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In one more years, we will ‘celebrate’ an exact centenary of the Spanish flu pandemic. With the rapid evolution of the influenza virus, the possibility of novel pandemic remains ever a concern. This review covers our current knowledge of the influenza A virus: on the role of RNA in translation, replication, what is known of the expressed proteins and the protein products generated from alternative splicing, and on the role of base pairing in RNA structure. We highlight the main events associated with viral entry into the cell, the transcription and replication process, an export of the viral genetic material from the nucleus and the final release of the virus. We discuss the observed potential roles of RNA secondary structure (the RNA base-pairing arrangement) and RNA/RNA interactions in this scheme.

Next-generation sequencing has produced a large quantity of DNA or RNA sequences related to the processes occurring within tumors and their microenvironment in a reasonable time and cost. These data have been used to guide the identification of neoantigens and to determine their specific T-cell receptors. Furthermore, adoptive T-cell therapy targeting neoantigens is under development for cancer treatment. In this review, we first provide an overview of sequencing technologies and the updated findings concerning neoantigens related to adoptive T-cell therapy and then summarize the methods and principles underlying the development of next-generation sequencing-based neoantigen-reactive T-cell therapy for cancer.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a highly heritable chronic inflammatory arthritis characterized by osteoproliferation, fusion of affected joints and systemic manifestations. Many disease associations for AS have been reported through genome-wide association studies; however, identifying modulated genes and functional mechanism remains challenging. This review summarizes current genetic associations involving AS and describes strategic approaches for functional follow-up of disease-associated variants. Fine mapping using methods leveraging Bayesian approaches are outlined. Evidence highlighting the importance of context specificity for regulatory variants is reviewed, noting current evidence in AS for the relevant cell and tissue type to conduct such analyses. Technological advances for understanding the regulatory landscape within which functional variants may act are discussed using exemplars. Approaches include defining regulatory elements based on chromatin accessibility, effects of variants on genes at a distance through evidence of physical interactions (chromatin conformation capture), expression quantitative trait loci mapping and single-cell methodologies. Opportunities for mechanistic studies to investigate the function of specific variants, regulatory elements and genes enabled by genome editing using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9 are also described. Further progress in our understanding of the genetics of AS through functional genomic and epigenomic approaches offers new opportunities to understand mechanism and develop innovative treatments.

Hemagglutinin (HA) is a transmembrane protein of the influenza A virus and a key component in its life cycle. The protein allows the virus to enter a host cell by recognizing specific glycans attached to transmembrane proteins of the host, which leads to viral endocytosis. In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding the structural relationship between changes in the HA receptor-binding site (RBS) and the sialylated glycans that bind them. Several mutations were identified in the HA RBS that allows the virus to change host tropism. Their impact on binding the analogs of human and avian receptors was determined with X-ray crystallography. In this article, we provide a short overview of the HA protein structure and briefly discuss the adaptive mutations introduced to different HA subtypes.