Studies of Charge Exchange in a High‐Pressure Pulsed Electron Impact Source

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/56/3/10.1063/1.1677327.A high pressure pulsed ion source has been used in a time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer in order to study the charge exchangereactions in Ar–H2 and Ar–D2 systems using the ion source in the Čermák mode of operation. As the source was used in a pulsed mode, it was possible to identify the various secondary ions arising from the charge exchangereactions in these systems. Very good agreement has been shown to exist between the experimental results and simple theoretical deductions. Calculations have been made to determine the cross sections for the charge exchangereactions between the various species from the experimental data

Antibiotic treatment-induced secondary IgA deficiency enhances susceptibility to Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are widely used with patients in intensive care units (ICUs), many of whom develop hospital-acquired infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Although preceding antimicrobial therapy is known as a major risk factor for P. aeruginosa-induced pneumonia, the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Here we demonstrate that depletion of the resident microbiota by broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment inhibited TLR-dependent production of a proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL), resulting in a secondary IgA deficiency in the lung in mice and human ICU patients. Microbiota-dependent local IgA contributed to early antibacterial defense against P. aeruginosa. Consequently, P. aeruginosa-binding IgA purified from lamina propria culture or IgA hybridomas enhanced resistance of antibiotic-treated mice to P. aeruginosa infection after transnasal substitute. Our study provides a mechanistic explanation for the well-documented risk of P. aeruginosa infection following antimicrobial therapy, and we propose local administration of IgA as a novel prophylactic strategy