Pre-tenured Counselor Educators Engagement in Direct Counseling Service: Results of a National Survey

One hundred and fifty pre-tenured counselor education assistant professors participated in a survey regarding their engagement of direct counseling service (DCS). Both quantitative and qualitative data was analyzed. Participants reported significant restrictions on time and a lack of departmental support for DCS and a perception that DCS will not be valued within the tenure processes. However, the majority of pre-tenured faculty desired to engage in more DCS to maintain skills and enhance their teaching and scholarship. Data regarding the participation of DCS by pre-tenured faculty, and implications for counselor educators are shared

Influence of husbandry procedures on mouse locomotor activity

The currently used raL models of obesity and diabetes are derived from either Zucker or from Koletsky rats. Recently, we identified a spontaneous obese rat from out Wistar colony which is maintained as an inbred stock for the past 75 years. Initially, one of the male progeny in a litter was observed to have abnormal body weight for its age. The parents of this ral were identified, the progeny selectively bred, and a colony has been developed. This is designated as WNIN-0b. The colony is maintained by mating heterozygous animals (+/ob), as the homozygous (ob/ob) were found to be infertile. The trait is carried as an autosomal recessive mutation and the colony is currenfly in F7 generation.Obesity is visible in these mutants around 35 days of age. They are hyperphagic and reach a body weight of 500—600 g by 105 days of age. “Kinky” tail is characteristic of this mutant and this is visible around 50-60 days. Sexual maturity is delayed in female obese mutants, as judged by the day of vaginal opening. The animals are cuglyccmic and show hyperinsulinaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia, arid hypercholesterolemia. Another mutant showing hyperglycemia is also obtained fromthe obese colony. Unlike earlier models which are essentially derived from a randomAbred stock, this is the first report of a rat obese model, developed spontaneously from an inbred strain

Quality of clothing fabrics in terms of their comfort properties

Quality of various clothing woven fabrics with respect to their comfort properties, such as electro-physical properties, air permeability, and compression properties has been studied. Fabrics are produced from cotton and cotton/polyester fibre blends in plain, twill, satin and basket weave. Results show that cotton fabrics have lower values of the volume resistivity, air permeability and compressive resilience but higher values of effective relative dielectric permeability and compressibility as compared to fabrics that have been produced from cotton/PES fibre blends. Regression analysis shows a strong linear correlative relationship between the air permeability and the porosity of the woven fabrics with very high coefficient of linear correlation (0.9807). It is also observed that comfort properties are determined by the structure of woven fabrics (raw material composition, type of weave) as well as by the fabrics surface condition. Findings of the studies have been used for estimating the quality of woven fabrics in terms of their comfort properties by the application of ranking method. It is concluded that the group of cotton fabrics exhibits better quality of comfort as compared to the group of cotton/PES blend fabrics.

Immune-Complex Mimics as a Molecular Platform for Adjuvant-Free Vaccine Delivery

Protein-based vaccine development faces the difficult challenge of finding robust yet non-toxic adjuvants suitable for humans. Here, using a molecular engineering approach, we have developed a molecular platform for generating self-adjuvanting immunogens that do not depend on exogenous adjuvants for induction of immune responses. These are based on the concept of Immune Complex Mimics (ICM), structures that are formed between an oligomeric antigen and a monoclonal antibody (mAb) to that antigen. In this way, the roles of antigens and antibodies within the structure of immune complexes are reversed, so that a single monoclonal antibody, rather than polyclonal sera or expensive mAb cocktails can be used. We tested this approach in the context of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection by linking the highly immunogenic and potentially protective Ag85B with the oligomeric Acr (alpha crystallin, HspX) antigen. When combined with an anti-Acr monoclonal antibody, the fusion protein formed ICM which bound to C1q component of the complement system and were readily taken up by antigen-presenting cells in vitro. ICM induced a strong Th1/Th2 mixed type antibody response, which was comparable to cholera toxin adjuvanted antigen, but only moderate levels of T cell proliferation and IFN-γ secretion. Unfortunately, the systemic administration of ICM did not confer statistically significant protection against intranasal MTB challenge, although a small BCG-boosting effect was observed. We conclude that ICM are capable of inducing strong humoral responses to incorporated antigens and may be a suitable vaccination approach for pathogens other than MTB, where antibody-based immunity may play a more protective role

The ansamycin antibiotic, rifamycin SV, inhibits BCL6 transcriptional repression and forms a complex with the BCL6-BTB/POZ domain

BCL6 is a transcriptional repressor that is over-expressed due to chromosomal translocations, or other abnormalities, in ~40% of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. BCL6 interacts with co-repressor, SMRT, and this is essential for its role in lymphomas. Peptide or small molecule inhibitors, which prevent the association of SMRT with BCL6, inhibit transcriptional repression and cause apoptosis of lymphoma cells in vitro and in vivo. In order to discover compounds, which have the potential to be developed into BCL6 inhibitors, we screened a natural product library. The ansamycin antibiotic, rifamycin SV, inhibited BCL6 transcriptional repression and NMR spectroscopy confirmed a direct interaction between rifamycin SV and BCL6. To further determine the characteristics of compounds binding to BCL6-POZ we analyzed four other members of this family and showed that rifabutin, bound most strongly. An X-ray crystal structure of the rifabutin-BCL6 complex revealed that rifabutin occupies a partly non-polar pocket making interactions with tyrosine58, asparagine21 and arginine24 of the BCL6-POZ domain. Importantly these residues are also important for the interaction of BLC6 with SMRT. This work demonstrates a unique approach to developing a structure activity relationship for a compound that will form the basis of a therapeutically useful BCL6 inhibitor

An RNA-seq Based Machine Learning Approach Identifies Latent Tuberculosis Patients With an Active Tuberculosis Profile.

A better understanding of the response against Tuberculosis (TB) infection is required to accurately identify the individuals with an active or a latent TB infection (LTBI) and also those LTBI patients at higher risk of developing active TB. In this work, we have used the information obtained from studying the gene expression profile of active TB patients and their infected -LTBI- or uninfected -NoTBI- contacts, recruited in Spain and Mozambique, to build a class-prediction model that identifies individuals with a TB infection profile. Following this approach, we have identified several genes and metabolic pathways that provide important information of the immune mechanisms triggered against TB infection. As a novelty of our work, a combination of this class-prediction model and the direct measurement of different immunological parameters, was used to identify a subset of LTBI contacts (called TB-like) whose transcriptional and immunological profiles are suggestive of infection with a higher probability of developing active TB. Validation of this novel approach to identifying LTBI individuals with the highest risk of active TB disease merits further longitudinal studies on larger cohorts in TB endemic areas

Systemic and Oral Immunogenicity of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Antigen Fused to Poly-Fc of Immunoglobulin G and Expressed in ΔXT/FT Nicotiana benthamiana Plants.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), a member of the Coronaviridae family has become increasingly probelmatic in the pig farming industry. Currently, there are no effective, globally applicable vaccines against PEDV. Here, we tested a recombinant PEDV vaccine candidate based on the expression of the core neutralising epitope (COE) of PEDV conjugated to polymeric immunoglobulin G scaffold (PIGS) in glycoengineered Nicotiana benthamiana plants. The biological activity of COE-PIGS was demonstrated by binding to C1q component of the complement system, as well as the surface of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in vitro. The recombinant COE-PIGS induced humoral and cellular immune responses specific for PEDV after both systemic and mucosal vaccination. Altogether, the data indicated that PEDV antigen fusion to poly-Fc could be a promising vaccine platform against respiratory PEDV infection

Suppression of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3–Dependent B Lymphocyte Terminal Differentiation by Bcl-6

Lymphocytes usually differentiate into effector cells within days after antigen exposure, except in germinal centers where terminal differentiation is delayed while somatic hypermutation creates high-affinity antibody mutants. Here we investigate whether arrest of terminal differentiation can be mediated by BCL-6, a transcriptional repressor that is expressed by germinal center B cells and is required for this phase of B cell development. We find that BCL-6 suppresses the differentiation of transformed and primary B cells to plasma cells by inhibiting the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3–dependent expression of the major regulator of plasma cell development, the B lymphocyte–induced maturation protein (Blimp-1). This function of BCL-6 as a repressor of B lymphocyte differentiation may also underlie the association between chromosomal translocations of its gene and B cell lymphomas