β-Defensin-2 Protein Is a Serum Biomarker for Disease Activity in Psoriasis and Reaches Biologically Relevant Concentrations in Lesional Skin

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have extensively documented antimicrobial and chemotactic activities of beta-defensins. Human beta-defensin-2 (hBD-2) is strongly expressed in lesional psoriatic epidermis, and recently we have shown that high beta-defensin genomic copy number is associated with psoriasis susceptibility. It is not known, however, if biologically and pathophysiologically relevant concentrations of hBD-2 protein are present in vivo, which could support an antimicrobial and proinflammatory role of beta-defensins in lesional psoriatic epidermis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found that systemic levels of hBD-2 showed a weak but significant correlation with beta defensin copy number in healthy controls but not in psoriasis patients with active disease. In psoriasis patients but not in atopic dermatitis patients, we found high systemic hBD-2 levels that strongly correlated with disease activity as assessed by the PASI score. Our findings suggest that systemic levels in psoriasis are largely determined by secretion from involved skin and not by genomic copy number. Modelling of the in vivo epidermal hBD-2 concentration based on the secretion rate in a reconstructed skin model for psoriatic epidermis provides evidence that epidermal hBD-2 levels in vivo are probably well above the concentrations required for in vitro antimicrobial and chemokine-like effects. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Serum hBD-2 appears to be a useful surrogate marker for disease activity in psoriasis. The discrepancy between hBD-2 levels in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis could explain the well known differences in infection rate between these two diseases

Cellular therapies for treating pain associated with spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury leads to immense disability and loss of quality of life in human with no satisfactory clinical cure. Cell-based or cell-related therapies have emerged as promising therapeutic potentials both in regeneration of spinal cord and mitigation of neuropathic pain due to spinal cord injury. This article reviews the various options and their latest developments with an update on their therapeutic potentials and clinical trialing

Photonic topological mode bound to a vortex

We report the observation of a mode associated with a topological defect in the bulk of a 2D photonic material by introducing a vortex distortion to a hexagonal lattice analogous to graphene. The observed modes lie midgap at zero energy and are closely related to Majorana bound states in superconducting vortices. This is the first experimental demonstration of the Jackiw-Rossi model [R. Jackiw and P. Rossi, Nucl. Phys. B190, 681 (1981)NUPBBO0550-321310.1016/0550-3213(81)90044-4]

Component-wise testing of laser written integrated coupled mode beam splitters

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are important enabling technologies for the developments of areas such as quantum information processing (QIP). Coupled-mode integrated beam splitters (IBS) are widely used in many PICs, so direct and accurate testing of individual IBSs inside a PIC is increasingly desirable, as the development of PICs for QIP is scaled up. Here we demonstrate a solution for component-wise testing of coupled-mode IBSs without limitations on component location and PIC architectures. The method is based on the imaging of an individual IBS with a custom-built multifunctional adaptive optical microscope, combined with the calculation of its beam-splitting ratio through numerical modelling

Component-wise testing of laser written integrated coupled mode beam splitters

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are important enabling technologies for the developments of areas such as quantum information processing (QIP). Coupled-mode integrated beam splitters (IBS) are widely used in many PICs, so direct and accurate testing of individual IBSs inside a PIC is increasingly desirable, as the development of PICs for QIP is scaled up. Here we demonstrate a solution for component-wise testing of coupled-mode IBSs without limitations on component location and PIC architectures. The method is based on the imaging of an individual IBS with a custom-built multifunctional adaptive optical microscope, combined with the calculation of its beam-splitting ratio through numerical modelling

Distinguishability and many-particle iInterference

Quantum interference of two independent particles in pure quantum states is fully described by the particles’ distinguishability: the closer the particles are to being identical, the higher the degree of quantum interference. When more than two particles are involved, the situation becomes more complex and interference capability extends beyond pairwise distinguishability, taking on a surprisingly rich character. Here, we study many-particle interference using three photons. We show that the distinguishability between pairs of photons is not sufficient to fully describe the photons’ behavior in a scattering process, but that a collective phase, the triad phase, plays a role. We are able to explore the full parameter space of three-photon interference by generating heralded single photons and interfering them in a fiber tritter. Using multiple degrees of freedom—temporal delays and polarization—we isolate three-photon interference from two-photon interference. Our experiment disproves the view that pairwise two-photon distinguishability uniquely determines the degree of nonclassical many-particle interference

Topological vortices for sound and light

Localized zero-energy fermionic states can bind to topological defects such as two-dimensional vortices, which can be realized in the bulk of artificial acoustic and optical lattices