US Air Force Facility Energy Management Program - How Industry Can Help the Air Force Meet Its Objectives

This paper describes the Air Force's facility energy management program including how industry can help the Air Force meet its facility energy objectives. Background information on energy use and energy conservation efforts are presented to give the reader an understanding of the magnitude of energy used by the Air Force and how greater efficiency of use is being approached

A case of coronavirus disease 2019 messenger RNA vaccine tolerance and immune response despite presence of anti-polyethylene glycol antibodies

The role of anti-polyethylene glycol (PEG) immunoglobulin (Ig)M, IgG, or IgE antibodies in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine anaphylaxis is unknown. We highlight a case with preexisting anti-PEG antibodies that tolerated vaccination. A 60-year-old woman with debilitating gout experienced HLA-B*58:01-restricted allopurinol drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic syndrome. After 2 years, following therapeutic failure with febuxostat, pegloticase was trialed. After 12 days from initial infusion, she developed angioedema and a diffuse erythematous pruritic rash. She self-treated with diphenhydramine, but symptoms persisted for 2 days. She then developed shortness of breath and throat constriction, requiring antihistamines and systemic steroids from an outside emergency department. She was later discharged with steroids, and symptoms resolved after 7 days. After 7 months, she had negative results from skin prick test (SPT) and intradermal test (IDT) to PEG3350. She was not tested to higher molecular weight PEG at this time. Of note, we detected anti-PEG IgG and IgE antibodies using a previously reported dual cytometric bead assay,1 which had been negative when assessed from biobanked plasma 2 months after the drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic syndrome episode (Table 1). The target beads for the assay used high-affinity murine anti-PEG monoclonal antibody-conjugated cytometric bead array beads conjugated with pegloticase as the target antigen.1 The control beads were conjugated with the same anti-PEG antibodies without pegloticase.1 The positive signal criterion is defined as “target beads MFI (median fluorescence intensity) more than or equal to 1.2 times control beads MFI” and “free PEG inhibition reduces more than or equal to 50% of target beads MFI.”

Transfer of the cytochrome P450-dependent dhurrin pathway from Sorghum bicolor into Nicotiana tabacum chloroplasts for light-driven synthesis

Plant chloroplasts are light-driven cell factories that have great potential to act as a chassis for metabolic engineering applications. Using plant chloroplasts, we demonstrate how photosynthetic reducing power can drive a metabolic pathway to synthesise a bio-active natural product. For this purpose, we stably engineered the dhurrin pathway from Sorghum bicolor into the chloroplasts of Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco). Dhurrin is a cyanogenic glucoside and its synthesis from the amino acid tyrosine is catalysed by two membrane-bound cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYP79A1 and CYP71E1) and a soluble glucosyltransferase (UGT85B1), and is dependent on electron transfer from a P450 oxidoreductase. The entire pathway was introduced into the chloroplast by integrating CYP79A1, CYP71E1, and UGT85B1 into a neutral site of the N. tabacum chloroplast genome. The two P450s and the UGT85B1 were functional when expressed in the chloroplasts and converted endogenous tyrosine into dhurrin using electrons derived directly from the photosynthetic electron transport chain, without the need for the presence of an NADPH-dependent P450 oxidoreductase. The dhurrin produced in the engineered plants amounted to 0.1–0.2% of leaf dry weight compared to 6% in sorghum. The results obtained pave the way for plant P450s involved in the synthesis of economically important compounds to be engineered into the thylakoid membrane of chloroplasts, and demonstrate that their full catalytic cycle can be driven directly by photosynthesis-derived electrons