Production of human blood group B antigen epitope conjugated protein in Escherichia coli and utilization of the adsorption blood group B antibody

Additional file 1: Table S1. List of constructed plasmids, strains and primers used in the study. Figure S1. MALDI-TOF detection of MBPmut (a) and MBPmut-OPS (b)

Targeted Delivery of Chlorin e6 via Redox Sensitive Diselenide-Containing Micelles for Improved Photodynamic Therapy in Cluster of Differentiation 44-Overexpressing Breast Cancer

The off-target activation of photosensitizers is one of the most well-known obstacles to effective photodynamic therapy (PDT). The selected activation of photosensitizers in cancer cells is highly desired to overcome this problem. We developed a strategy that enabled diselenide bonds to link hyaluronic acid (HA) and photosensitizer chlorin e6 (Ce6) to assemble the micelles (HA-sese-Ce6 NPs) that can target cancer and achieve a redox responsive release of drugs to enhance the PDT efficiency in breast cancer. The HA was used to form a hydrophilic shell that can target cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) on the cancer cells. The selenium-containing core is easily dissembled in a redox environment to release Ce6. The triggered release of Ce6 in a redox condition and the positive feedback release by activated Ce6 were observed in vitro. In cytotoxicity assays and in vitro cellular uptake assays, the increased PDT efficiency and targeted internalization of HA-sese-Ce6 NPs in the cells were verified, compared to a free Ce6 treated group. Similar results were showed in the therapeutic study and in vivo fluorescence imaging in an orthotopic mammary fat pad tumor model. In addition, a significant inhibition of metastasis was found after the HA-sese-Ce6 NPs treatment. In general, this study promises an ingenious and easy strategy for improved PDT efficiency

Identification of KIF3A as a Novel Candidate Gene for Childhood Asthma Using RNA Expression and Population Allelic Frequencies Differences

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease with a strong genetic predisposition. A major challenge for candidate gene association studies in asthma is the selection of biologically relevant genes.Using epithelial RNA expression arrays, HapMap allele frequency variation, and the literature, we identified six possible candidate susceptibility genes for childhood asthma including ADCY2, DNAH5, KIF3A, PDE4B, PLAU, SPRR2B. To evaluate these genes, we compared the genotypes of 194 predominantly tagging SNPs in 790 asthmatic, allergic and non-allergic children. We found that SNPs in all six genes were nominally associated with asthma (p<0.05) in our discovery cohort and in three independent cohorts at either the SNP or gene level (p<0.05). Further, we determined that our selection approach was superior to random selection of genes either differentially expressed in asthmatics compared to controls (p = 0.0049) or selected based on the literature alone (p = 0.0049), substantiating the validity of our gene selection approach. Importantly, we observed that 7 of 9 SNPs in the KIF3A gene more than doubled the odds of asthma (OR = 2.3, p<0.0001) and increased the odds of allergic disease (OR = 1.8, p<0.008). Our data indicate that KIF3A rs7737031 (T-allele) has an asthma population attributable risk of 18.5%. The association between KIF3A rs7737031 and asthma was validated in 3 independent populations, further substantiating the validity of our gene selection approach.Our study demonstrates that KIF3A, a member of the kinesin superfamily of microtubule associated motors that are important in the transport of protein complexes within cilia, is a novel candidate gene for childhood asthma. Polymorphisms in KIF3A may in part be responsible for poor mucus and/or allergen clearance from the airways. Furthermore, our study provides a promising framework for the identification and evaluation of novel candidate susceptibility genes

Multiethnic Meta-Analysis Identifies Ancestry-Specific and Cross-Ancestry Loci for Pulmonary Function

Nearly 100 loci have been identified for pulmonary function, almost exclusively in studies of European ancestry populations. We extend previous research by meta-analyzing genome-wide association studies of 1000 Genomes imputed variants in relation to pulmonary function in a multiethnic population of 90,715 individuals of European (N = 60,552), African (N = 8429), Asian (N = 9959), and Hispanic/Latino (N = 11,775) ethnicities. We identify over 50 additional loci at genome-wide significance in ancestry-specific or multiethnic meta-analyses. Using recent fine-mapping methods incorporating functional annotation, gene expression, and differences in linkage disequilibrium between ethnicities, we further shed light on potential causal variants and genes at known and newly identified loci. Several of the novel genes encode proteins with predicted or established drug targets, including KCNK2 and CDK12. Our study highlights the utility of multiethnic and integrative genomics approaches to extend existing knowledge of the genetics of lung function and clinical relevance of implicated loci

Simulation model of a bi-tiltrotor UAV with adaptive control augmentations

This model was developed to conduct the simulation examples in the following manuscript: Chao Ma, Donglei Sun, and Naira Hovakimyan, Modeling and Adaptive Control Law Design for a Bi-tiltrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, submitted to the Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 2020. This file contains the model of a bi-tiltrotor UAV, the baseline control laws, and L1 adaptive augmentations.China Scholarship Council/2011602110Aeronautical Science Foundation of China/Grant No. 2017ZA67001NSF NRI awards/Award No. 1830639 and 1528036ZJU-UIUC Institute Research ProgramOpe

Anomaly Detection in Hyperspectral Imagery Based on Low-Rank Representation Incorporating a Spatial Constraint

Hyperspectral imagery contains abundant spectral information. Each band contains some specific characteristics closely related to target objects. Therefore, using these characteristics, hyperspectral imagery can be used for anomaly detection. Recently, with the development of compressed sensing, low-rank-representation-based methods have been applied to hyperspectral anomaly detection. In this study, novel low-rank representation methods were developed for anomaly detection from hyperspectral images based on the assumption that hyperspectral pixels can be effectively decomposed into a low-rank component (for background) and a sparse component (for anomalies). In order to improve detection performance, we imposed a spatial constraint on the low-rank representation coefficients, and single or multiple local window strategies was applied to smooth the coefficients. Experiments on both simulated and real hyperspectral datasets demonstrated that the proposed approaches can effectively improve hyperspectral anomaly detection performance

Development and validation of a rapid and sensitive UHPLC–MS/MS method for the determination of paliperidone in beagle dog plasma

In order to evaluate the pharmacokinetic profile of paliperidone extended-release tablets in vivo, a simple and rapid ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of paliperidone in beagle dog plasma. Paliperidone and diazepam (internal standard) were extracted from plasma samples with diethyl ether, and then separated on a C18 column (2.1 × 50 mm, 2.6 μm) under gradient elution with methanol–0.1% formic acid at a flow rate of 0.3 ml/min. The compounds were detected using a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source. The validated method was linear over the concentration range of 1.00–1000.00 ng/ml and the lower limit of quantitation was 1.00 ng/ml. The intra-day and inter-day precision values were not more than 15% (relative standard deviation < 20% at low levels), while the accuracy was within ±10% of nominal values. The validated UHPLC–MS/MS method was successfully applied to an oral pharmacokinetic study of paliperidone extended-release tablets in a beagle dog