Height Fluctuations and Intermittency of V2O5V_2 O_5 Films by Atomic Force Microscopy

The spatial scaling law and intermittency of the $V_2 O_5$ surface roughness by atomic force microscopy has been investigated. The intermittency of the height fluctuations has been checked by two different methods, first, by measuring scaling exponent of q-th moment of height-difference fluctuations i.e. $C_q =$ and the second, by defining generating function $Z(q,N)$ and generalized multi-fractal dimension $D_q$. These methods predict that there is no intermittency in the height fluctuations. The observed roughness and dynamical exponents can be explained by the numerical simulation on the basis of forced Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.Comment: 6 pages (two columns), 11 eps. figures, late

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: the role of T cells in a B cell disease

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) has long been thought to be an immunosuppressive disease and abnormalities in T‐cell subset distribution and function have been observed in many studies. However, the role of T cells (if any) in disease progression remains unclear and has not been directly studied. This has changed with the advent of new therapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor‐T cells, which actively use retargeted patient‐derived T cells as “living drugs” for CLL. However complete responses are relatively low (~26%) and recent studies have suggested the differentiation status of patient T cells before therapy may influence efficacy. Non‐chemotherapeutic drugs, such as idelalisib and ibrutinib, also have an impact on T cell populations in CLL patients. This review will highlight what is known about T cells in CLL during disease progression and after treatment, and discuss the prospects of using T cells as predictive biomarkers for immune status and response to therapy

Results of the randomized phase IIB ARCTIC trial of low dose Rituximab in previously untreated CLL

ARCTIC was a multi-center, randomized-controlled, open, phase IIB non-inferiority trial in previously untreated Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). Conventional frontline therapy in fit patients is fludarabine, cyclophosphamide and rituximab (FCR). The trial hypothesized that including mitoxantrone with low-dose rituximab (FCM-miniR) would be non-inferior to FCR. 200 patients were recruited to assess the primary endpoint of complete remission (CR) rates according to IWCLL criteria. Secondary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), overall response rate, minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity, safety and cost-effectiveness. The trial closed following the pre-planned interim analysis. At final analysis, CR rates were 76% FCR vs 55% FCM-miniR [adjusted odds-ratio: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.19–0.73]. MRD-negativity rates were 54% FCR vs 44% FCM-miniR. More participants experienced Serious Adverse Reactions with FCM-miniR (49%) compared to FCR (41%). There are no significant differences between the treatment groups for PFS and OS. FCM-miniR is not expected to be cost-effective over a lifetime horizon. In summary, FCM-miniR is less well tolerated than FCR with an inferior response and MRD-negativity rate and increased toxicity, and will not be taken forward into a confirmatory trial. The trial demonstrated that oral FCR yields high response rates compared to historical series with intravenous chemotherapy

Telomerase activity and telomere length in primary and metastatic tumors from pediatric bone cancer patients

The presence of telomerase activity has been analyzed in almost all tumor types and tumor-derived cell lines. However, there are very few studies that focus on the presence of telomerase activity in bone tumors, and most of them report analysis on very few samples or bone-derived cell lines. The objective of this study was to analyze the telomere length and telomerase activity in primary tumors and metastatic lesions from pediatric osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma patients. The presence of telomerase activity was analyzed by the telomeric repeat amplification protocol assay, and the telomere length was measured by Southern blot. Results were related to survival and clinical outcome. Telomerase activity was detected in 85% of the bone tumor metastases (100% Ewing's sarcomas and 75% osteosarcomas) but only in 12% of the primary tumors (11.1% osteosarcomas and 12.5% Ewing's sarcomas). Bone tumor tissues with telomerase activity had mean telomere lengths 3 kb shorter than those with no detectable telomerase activity (p = 0.041). The presence of telomerase activity was associated with survival (p = 0.009), and longer event-free survival periods were found in patients who lacked telomerase activity compared with those who had detectable telomerase activity levels in their tumor tissues (p = 0.037). The presence of longer telomeres in primary pediatric bone tumors than in metastases could be indicative of alternative mechanisms of lengthening of telomeres for their telomere maintenance rather than telomerase activity. Nevertheless, the activation of telomerase seems to be a crucial step in the malignant progression and acquisition of invasive capability of bone tumors

Purification and Structural Characterization of Siderophore (Corynebactin) from Corynebacterium diphtheriae

During infection, Corynebacterium diphtheriae must compete with host iron-sequestering mechanisms for iron. C. diphtheriae can acquire iron by a siderophore-dependent iron-uptake pathway, by uptake and degradation of heme, or both. Previous studies showed that production of siderophore (corynebactin) by C. diphtheriae is repressed under high-iron growth conditions by the iron-activated diphtheria toxin repressor (DtxR) and that partially purified corynebactin fails to react in chemical assays for catecholate or hydroxamate compounds. In this study, we purified corynebactin from supernatants of low-iron cultures of the siderophore-overproducing, DtxR-negative mutant strain C. diphtheriae C7(β) ΔdtxR by sequential anion-exchange chromatography on AG1-X2 and Source 15Q resins, followed by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) on Zorbax C8 resin. The Chrome Azurol S (CAS) chemical assay for siderophores was used to detect and measure corynebactin during purification, and the biological activity of purified corynebactin was shown by its ability to promote growth and iron uptake in siderophore-deficient mutant strains of C. diphtheriae under iron-limiting conditions. Mass spectrometry and NMR analysis demonstrated that corynebactin has a novel structure, consisting of a central lysine residue linked through its α- and ε- amino groups by amide bonds to the terminal carboxyl groups of two different citrate residues. Corynebactin from C. diphtheriae is structurally related to staphyloferrin A from Staphylococcus aureus and rhizoferrin from Rhizopus microsporus in which d-ornithine or 1,4-diaminobutane, respectively, replaces the central lysine residue that is present in corynebactin

Seeing Emotion with Your Ears: Emotional Prosody Implicitly Guides Visual Attention to Faces

Interpersonal communication involves the processing of multimodal emotional cues, particularly facial expressions (visual modality) and emotional speech prosody (auditory modality) which can interact during information processing. Here, we investigated whether the implicit processing of emotional prosody systematically influences gaze behavior to facial expressions of emotion. We analyzed the eye movements of 31 participants as they scanned a visual array of four emotional faces portraying fear, anger, happiness, and neutrality, while listening to an emotionally-inflected pseudo-utterance (Someone migged the pazing) uttered in a congruent or incongruent tone. Participants heard the emotional utterance during the first 1250 milliseconds of a five-second visual array and then performed an immediate recall decision about the face they had just seen. The frequency and duration of first saccades and of total looks in three temporal windows ([0–1250 ms], [1250–2500 ms], [2500–5000 ms]) were analyzed according to the emotional content of faces and voices. Results showed that participants looked longer and more frequently at faces that matched the prosody in all three time windows (emotion congruency effect), although this effect was often emotion-specific (with greatest effects for fear). Effects of prosody on visual attention to faces persisted over time and could be detected long after the auditory information was no longer present. These data imply that emotional prosody is processed automatically during communication and that these cues play a critical role in how humans respond to related visual cues in the environment, such as facial expressions

Mechanism of the Interaction between the Intrinsically Disordered C-Terminus of the Pro-Apoptotic ARTS Protein and the Bir3 Domain of XIAP

ARTS (Sept4_i2) is a mitochondrial pro-apoptotic protein that functions as a tumor suppressor. Its expression is significantly reduced in leukemia and lymphoma patients. ARTS binds and inhibits XIAP (X-linked Inhibitor of Apoptosis protein) by interacting with its Bir3 domain. ARTS promotes degradation of XIAP through the proteasome pathway. By doing so, ARTS removes XIAP inhibition of caspases and enables apoptosis to proceed. ARTS contains 27 unique residues in its C-terminal domain (CTD, residues 248–274) which are important for XIAP binding. Here we characterized the molecular details of this interaction. Biophysical and computational methods were used to show that the ARTS CTD is intrinsically disordered under physiological conditions. Direct binding of ARTS CTD to Bir3 was demonstrated using NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy. The Bir3 interacting region in ARTS CTD was mapped to ARTS residues 266–274, which are the nine C-terminal residues in the protein. Alanine scan of ARTS 266–274 showed the importance of several residues for Bir3 binding, with His268 and Cys273 contributing the most. Adding a reducing agent prevented binding to Bir3. A dimer of ARTS 266–274 formed by oxidation of the Cys residues into a disulfide bond bound with similar affinity and was probably required for the interaction with Bir3. The detailed analysis of the ARTS – Bir3 interaction provides the basis for setting it as a target for anti cancer drug design: It will enable the development of compounds that mimic ARTS CTD, remove IAPs inhibition of caspases, and thereby induce apoptosis

Complete Phenotypic Recovery of an Alzheimer's Disease Model by a Quinone-Tryptophan Hybrid Aggregation Inhibitor

The rational design of amyloid oligomer inhibitors is yet an unmet drug development need. Previous studies have identified the role of tryptophan in amyloid recognition, association and inhibition. Furthermore, tryptophan was ranked as the residue with highest amyloidogenic propensity. Other studies have demonstrated that quinones, specifically anthraquinones, can serve as aggregation inhibitors probably due to the dipole interaction of the quinonic ring with aromatic recognition sites within the amyloidogenic proteins. Here, using in vitro, in vivo and in silico tools we describe the synthesis and functional characterization of a rationally designed inhibitor of the Alzheimer's disease-associated β-amyloid. This compound, 1,4-naphthoquinon-2-yl-L-tryptophan (NQTrp), combines the recognition capacities of both quinone and tryptophan moieties and completely inhibited Aβ oligomerization and fibrillization, as well as the cytotoxic effect of Aβ oligomers towards cultured neuronal cell line. Furthermore, when fed to transgenic Alzheimer's disease Drosophila model it prolonged their life span and completely abolished their defective locomotion. Analysis of the brains of these flies showed a significant reduction in oligomeric species of Aβ while immuno-staining of the 3rd instar larval brains showed a significant reduction in Aβ accumulation. Computational studies, as well as NMR and CD spectroscopy provide mechanistic insight into the activity of the compound which is most likely mediated by clamping of the aromatic recognition interface in the central segment of Aβ. Our results demonstrate that interfering with the aromatic core of amyloidogenic peptides is a promising approach for inhibiting various pathogenic species associated with amyloidogenic diseases. The compound NQTrp can serve as a lead for developing a new class of disease modifying drugs for Alzheimer's disease

The Human Affectome

Over the last decades, the interdisciplinary field of the affective sciences has seen proliferation rather than integration of theoretical perspectives. This is due to differences in metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions about human affective phenomena (what they are and how they work) which, shaped by academic motivations and values, have determined the affective constructs and operationalizations. An assumption on the purpose of affective phenomena can be used as a teleological principle to guide the construction of a common set of metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions—a framework for human affective research. In this capstone paper for the special issue “Towards an Integrated Understanding of the Human Affectome”, we gather the tiered purpose of human affective phenomena to synthesize assumptions that account for human affective phenomena collectively. This teleologically-grounded framework offers a principled agenda and launchpad for both organizing existing perspectives and generating new ones. Ultimately, we hope Human Affectome brings us a step closer to not only an integrated understanding of human affective phenomena, but an integrated field for affective research