Impurity Concentration Profile Determination By Capacitance-Voltage Measurements

A FORTRAN program has been written to manipulate the data obtained from 1 MHZ C—V measurements. This program utilizes the data to compute information on the impurity profile of capacitors. Capacitors were fabricated with varying doping profiles and tested. The doping profiles obtained using this program were consistent with SUPREM models

Memory B Cell Antibodies to HIV-1 gp140 Cloned from Individuals Infected with Clade A and B Viruses

Understanding the antibody response to HIV-1 in humans that show broad neutralizing serologic activity is a crucial step in trying to reproduce such responses by vaccination. Investigating antibodies with cross clade reactivity is particularly important as these antibodies may target conserved epitopes on the HIV envelope gp160 protein. To this end we have used a clade B YU-2 gp140 trimeric antigen and single-cell antibody cloning methods to obtain 189 new anti-gp140 antibodies representing 51 independent B cell clones from the IgG memory B cells of 3 patients infected with HIV-1 clade A or B viruses and exhibiting broad neutralizing serologic activity. Our results support previous findings showing a diverse antibody response to HIV gp140 envelope protein, characterized by differentially expanded B-cell clones producing highly hypermutated antibodies with heterogenous gp140-specificity and neutralizing activity. In addition to their high-affinity binding to the HIV spike, the vast majority of the new anti-gp140 antibodies are also polyreactive. Although none of the new antibodies are as broad or potent as VRC01 or PG9, two clonally-related antibodies isolated from a clade A HIV-1 infected donor, directed against the gp120 variable loop 3, rank in the top 5% of the neutralizers identified in our large collection of 185 unique gp140-specific antibodies in terms of breadth and potency

Expression of retinoid receptors during human monocyte differentiation in vitro

1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) (1,25(OH)(2)VD(3)) and retinoic acid (RA) modulate the activation of monocytes (MO) and their differentiation into macrophages (MAC). As these effects are mostly mediated by heterodimers or homodimers of the specific nuclear receptors for 1,25(OH)(2)VD(3) and RA, we investigated the expression of the retinoic acid receptors (RAR) alpha, beta, and gamma and the retinoid X-receptor (RXR) alpha in MO during differentiation into MAC or dendritic cells (DC). The mRNA of all investigated receptors except RARbeta was detected in short-term cultured MO. During differentiation of MO to MAC the mRNA expression of the RA receptors decreased. In contrast, along the differentiation pathway of MO to DC, only the mRNA expression of RARgamma declined, whereas RARalpha and RXRalpha were constantly expressed at a high level. Despite the strong expression of RARalpha and RXRalpha at mRNA level in MO-derived DC, the protein expression of the receptors was low in these cells. However, MO and MO-derived MAC showed a strong expression of these receptors at protein level. This suggests that a posttranscriptional or posttranslational mechanism of receptor regulation is occurring in these cells, and in particular in the DC. The inverse regulation of RA receptor expression and protein levels between MAC and DC may control the responsiveness of these cells to 1,25(OH)(2)VD(3) and RA