Directed evolution in mammalian cells

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01090-xThis Perspective describes advances that have enabled robust directed evolution in mammalian cells. These approaches are poised to improve the development of new generations of tools to probe or modulate mammalian biology.

4d

Recapitulating early cardiogenesis in vitro

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01118-2Two independent studies describe the reproduction of early events in cardiac development in vitro.

4d

High-resolution optical tweezers

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01121-7Germanium nanoparticles enable optical trapping at high spatiotemporal resolution.

4d

Single-cell profiling of microbes

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01120-8The split-pool barcoding strategy has been extended to single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of microbes.

4d

RNA-binding protein kinetics

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01122-6KIN-CLIP allows determination of binding and dissociation kinetics of RNA-binding proteins in cells.

4d

Editing during COVID-19: one year later

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01125-3The past year has been long and challenging for all of us. Here’s how Nature Methods has been faring since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.

4d

Expanding views of the transcriptome

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01119-1In situ long-read sequencing combined with expansion microscopy enables precise views of transcriptomes in intact biological systems.

4d

Low-<i>N</i> protein engineering with data-efficient deep learning

Nature Methods, Published online: 07 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01100-yA deep-learning-guided approach enables protein engineering using only a small number (‘low N’) of functionally characterized variants of target proteins.

4d

A three-dimensional virtual mouse generates synthetic training data for behavioral analysis

Nature Methods, Published online: 05 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01103-9Bolaños et al. present a realistic three-dimensional virtual mouse model that can be animated and that facilitates the training of pose estimation algorithms.

6d

Discovering multiple types of DNA methylation from bacteria and microbiome using nanopore sequencing

Nature Methods, Published online: 05 April 2021; doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01109-3This work describes nanodisco, a tool for de novo identifying DNA methylation in bacterial species and microbiomes using nanopore sequencing and for performing metagenomic binning using microbial DNA methylation patterns.

6d