Baseline supernatant IFN-γ and IL-4 levels in rhIL12-stimulated PBMCs <i>in vitro</i>.

<p>(A) Concentrations of IFN-γ and IL-4 in the supernatant of PBMCs without rhIL12 stimulation was similar between the patients and controls, between the nodules and non-nodules subgroups and between surgical and non-surgical treatment subgroups. (B) rhIL-12 stimulated the release of IFN-γ; increase in IFN-γ level was lower in the patients (4.47-fold) than in the controls (7.40-fold) (**<i>P</i> < 0.01); rhIL-12 did not stimulate IL-4 secretion in the supernatant of PBMCs in both groups. No differences in IFN-γ or IL-4 levels were observed between the nodules and non-nodules subgroups and between surgical and non-surgical treatment subgroups.</p

The Role of <i>Cryptococcus</i> in the Immune System of Pulmonary Cryptococcosis Patients

<div><p>Objectives</p><p>To investigate the role of <i>Cryptococcus</i> in the immune system of immunocompetent patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis (PC) by analysing the dynamic changes of patients’ immune status before and after antifungal therapy.</p><p>Methods</p><p>The level of the serum interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and interleukin (IL)-2, -4, -10 and -12 was measured before and after 6-months of treatment. Peripheral blood samples were obtained from 30 immunocompetent PC patients and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated and incubated with recombinant human IL-12 (rhIL-12) for 48 h. Then the concentrations of IFN-γ and IL-4 in the supernatant were analysed.</p><p>Results</p><p>Baseline serum IFN-γ level was significantly lower in the PC patients as compared with the control group (<i>P</i> < 0.001). The serum IL-2 and IFN-γ of PC patients were significantly increased after appropriate treatments (<i>P</i> < 0.05 and <i>P</i> < 0.001 when compared to their baseline levels). The productions of IFN-γ in the culture supernatant of PBMCs showed no significant difference between the control and PC patients both before and after antifungal treatments. RhIL-12 is a potent stimulus for IFN-γ production. Culture PBMCs collected from PC patients before treatments had a smaller increase of IFN-γ production in the present of rhIL-12 than the control (<i>P</i> < 0.01); PBMCs from PC patients completing 6-months of treatment showed a comparable increase of IFN-γ production by rhIL-12 stimulation to the control group.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>In apparently immunocompetent patients with PC, a normalization of serum IFN-γ was achieved after recovery from infection. This suggests that <i>Cryptococcus</i> infection per se can suppress the immune system and its elimination contributes to the reestablishment of an immune equilibrium.</p></div

Baseline cytokine response in immunocompetent PC host compared with the controls.

<p>(A)Serum IFN-γ level was significantly reduced in the PC patients (***<i>P</i> < 0.001). No significant differences in IL-2, IL-10, IL-4 and IL-12 levels were observed between the two groups. (B) Serum IFN-γ levels was higher in the nodules subgroup than in the non-nodules subgroup (*<i>P</i> < 0.05); similar levels of the other cytokines was observed in the two subgroups. (C) Serum IFN-γ levels was higher in the surgical treatment subgroup than in the non-surgical subgroup; the amounts of the other cytokines were similar in the two subgroups.</p

Influence of the effective therapy on the serum cytokine response in immunocompetent PC patients.

<p>(A) Average levels of the serum IL-2 and IFN-γ were significantly higher following effective therapy than at baseline (*<i>P</i> < 0.05 and **<i>P</i> < 0.001), whereas IL-4, IL-10 and IL-12 levels were similar to baseline. (B) Serum IL-2 and IFN-γ levels were significantly increased in the non-nodules group compared with the baseline (**<i>P</i> < 0.01 and ***<i>P</i> < 0.001); in the nodule group, only the IFN-γ levels were much higher compared with the baseline (*<i>P</i> < 0.05); the effective therapy did not affect the secretions of IL-10, IL-4 and IL-12. (C) Serum IL-2 and IFN-γ levels were significantly increased in the non-nodules group compared with the baseline (**<i>P</i> < 0.01 and ***<i>P</i> < 0.001); in the nodules group, only IFN-γ levels were much higher compared with the baseline (*<i>P</i> < 0.05); the effective therapy did not affect the secretion of IL-10, IL-4 and IL-12.</p

Demographic and clinical characteristics of the immunocompetent patients with PC.

<p>Demographic and clinical characteristics of the immunocompetent patients with PC.</p

Supernatant IFN-γ and IL-4 levels in rhIL-12-stimulated PBMCs <i>in vitro</i> following the effective therapy.

<p>(A) Supernatant IFN-γ and IL-4 levels after the effective therapy were not significantly different from the baseline. (B) rhIL-12 stimulation significantly increased the median levels of supernatant IFN-γ compared with the baseline (**<i>P</i> < 0.01). (C) Supernatant IFN-γ level was much higher in different subgroups compared with the baseline (**P < 0.01 and ***P < 0.01). (D.E) No significant difference in the supernatant IL-4 level and increment of changes in IL-4 was observed following the effective therapy compared with baseline.</p

Additional file 1: of Combined ultrasound-guided cutting-needle biopsy and standard pleural biopsy for diagnosis of malignant pleural effusions

Excel: Detailed results of CNB, SPB, CNB or SPB of the 17 2 UPE patients. (XLS 33 kb

Additional file 1 of Association of length of service and job category with occupational health literacy of port employees in Shenzhen, China

Supplementary Material

MSTGI: a multi-scale spatio-temporal grid index model for remote-sensing big data retrieval

To promote the transformation of remote sensing (RS) data into geoscience knowledge, it is necessary to provide better data discovery capabilities, especially when large amounts of RS data have been accumulated. Spatio-temporal range query is one of them to enable data discovery on RS images by the spatio-temporal range. Although existing RS image indexing methods are suitable for data discovery based on spatio-temporal range queries, they do not fully consider the problem of low data retrieval efficiency when the temporal and spatial range scales are unbalanced. To address this problem, we propose a multi-scale spatio-temporal grid index model (MSTGI). First, we divide the time dimension into three levels according to the granularity of year, month and day, and build an independent grid index structure for the object at different levels. Second, we design an adaptive hierarchical indexing strategy to perform parallel retrieval in an appropriate combination of partitions. MSTGI linearizes the grid obtained after global geospatial subdivision using Hilbert curves. Our experimental results, obtained on the Landsat series satellite dataset, reveal that the proposed method improves query efficiency levels by approximately 12.582% and 87.754% compared with GeoSOT-ST and AGMC at various spatial scales, respectively, and reaches 100% recall.</p

Identification and Verification of Novel Umami Peptides Isolated from Hybrid Sturgeon Meat (Acipenser baerii × Acipenser schrenckii)

To explore the umami mechanism in sturgeon meat, five peptides (ERRY, VRGPR, LKYPLE, VKKVFK, and YVVFKD) were isolated and identified by ultrafiltration, gel filtration chromatography, and UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS. The omission test confirmed that the five umami peptides contributed to the umami taste of sturgeon meat. Also, the peptides had the double effective role of enhancing both umami and saltiness. The threshold of ERRY was only 0.031, which exceeded most umami peptides in the last 3 years. Molecular docking results showed that five peptides could easily bind to Gly167, Ser170, and Try218 residues in T1R3 through hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions. Furthermore, molecular dynamics simulations indicated that hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions were the main intermolecular interaction forces. This study could contribute to revealing the umami taste mechanism of sturgeon meat and provide new insights for effective screening of short umami peptides