 162,000 novel viral sequences.

Post-Transcriptional Methylation of Mitochondrial-tRNA Differentially Contributes to Mitochondrial Pathology

The paper shows that N1-methylation at position 9 of mt-Leu(UAA) stabilizes wild-type mt-tRNA but destabilizes pathogenic variants, suggesting methylation control could be therapeutic.

Rapid Prototyping of Thermoplastic Microfluidic 3D Cell Culture Devices by Creating Regional Hydrophilicity Discrepancy

This paper develops a method to rapidly prototype thermoplastic microfluidic devices for 3D cell culture by creating regional hydrophilicity discrepancies, enabling dynamic cell culture and drug screening.

Analysis of spike protein variants evolved in a novel mouse model of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection

The paper establishes a novel mouse model of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection using Calu-3 xenografts and identifies spike protein mutations that enhance viral replication and host adaptation.

Nuclear myosin VI maintains replication fork stability

This study shows that nuclear myosin VI stabilizes stalled or reversed replication forks by interacting with WRNIP1 to prevent DNA2-mediated degradation during replication stress.

tRNA Methylation Resolves Codon Usage Bias at the Limit of Cell Viability

This study shows that m1G37 tRNA modification neutralizes differential proline codon decoding, and its absence requires a minor isoacceptor for E. coli viability.

Loss of N1-methylation of G37 in tRNA induces ribosome stalling and reprograms gene expression

This study shows that loss of N1-methylation of G37 in tRNA causes ribosome stalling and alters gene expression, resembling the stringent response.

Integrating taxonomic, functional, and strain-level profiling of diverse microbial communities with bioBakery 3

The paper introduces bioBakery 3, a set of tools for microbial community analysis, improving taxonomic, functional, and strain-level profiling with applications to CRC and IBD datasets.