When The Lusitania Went Down

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3418/thumbnail.jp

When The Sun Goes Down In Dixie : And The Moon Begains To Rise

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2731/thumbnail.jp

Your Lips Are No Man\u27s Land But Mine

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2828/thumbnail.jp

What Kind of an American Are You?

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2653/thumbnail.jp

Down Where the Swanee River Flows / music by Harry von Tilzer; words by Chas Mc Carron and Chas S. Alberte

Cover: drawing of an idyllic southern landscape; drawing inset of Al Jolson; Publisher: Broadway Music Corporation (New York)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_c/1107/thumbnail.jp

Breaching the delivery barrier: Chemical and physical airway epithelium disruption strategies for enhancing lentiviral-mediated gene therapy

Published: 26 April 2021The lungs have evolved complex physical, biological and immunological defences to prevent foreign material from entering the airway epithelial cells. These mechanisms can also affect both viral and non-viral gene transfer agents, and significantly diminish the effectiveness of airway gene-addition therapies. One strategy to overcome the physical barrier properties of the airway is to transiently disturb the integrity of the epithelium prior to delivery of the gene transfer vector. In this study, chemical (lysophosphatidylcholine, LPC) and physical epithelium disruption using wire abrasion were compared for their ability to improve airway-based lentiviral (LV) vector mediated transduction and reporter gene expression in rats. When luciferase expression was assessed at 1-week post LV delivery, LPC airway conditioning significantly enhanced gene expression levels in rat lungs, while a long-term assessment in a separate cohort of rats at 12 months revealed that LPC conditioning did not improve gene expression longevity. In rats receiving physical perturbation to the trachea prior to gene delivery, significantly higher LacZ gene expression levels were found when compared to LPC-conditioned or LV-only control rats when evaluated 1-week post gene transfer. This proof-of-principle study has shown that airway epithelial disruption strategies based on physical perturbation substantially enhanced LVmediated airway gene transfer in the trachea.Alexandra McCarron, Nigel Farrow, Patricia Cmielewski, Emma Knight, Martin Donnelley and David Parson

Single-dose lentiviral mediated gene therapy recovers CFTR function in cystic fibrosis knockout rats

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease caused by mutations in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, resulting in defective ion transport in the airways. Addition of a functioning CFTR gene into affected airway cells has the potential to be an effective treatment for lung disease. The therapeutic efficacy of airway gene transfer can be quantified in animal models by assessing ion transport in the treated nasal epithelium using the nasal potential difference (PD) measurement technique. The nasal PD technique is routinely used in CF mice, however when applied to a recently developed CF rat model those animals did not tolerate the initial nasal PD assessment, therefore the procedure was firstly optimised in rats. This study evaluated the effect of lentiviral (LV)-mediated CFTR airway gene delivery on nasal PD in a CFTR knockout rat model. LV gene vector containing the CFTR gene tagged with a V5 epitope tag (LV-V5-CFTR) was delivered to the nasal epithelium of CF rats, and one week later nasal PD was analysed. This study demonstrated for the first time that LV-V5-CFTR treatment produced a mean correction of 46% towards wild-type chloride response in treated CF rats. Transduced cells were subsequently identifiable using V5 immunohistochemical staining. These findings in the nose validate the use of airway gene therapy for future lung based experiments.Nicole Reyne, Patricia Cmielewski, Alexandra McCarron, Juliette Delhove, David Parsons and Martin Donnelle

Antifungal Potential of Copper(II), Manganese(II) and Silver(I) 1,10-Phenanthroline Chelates Against Multidrug-Resistant Fungal Species Forming the Candida haemulonii Complex: Impact on the Planktonic and Biofilm Lifestyles

Candida haemulonii, Candida haemulonii var. vulnera and Candida duobushaemulonii, which form the C. haemulonii complex, are emerging etiologic agents of fungal infections known to be resistant to the most commonly used antifungals. The well-established anti-Candida potential ofmetal complexes containing 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) ligands encouraged us to evaluate different copper(II), manganese(II), and silver(I) phen chelates for their ability to inhibit planktonic growth and biofilm of C. haemulonii species complex. Two novel coordination complexes, {[Cu(3,6,9-tdda)(phen)2].3H2O.EtOH}n and [Ag2(3,6,9-tdda)(phen)4].EtOH (3,6,9-tddaH2 = 3,6,9-trioxaundecanedioic acid), were synthesized in a similar fashion to the other, previously documented, sixteen copper(II), manganese(II), and silver(I) chelates employed herein. Three isolates of each C. haemulonii species complex were used and the effect of the metal chelates on viability was determined utilizing the CLSI standard protocol and on biofilm-growing cells using the XTT assay. Cytotoxicity of the chelates was evaluated by the MTT assay, employing lung epithelial cells. The majority of the metal chelates were capable of interfering with the viability of planktonic-growing cells of all the fungal isolates

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012