Human Papillomavirus Genome in Oral Carcinoma and Their Metastatic Cervical Lymph Node Tissues.

Twenty cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) with cervical lymph node metastasis were investigated. Both primary lesions and metastatic lymph nodes were analyzed for the involvement of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNAs utilizing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and dot blot hybridization. HPV DNAs were detected in five cases. Four primary lesions contained HPV-16 DNA, and one contained both HPV-16 and HPV-18 DNAs out of 20 cases examined. No HPV DNAs were detected in metastatic lymph node tissues in cases where HPV DNAs could not be detected in primary cancer tissues. The same types of HPV DNAs as those found in primary lesions were detected in metastatic lymph nodes including those with HPV-16 and HPV-18

The exact decomposition of gauge variables in lattice Yang-Mills theory

In this paper, we consider lattice versions of the decomposition of the Yang- Mills field a la Cho-Faddeev-Niemi, which was extended by Kondo, Shinohara and Murakami in the continuum formulation. For the SU(N) gauge group, we propose a set of defining equations for specifying the decomposition of the gauge link variable and solve them exactly without using the ansatz adopted in the previous studies for SU(2) and SU(3). As a result, we obtain the general form of the decomposition for SU(N) gauge link variables and confirm the previous results obtained for SU(2) and SU(3).Comment: 16 page

Magnetic condensation, Abelian dominance and instability of Savvidy vacuum

We show that a certain type of color magnetic condensation originating from magnetic monopole configurations is sufficient to provide the mass for off-diagonal gluons in the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory under the Cho--Faddeev--Niemi decomposition. We point out that the generated gluon mass can cure the instability of the Savvidy vacuum. In fact, such a novel type of magnetic condensation is shown to occur by calculating the effective potential. This enables us to explain the infrared Abelian dominance and monopole dominance by way of a non-Abelian Stokes theorem, which suggests the dual superconductivity picture of quark confinement. Finally, we discuss the implication to the Faddeev-Skyrme model with knot soliton as a low-energy effective theory of Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures; a version accepted in Phys. Lett. B, Main changes in sections 2.5 and 2.6. in order to explain the crucial idea bette

Human Anti-Plague Monoclonal Antibodies Protect Mice from Yersinia pestis in a Bubonic Plague Model

Yersinia pestis is the etiologic agent of plague that has killed more than 200 million people throughout the recorded history of mankind. Antibiotics may provide little immediate relief to patients who have a high bacteremia or to patients infected with an antibiotic resistant strain of plague. Two virulent factors of Y. pestis are the capsid F1 protein and the low-calcium response (Lcr) V-protein or V-antigen that have been proven to be the targets for both active and passive immunization. There are mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against the F1- and V-antigens that can passively protect mice in a murine model of plague; however, there are no anti-Yersinia pestis monoclonal antibodies available for prophylactic or therapeutic treatment in humans. We identified one anti-F1-specific human mAb (m252) and two anti-V-specific human mAb (m253, m254) by panning a naïve phage-displayed Fab library against the F1- and V-antigens. The Fabs were converted to IgG1s and their binding and protective activities were evaluated. M252 bound weakly to peptides located at the F1 N-terminus where a protective mouse anti-F1 mAb also binds. M253 bound strongly to a V-antigen peptide indicating a linear epitope; m254 did not bind to any peptide from a panel of 53 peptides suggesting that its epitope may be conformational. M252 showed better protection than m253 and m254 against a Y, pestis challenge in a plague mouse model. A synergistic effect was observed when the three antibodies were combined. Incomplete to complete protection was achieved when m252 was given at different times post-challenge. These antibodies can be further studied to determine their potential as therapeutics or prophylactics in Y. pestis infection in humans

Detection of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) DNA Sequences in Normal Oral Scrapes Using the Nested PCR.

We investigated the prevalence rate of HPV DNAs in normal mucosa in the oral region. The nested PCR method was utilized to detect target DNA sequences using HPV E6/E7 consensus primer pairs. Of 56 patients examined, HPV 6 and HPV 16 DNA sequences were detected in a 46-year-old male and a 35-year-old female, respectively. These results suggest that HPVs are uncom-mon in normal oral epithelium, and that we should carry out careful follow-up in HPV DNA-positive cases

New descriptions of lattice SU(N) Yang-Mills theory towards quark confinement

We give new descriptions of lattice SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in terms of new lattice variables. The validity of such descriptions has already been demonstrated in the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory by our previous works from the viewpoint of defining and extracting topological degrees of freedom such as gauge-invariant magnetic monopoles and vortices which play the dominant role in quark confinement. In particular, we have found that the SU(3) lattice Yang-Mills theory has two possible options, maximal and minimal: The existence of the minimal option has been overlooked so far, while the maximal option reproduces the conventional SU(3) Cho-Faddeev-Niemi-Shabanov decomposition in the naive continuum limit. The new description gives an important framework for understanding the mechanism of quark confinement based on the dual superconductivity.Comment: Cover+18 pages, 1 figure; version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Binding Sites of Anti-Lcr V Monoclonal Antibodies Are More Critical than the Avidities and Affinities for Passive Protection against Yersinia pestis Infection in a Bubonic Plague Model

Plague is a zoonotic disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that bind to the V-antigen, a virulence factor that is produced by Y. pestis, can passively protect mice from plague. An analysis of protective mAbs that bind to V-antigen was made to assess binding sites, avidities, and affinities. Anti-V mAbs were screened for their efficacy in a murine model of plague. Antigen-binding sites of protective V mAbs were determined with a linear peptide library, V-antigen fragment, competitive binding, and surface plasmon resonance. The avidities to the V-antigen was determined by ELISA, and affinities of the mAbs to the V-antigen were determined by surface plasmon resonance. The most protective mAb 7.3 bound to a unique conformational site on the V-antigen, while a less protective mAb bound to a different conformational site located on the same V-antigen fragment as mAb 7.3. The avidity of mAb 7.3 for the V-antigen was neither the strongest overall nor did it have the highest affinity for the V-antigen. The binding site of the most protective mAb was critical in its ability to protect against a lethal plague challenge

Nonviable Burkholderia mallei Induces a Mixed Th1- and Th2-Like Cytokine Response in BALB/c Mice

Nonviable cell preparations of Burkholderia mallei, the causative agent of glanders, were evaluated as potential vaccine candidates in a BALB/c murine model. Three different B. mallei cell preparations plus Alhydrogel were evaluated: a heat-killed preparation, an irradiation-inactivated preparation, and a preparation of a capsule-negative mutant strain which had been irradiation inactivated. BALB/c mice were vaccinated twice with the different B. mallei preparations, and spleens and sera were collected to determine their cellular and humoral immune responses. All three bacterial cell preparations had essentially the same results in two cellular immune response assays. In a splenocyte proliferation assay, the amount of cell proliferation in response to the homologous immunogen, concanavalin A, or lipopolysaccharide was similar for all the cell preparations. Also, splenocytes from the inoculated mice expressed interleukin 2 (IL-2), gamma interferon, and small amounts of IL-4 and IL-5, and more IL-10 cytokine in the presence of the homologous antigen. When the immunoglobulin subclasses from these mice were examined, they all produced higher levels of IgG1 than IgG2a subclasses. The higher ratio of IgG1 to IgG2a was not due to the amount of the immunogen or the adjuvant (Alhydrogel) used in the BALB/c mice. The cell preparations did not protect the vaccinated mice from a live challenge (>300 50% lethal doses). Our results suggest that in BALB/c mice, a mixed T-helper-cell-like response to nonviable B. mallei is obtained, as demonstrated by a Th1- and Th2-like cytokine response and a Th2-like subclass immunoglobulin response. This may be the reason for the inability of the B. mallei cells that were examined as candidate vaccines to protect the mice from a live challenge