Tumor necrosis factor superfamily member APRIL contributes to fibrotic scar formation after spinal cord injury

BACKGROUND: Fibrotic scar formation contributes to the axon growth-inhibitory environment that forms following spinal cord injury (SCI). We recently demonstrated that depletion of hematogenous macrophages led to a reduction in fibrotic scar formation and increased axon growth after SCI. These changes were associated with decreased TNFSF13 (a proliferation inducing ligand (APRIL)) expression, but the role of APRIL in fibrotic scar formation after SCI has not been directly investigated. Thus, the goal of this study was to determine the role of APRIL in fibrotic scar formation after SCI. METHODS: APRIL knockout and wild-type mice received contusive SCI and were assessed for inflammatory cytokine/chemokine expression, leukocyte infiltration, fibrotic scar formation, axon growth, and cell proliferation. RESULTS: Expression of APRIL and its receptor BCMA is increased following SCI, and genetic deletion of APRIL led to reduced fibrotic scar formation and increased axon growth. However, the fibrotic scar reduction in APRIL KO mice was not a result of changes in fibroblast or astrocyte proliferation. Rather, APRIL knockout mice displayed reduced TNFα and CCL2 expression and less macrophage and B cell infiltration at the injury site. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that APRIL contributes to fibrotic scar formation after SCI by mediating the inflammatory response

Standardized single-platform assay for human monocyte subpopulations: Lower CD14⁺CD16⁺⁺ monocytes in females.

We present a novel single-platform assay for determination of the absolute number of human blood monocyte subpopulations, i.e., the CD14(++)CD16(-) and the CD14(+)CD16(++) monocytes. A four-color combination of antibodies to CD14, CD16, CD45, and HLA-DR reduces the spill-over of natural killer cells and of granulocytes into the CD14(+)CD16(++) monocyte gate. For these CD14(+)CD16(++) monocytes, the intra-assay coefficient of variation (CV) was 4.1% and the inter-assay CV was 8.5%. Looking at a cohort of 40 donors aged 18-60 years, we found no age dependence. There was however an effect of gender in that females had lower CD14(+)CD16(++) monocytes (45.4 +/- 13.5 cells/microl) compared with males (59.1 +/- 20.3 cells/microl) (P < 0.02). Using this novel approach, we can confirm that exercise will lead to more than three-fold increase of the CD14(+)CD16(++) monocytes. Also, we show that therapy with low doses of glucocorticoids will deplete these cells. This robust single-platform assay may be a useful tool for monitoring the absolute number of monocyte subpopulations in health and disease

Behaviour of steel cap plate connections: Experimental tests

This paper reports the results of a study conducted to investigate the behaviour of steel cap plate connections. In the analysis and design, connections are characterized as either rigid or pinned and between these two extremities lies the actual behaviour of steel frame connections, which is semi-rigid. This classification is characterized by the nonlinear moment-rotation relationship which must be incorporated in the analysis. A cap plate connection is widely used in industrial steel frames for its advantages over other types of building connections, but the response of such a connection has not sufficiently been experimentally determined. In this research, the behaviour of cap plate connections was studied by testing four full-scale connections. Experimental results obtained would add valuable information to the available test data concerning steel connections since sparse data is available in the literature for this type of connection. Mathematical and numerical models were used to analyze the cap plate connection and close correlations were found between these models and the experimental results