31 research outputs found
T regulatory cells and attenuated bleomycin-induced fibrosis in lungs of CCR7-/- mice
Abstract
Background
C-C chemokine receptor (CCR)7 is a regulator of dendritic cell and T cell migration, and its role in tissue wound healing has been investigated in various disease models. We have previously demonstrated that CCR7 and its ligand, chemokine (C-C motif) ligand (CCL)21, modulates wound repair in pulmonary fibrosis (PF) but the mechanism of this is unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the absence of CCR7 protects against bleomycin (BLM)-induced PF. CCR7-/- mice failed to mount a fibrotic pulmonary response as assessed by histologic collagen staining and quantification by hydroxyproline. We hypothesized that the prominent characteristics of CCR7-/- mice, including elevated levels of cytokine and chemokine mediators and the presence of bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue (BALT) might be relevant to the protective phenotype.
Results
Pulmonary fibrosis was induced in CCR7+/+ and CCR7-/- mice via a single intratracheal injection of BLM. We found that the lung cytokine/chemokine milieu associated with the absence of CCR7 correlated with an increase in BALT, and might be attributable to regulatory T cell (Treg) homeostasis and trafficking within the lungs and lymph nodes. In response to BLM challenge, CCR7-/- mice exhibited an early, steady increase in lung CD4+ T cells and increased CD4+ CD25+ FoxP3+ Tregs in the lungs 21 days after challenge. These findings are consistent with increased lung expression of interleukin-2 and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase in CCR7-/- mice, which promote Treg expansion.
Conclusions
Our study demonstrates that the protective phenotype associated with BLM-treated CCR7-/- mice correlates with the presence of BALT and the anchoring of Tregs in the lungs of CCR7-/- mice. These data provide novel evidence to support the further investigation of CCR7-mediated Treg trafficking in the modulation of BLM-induced PF.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112768/1/13069_2010_Article_33.pd
Hypersonic Buckshot: Astrophysical Jets as Heterogeneous Collimated Plasmoids
Herbig-Haro (HH) jets are commonly thought of as homogeneous beams of plasma
traveling at hypersonic velocities. Structure within jet beams is often
attributed to periodic or ``pulsed'' variations of conditions at the jet
source. Simulations based on this scenario result in knots extending across the
jet diameter. Observations and recent high energy density laboratory
experiments shed new light on structures below this scale and indicate they may
be important for understanding the fundamentals of jet dynamics. In this paper
we offer an alternative to ``pulsed'' models of protostellar jets. Using direct
numerical simulations we explore the possibility that jets are chains of
sub-radial clumps propagating through a moving inter-clump medium. Our models
explore an idealization of this scenario by injecting small (),
dense () spheres embedded in an otherwise smooth inter-clump
jet flow. The spheres are initialized with velocities differing from the jet
velocity by %. We find the consequences of shifting from homogeneous to
heterogeneous flows are significant as clumps interact with each other and with
the inter-clump medium in a variety of ways. Structures which mimic what is
expected from pulsed-jet models can form, as can previously unseen
``sub-radial'' behaviors including backward facing bow shocks and off-axis
working surfaces. While these small-scale structures have not been seen before
in simulation studies, they are found in high resolution jet observations. We
discuss implications of our simulations for the interpretation of protostellar
jets with regard to characterization of knots by a ``lifetime'' or ``velocity
history'' approach as well as linking observed structures with central engines
which produce the jets.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures (1 color), submitted to Ap
Protostellar Outflow Evolution in Turbulent Environments
The link between turbulence in star formatting environments and protostellar
jets remains controversial. To explore issues of turbulence and fossil cavities
driven by young stellar outflows we present a series of numerical simulations
tracking the evolution of transient protostellar jets driven into a turbulent
medium. Our simulations show both the effect of turbulence on outflow
structures and, conversely, the effect of outflows on the ambient turbulence.
We demonstrate how turbulence will lead to strong modifications in jet
morphology. More importantly, we demonstrate that individual transient outflows
have the capacity to re-energize decaying turbulence. Our simulations support a
scenario in which the directed energy/momentum associated with cavities is
randomized as the cavities are disrupted by dynamical instabilities seeded by
the ambient turbulence. Consideration of the energy power spectra of the
simulations reveals that the disruption of the cavities powers an energy
cascade consistent with Burgers'-type turbulence and produces a driving
scale-length associated with the cavity propagation length. We conclude that
fossil cavities interacting either with a turbulent medium or with other
cavities have the capacity to sustain or create turbulent flows in star forming
environments. In the last section we contrast our work and its conclusions with
previous studies which claim that jets can not be the source of turbulence.Comment: 24 pages, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa
Highly Variable Extinction and Accretion in the Jet-driving Class I Type Young Star PTF 10nvg (V2492 Cyg, IRAS 20496+4354)
We report extensive new photometry and spectroscopy of the highly variable
young stellar object PTF 10nvg including optical and near-infrared time series
data as well as mid-infrared and millimeter data. Following the previously
reported 2010 rise, during 2011 and 2012 the source underwent additional
episodes of brightening and dimming events including prolonged faint states.
The observed high-amplitude variations are largely consistent with extinction
changes having a 220 day quasi-periodic signal. Spectral evolution includes not
only changes in the spectral slope but correlated variation in the prominence
of TiO/VO/CO bands and atomic line emission, as well as anticorrelated
variation in forbidden line emission which, along with H_2, dominates optical
and infrared spectra at faint epochs. Neutral and singly-ionized atomic species
are likely formed in an accretion flow and/or impact while the origin of
zero-velocity atomic LiI 6707 in emission is unknown. Forbidden lines,
including several rare species, exhibit blueshifted emission profiles and
likely arise from an outflow/jet. Several of these lines are also seen
spatially offset from the continuum source position, presumably in a shocked
region of an extended jet. CARMA maps resolve on larger scales a spatially
extended outflow in mm-wavelength CO. We attribute the observed photometric and
spectroscopic behavior in terms of occultation of the central star as well as
the bright inner disk and the accretion/outflow zones that renders shocked gas
in the inner part of the jet amenable to observation at the faint epochs. We
discuss PTF 10nvg as a source exhibiting both accretion-driven (perhaps
analogous to V1647 Ori) and extinction-driven (perhaps analogous to UX Ori or
GM Cep) high-amplitude variability phenomena.Comment: accepted to AJ - in press (74 pages
Mapping the Shores of the Brown Dwarf Desert II: Multiple Star Formation in Taurus-Auriga
We have conducted a high-resolution imaging study of the Taurus-Auriga
star-forming region in order to characterize the primordial outcome of multiple
star formation and the extent of the brown dwarf desert. Our survey identified
16 new binary companions to primary stars with masses of 0.25-2.5 Msun, raising
the total number of binary pairs (including components of high-order multiples)
with separations of 3--5000 AU to 90. We find that ~2/3--3/4 of all Taurus
members are multiple systems of two or more stars, while the other ~1/4--1/3
appear to have formed as single stars; the distribution of high-order
multiplicity suggests that fragmentation into a wide binary has no impact on
the subsequent probability that either component will fragment again. The
separation distribution for solar-type stars (0.7--2.5 Msun) is nearly log-flat
over separations of 3--5000 AU, but lower-mass stars (0.25--0.7 Msun) show a
paucity of binary companions with separations of >200 AU. Across this full mass
range, companion masses are well described with a linear-flat function; all
system mass ratios (q=M_B/M_A) are equally probable, apparently including
substellar companions. Our results are broadly consistent with the two expected
modes of binary formation (freefall fragmentation on large scales and disk
fragmentation on small scales), but the distributions provide some clues as to
the epochs at which the companions are likely to form.Comment: Accepted to ApJ; 32 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables in emulateapj forma
Long-term photometry of IC 348 with the Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative network
We present long-term photometric observations of the young open cluster IC 348 with a baseline time-scale of 2.4 yr. Our study was conducted with several telescopes from the Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative (YETI) network in the Bessel R band to find periodic variability of young stars. We identified 87 stars in IC 348 to be periodically variable; 33 of them were unreported before. Additionally, we detected 61 periodic non-members of which 41 are new discoveries. Our wide field of view was the key to those numerous newly found variable stars. The distribution of rotation periods in IC 348 has always been of special interest. We investigate it further with our newly detected periods but we cannot find a statistically significant bimodality. We also report the detection of a close eclipsing binary in IC 348 composed of a low-mass stellar component (M ≳ 0.09 M⊙) and a K0 pre-main-sequence star (M ≈ 2.7 M⊙). Furthermore, we discovered three detached binaries among the background stars in our field of view and confirmed the period of a fourth one