PLOS Computational Biology T-shirt competition Winner Announced

PLOS Computational Biology is pleased to announce the winner of our 2019 t-shirt competition! This year’s t-shirt was designed by Damien F. Meyer and colleagues and will be given away at the ISMB 2019 conference in Basel, Switzerland (July 21-25).

The design was inspired by the research of Searching algorithm for Type IV effector proteins (S4TE) 2.0: Improved tools for Type IV effector prediction, analysis and comparison in proteobacteria (2019).

The image is an artistic representation of the use of computational biology to study bacterial pathogenicity. Type IV secretion systems (T4SS) are specialized ATP-dependent protein complexes used by many bacterial pathogens for delivery of T4Es into eukaryotic cells in order to subvert host cell processes during infection. T4Es were shown to be critical for pathogenicity, making them first choice targets to understand bacterial virulence. As T4Es research is of growing interest for biotechnology, including medical research and application, scientists will benefit from an easy-to-use tool such as S4TE 2.0 developed by Noroy et al. that facilitates predictions. Prediction of T4Es, especially for less-studied bacteria, must take into account archetypal effector characteristics such as eukaryotic-like domains or localization signals, and C-terminal features associated with type IV secretion. The illustration shows the 3D structure of a bacterial type IV secreted effector predicted by S4TE 2.0 software (by Noroy et al., this issue), prepared using PyMol and superimposed on a  SEM picture of Ehrlichia ruminantium adhering to host endothelial cell (40 000x magnification).

Image Credit: Damien F. Meyer et al.

The PLOS booth will be open at ISMB 2019 from the 21st to the 25th of July make sure you drop by Booth 7 for an insight into the journal and (while stocks last) a FREE PLOS Computational Biology t-shirt!