Molecular engineering articles from across Nature Portfolio

A small-molecule STING agonist is conjugated to a nanobody that binds to serum albumins to increase tumour accumulation and augment antitumour immunity.

The ancestral protein of the CRISPR–Cas9 system — less than half the size of its famous descendant — is engineered into an effective DNA-targeting tool that can be delivered by AAV as an epigenome editor for in vivo gene silencing.

Tracking raw materials is critical for securing global supply chains, but traditional tags lack in traceability and anticounterfeiting. The authors present a DNATag-based system for secure traceability, featuring error tolerance, mobile phone readability, and robust forgery protection.

CRISPR-Cas systems protect bacteria by capturing viral DNA as genetic memories, known as spacers. Here, authors used deep mutational scanning to identify Cas1 and Cas2 variants that enhance spacer acquisition and phage immunity, with the potential to improve CRISPR-based applications.

The authors integrate artificial intelligence with laboratory automation to create a widely applicable autonomous platform for efficient and scalable enzyme engineering.

Substrate-specific proteases have an enormous potential in the life sciences, but tailoring their specificity remains challenging. Here, the authors describe a data-driven approach combining DNA recording and epistasis-aware deep learning to augment protease specificity engineering at large scale.

RNA switches are a promising tool for cell type-specific gene regulation but often suffer from insufficient specificity. Here authors developed “split RNA switches”, which integrate outputs from multiple RNA switches by exploiting protein splicing, improving specificity and increasing the ON/OFF ratio.

Mammalian recombination activating genes RAG1 and RAG2 are essential for the production and diversification of antibodies and T-cell receptors via V(D)J recombination in lymphocytes but are absent in simpler eukaryotes such as the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here the authors integrate mouse RAG1/2 in S. cerevisiae and demonstrate the ability to create combinatorial diversity starting from a single genetic locus in vivo.

A small-molecule STING agonist is conjugated to a nanobody that binds to serum albumins to increase tumour accumulation and augment antitumour immunity.

The ancestral protein of the CRISPR–Cas9 system — less than half the size of its famous descendant — is engineered into an effective DNA-targeting tool that can be delivered by AAV as an epigenome editor for in vivo gene silencing.