Anaphylaxis to hyperallergenic functional foods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Food allergy can cause life threatening reactions. Currently, patients with severe food allergy are advised to avoid foods which provoke allergic reactions. This has become increasingly difficult as food proteins are being added to a broader range of consumer products.</p> <p>Patients and methods</p> <p>Here we describe our investigations into the allergenicity of a new drink when two cow's milk allergic children suffered anaphylaxis after consuming <it>Wh</it>_<it>2</it><it>ole</it>^®.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our studies have shown that in comparison with cow's milk, <it>Wh</it>_<it>2</it><it>ole</it>^®contains at least three times the concentration of β-lactoglobulin. β-lactoglobulin is one of the dominant allergens in bovine milk.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These studies have shown that modern technology allows the creation of "hyperallergenic" foods. These products have the potential to cause severe reactions in milk allergic persons. Avoiding inadvertent exposure is the shared responsibility of allergic consumers, regulatory authorities and the food industry.</p

Simulation of an SEIR infectious disease model on the dynamic contact network of conference attendees

The spread of infectious diseases crucially depends on the pattern of contacts among individuals. Knowledge of these patterns is thus essential to inform models and computational efforts. Few empirical studies are however available that provide estimates of the number and duration of contacts among social groups. Moreover, their space and time resolution are limited, so that data is not explicit at the person-to-person level, and the dynamical aspect of the contacts is disregarded. Here, we want to assess the role of data-driven dynamic contact patterns among individuals, and in particular of their temporal aspects, in shaping the spread of a simulated epidemic in the population. We consider high resolution data of face-to-face interactions between the attendees of a conference, obtained from the deployment of an infrastructure based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices that assess mutual face-to-face proximity. The spread of epidemics along these interactions is simulated through an SEIR model, using both the dynamical network of contacts defined by the collected data, and two aggregated versions of such network, in order to assess the role of the data temporal aspects. We show that, on the timescales considered, an aggregated network taking into account the daily duration of contacts is a good approximation to the full resolution network, whereas a homogeneous representation which retains only the topology of the contact network fails in reproducing the size of the epidemic. These results have important implications in understanding the level of detail needed to correctly inform computational models for the study and management of real epidemics

Three-Dimensional Microscopy Characterization of Death Receptor 5 Expression by Over-Activated Human Primary CD4+ T Cells and Apoptosis

Activation-induced cell death is a natural process that prevents tissue damages from over-activated immune cells. TNF-Related apoptosis ligand (TRAIL), a TNF family member, induces apoptosis of infected and tumor cells by binding to one of its two death receptors, DR4 or DR5. TRAIL was reported to be secreted by phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated CD4+ T cells in microvesicles

The search for transient astrophysical neutrino emission with IceCube-DeepCore

We present the results of a search for astrophysical sources of brief transient neutrino emission using IceCube and DeepCore data acquired between 2012 May 15 and 2013 April 30. While the search methods employed in this analysis are similar to those used in previous IceCube point source searches, the data set being examined consists of a sample of predominantly sub-TeV muon-neutrinos from the Northern Sky (-5 degrees < delta < 90 degrees) obtained through a novel event selection method. This search represents a first attempt by IceCube to identify astrophysical neutrino sources in this relatively unexplored energy range. The reconstructed direction and time of arrival of neutrino events are used to search for any significant self-correlation in the data set. The data revealed no significant source of transient neutrino emission. This result has been used to construct limits at timescales ranging from roughly 1 s to 10 days for generic soft-spectra transients. We also present limits on a specific model of neutrino emission from soft jets in core-collapse supernovae

Barnase as a New Therapeutic Agent Triggering Apoptosis in Human Cancer Cells

RNases are currently studied as non-mutagenic alternatives to the harmful DNA-damaging anticancer drugs commonly used in clinical practice. Many mammalian RNases are not potent toxins due to the strong inhibition by ribonuclease inhibitor (RI) presented in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells.In search of new effective anticancer RNases we studied the effects of barnase, a ribonuclease from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, on human cancer cells. We found that barnase is resistant to RI. In MTT cell viability assay, barnase was cytotoxic to human carcinoma cell lines with half-inhibitory concentrations (IC(50)) ranging from 0.2 to 13 microM and to leukemia cell lines with IC(50) values ranging from 2.4 to 82 microM. Also, we characterized the cytotoxic effects of barnase-based immunoRNase scFv 4D5-dibarnase, which consists of two barnase molecules serially fused to the single-chain variable fragment (scFv) of humanized antibody 4D5 that recognizes the extracellular domain of cancer marker HER2. The scFv 4D5-dibarnase specifically bound to HER2-positive cells and was internalized via receptor-mediated endocytosis. The intracellular localization of internalized scFv 4D5-dibarnase was determined by electronic microscopy. The cytotoxic effect of scFv 4D5-dibarnase on HER2-positive human ovarian carcinoma SKOV-3 cells (IC(50) = 1.8 nM) was three orders of magnitude greater than that of barnase alone. Both barnase and scFv 4D5-dibarnase induced apoptosis in SKOV-3 cells accompanied by internucleosomal chromatin fragmentation, membrane blebbing, the appearance of phosphatidylserine on the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane, and the activation of caspase-3.These results demonstrate that barnase is a potent toxic agent for targeting to cancer cells

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel at s√=8 TeV with ATLAS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections are presented for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=8 TeV. The analysis is performed in the H → γγ decay channel using 20.3 fb−1 of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The signal is extracted using a fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum assuming that the width of the resonance is much smaller than the experimental resolution. The signal yields are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution. The pp → H → γγ fiducial cross section is measured to be 43.2 ±9.4(stat.) − 2.9 + 3.2 (syst.) ±1.2(lumi)fb for a Higgs boson of mass 125.4GeV decaying to two isolated photons that have transverse momentum greater than 35% and 25% of the diphoton invariant mass and each with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.37. Four additional fiducial cross sections and two cross-section limits are presented in phase space regions that test the theoretical modelling of different Higgs boson production mechanisms, or are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Differential cross sections are also presented, as a function of variables related to the diphoton kinematics and the jet activity produced in the Higgs boson events. The observed spectra are statistically limited but broadly in line with the theoretical expectations

Evidence for the Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to tau leptons with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for H → τ τ decays are presented, based on the full set of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC during 2011 and 2012. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 4.5 fb−1 and 20.3 fb−1 at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV respectively. All combinations of leptonic (τ → `νν¯ with ` = e, µ) and hadronic (τ → hadrons ν) tau decays are considered. An excess of events over the expected background from other Standard Model processes is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.5 (3.4) standard deviations. This excess provides evidence for the direct coupling of the recently discovered Higgs boson to fermions. The measured signal strength, normalised to the Standard Model expectation, of µ = 1.43 +0.43 −0.37 is consistent with the predicted Yukawa coupling strength in the Standard Model

Bordetella pertussis Infection or Vaccination Substantially Protects Mice against B. bronchiseptica Infection

Although B. bronchiseptica efficiently infects a wide range of mammalian hosts and efficiently spreads among them, it is rarely observed in humans. In contrast to the many other hosts of B. bronchiseptica, humans are host to the apparently specialized pathogen B. pertussis, the great majority having immunity due to vaccination, infection or both. Here we explore whether immunity to B. pertussis protects against B. bronchiseptica infection. In a murine model, either infection or vaccination with B. pertussis induced antibodies that recognized antigens of B. bronchiseptica and protected the lower respiratory tract of mice against three phylogenetically disparate strains of B. bronchiseptica that efficiently infect naïve animals. Furthermore, vaccination with purified B. pertussis-derived pertactin, filamentous hemagglutinin or the human acellular vaccine, Adacel, conferred similar protection against B. bronchiseptica challenge. These data indicate that individual immunity to B. pertussis affects B. bronchiseptica infection, and suggest that the high levels of herd immunity against B. pertussis in humans could explain the lack of observed B. bronchiseptica transmission. This could also explain the apparent association of B. bronchiseptica infections with an immunocompromised state