Transcriptome-wide analysis reveals different categories of response to a standardised immune challenge in a wild rodent

Individuals vary in their immune response and, as a result, some are more susceptible to infectious disease than others. Little is known about the nature of this individual variation in natural populations, or which components of immune pathways are most responsible, but defining this underlying landscape of variation is an essential first step to understanding the drivers of this variation and, ultimately, predicting the outcome of infection. We describe transcriptome-wide variation in response to a standardised immune challenge in wild field voles. We find that markers can be categorised into a limited number of types. For the majority of markers, the response of an individual is dependent on its baseline expression level, with significant enrichment in this category for conventional immune pathways. Another, moderately sized, category contains markers for which the responses of different individuals are also variable but independent of their baseline expression levels. This category lacks any enrichment for conventional immune pathways. We further identify markers which display particularly high individual variability in response, and could be used as markers of immune response in larger studies. Our work shows how a standardised challenge performed on a natural population can reveal the patterns of natural variation in immune response

Effect of backscattering in phase conjugation with weak scatterers

An extension is presented of a recently developed theory (based on the first Born approximation) of cancellation of distortions by phase conjugation. The influence of backscattering of both the incident and the conjugate waves is considered. It is shown that, when backscattering is taken into account, distortions are not eliminated by phase conjugation, except when the conjugate wave is generated without a loss or a gain

Polymerization In Nonaqueous Lyotropic Liquid Crystals With A Polymerizable Solvent

Lamellar liquid crystals of lecithin and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) were polymerized by using UV radiation. Optical microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and small-angle X-ray diffraction were used to compare the structure prior to and after polymerization. The lamellar structure was retained after polymerization with increased interlayer spacing. © 1987, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved

Scattering theory of distortion correction by phase conjugation

The correction of wave distortions by the technique of optical phase conjugation is examined first on the basis of a newly derived integral equation for scattering of monochromatic scalar waves in the presence of a phase-conjugate mirror. The solution is developed in an iterative series, and the first- and second-order terms are analyzed and illustrated diagrammatically. A generalization of the integral equation is then presented, which takes into account the electromagnetic nature of light. It is also shown that, if the conjugate wave is generated without losses or gains and with a complete reversal of polarization, a total elimination of distortions may be achieved by this technique under circumstances that frequently occur in practice

Single Compound Forming A Lyotropic Liquid Crystal At Room Temperature

The compound triethanolammonium oleate forms a lamellar liquid crystal at room temperature. The basis for the lyotropic mesomorphism is the fact that part of the triethanolammonium oleate has changed to triethanolamine and oleic acid. These two compounds serve as solvents in the liquid crystalline structure. © 1984 American Chemical Society

Surfactants And The Stratum Corneum Lipids

A simplified mixture of model stratum corneum lipids was mixed with different surfactants to make a preliminary estimation of the influence of surfactants on the stratum corneum lipid structure. The results revealed differences between cationic and anionic surfactants and between anionic surfactants with different structures. © 1998