Cloning and expression of porcine β1,4 N-acetylgalactosaminyl transferase encoding a new xenoreactive antigen

Xenograft rejection of pigs organs with an engineered mutation in the GGTA-1 gene (GTKO) remains a predominantly antibody mediated process which is directed to a variety of non-Gal protein and carbohydrate antigens. We previously used an expression library screening strategy to identify six porcine endothelial cell cDNAs which encode pig antigens that bind to IgG induced after pig-to-primate cardiac xenotransplantation. One of these gene products was a glycosyltransferase with homology to the bovine β1,4 N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase (B4GALNT2). We now characterize the porcine B4GALNT2 gene sequence, genomic organization, expression, and functional significance

Improvements in the preparation of heterologous antilymphocyte globulin with special reference to absorption and diethylaminoethyl cellulose batch production

Antilymphocyte gamma-G globulin (ALGG) was produced from the serum of immunized horses. Modifications of the preliminary absorption techniques permitted the removal of undesirable, extraneous antibodies. With the use of a batch technique, pure gamma-G globulin could then be removed in bulk quantities. The resulting product was first confirmed to have immunosuppressive qualities in dogs and then given a clinical trial. In patients, its administration occasionally caused low-grade fever and thrombocytopenia. Pain at the injection site was not eliminated. Precipitin antibody responses have apparently been prevented in the patients but not a host response to Forssman antigens. © 1969

Structure and dielectric properties of polar fluids with extended dipoles: results from numerical simulations

The strengths and short-comings of the point-dipole model for polar fluids of spherical molecules are illustrated by considering the physically more relevant case of extended dipoles formed by two opposite charges $\pm q$ separated by a distance $d$ (dipole moment $\mu=q d$). Extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations on a high density dipolar fluid are used to analyse the dependence of the pair structure, dielectric constant \eps and dynamics as a function of the ratio $d/\sigma$ (\sig is the molecular diameter), for a fixed dipole moment $\mu$. The point dipole model is found to agree well with the extended dipole model up to d/\sig \simeq 0.3. Beyond that ratio, \eps shows a non-trivial variation with d/\sig. When d/\sig>0.6, a transition is observed towards a hexagonal columnar phase; the corresponding value of the dipole moment, \mu^2/\sig^3 k T=3, is found to be substantially lower than the value of the point dipole required to drive a similar transition.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures; Paper submitted to Molecular Physic

Low-Lying Dirac Eigenmodes, Topological Charge Fluctuations and the Instanton Liquid Model

The local structure of low-lying eigenmodes of the overlap Dirac operator is studied. It is found that these modes cannot be described as linear combinations of 't Hooft "would-be" zeromodes associated with instanton excitations that underly the Instanton Liquid Model. This implies that the instanton liquid scenario for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD is not accurate. More generally, our data suggests that the vacuum fluctuations of topological charge are not effectively dominated by localized lumps of unit charge with which the topological "would-be" zeromodes could be associated.Comment: Presented by I. Horvath at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Confinement, Topology, and other Non-Perturbative Aspects of QCD", January 21-27, 2002, Stara Lesna, Slovakia. 12 pages, 6 figures, uses crckapb.st

Digging for answers: contributions of density- and frequency-dependent factors on ectoparasite burden in a social mammal

Due to the density-dependent nature of parasite transmission parasites are generally assumed to constrain the evolution of sociality. However, evidence for a correlation between group size and parasite burden is equivocal, particularly for mammals. Host contact rates may be modified by mobility of the host and parasite as well as social barriers. In the current study, we used the common mole-rat (Cryptomys hottentotus hottentotus), a social subterranean rodent, as a model system to investigate the effect of host density and frequency of contact rates on ectoparasite burdens. To address these factors we used a study species that naturally varies in population densities and intergroup contact rates across its geographic range. We found that ectoparasite prevalence, abundance and species richness decreased with increasing host density at a regional scale. At the same time, measures of parasite burden increased with intergroup contact rates. Ectoparasite burdens decreased with colony size at the group level possibly as a result of increased grooming rates. Equating group size with population density might be too simplistic an approach when assessing parasite distributions in social mammals. Our data suggest that frequency-dependent mechanisms may play a much greater role at a population level than density-dependent mechanisms in determining parasite distributions in social species. We suggest that future studies should explicitly consider behavioural mechanisms that may affect parasite distributionNational Research Foundation (South Africa

Automatic, fast and robust characterization of noise distributions for diffusion MRI

Knowledge of the noise distribution in magnitude diffusion MRI images is the centerpiece to quantify uncertainties arising from the acquisition process. The use of parallel imaging methods, the number of receiver coils and imaging filters applied by the scanner, amongst other factors, dictate the resulting signal distribution. Accurate estimation beyond textbook Rician or noncentral chi distributions often requires information about the acquisition process (e.g. coils sensitivity maps or reconstruction coefficients), which is not usually available. We introduce a new method where a change of variable naturally gives rise to a particular form of the gamma distribution for background signals. The first moments and maximum likelihood estimators of this gamma distribution explicitly depend on the number of coils, making it possible to estimate all unknown parameters using only the magnitude data. A rejection step is used to make the method automatic and robust to artifacts. Experiments on synthetic datasets show that the proposed method can reliably estimate both the degrees of freedom and the standard deviation. The worst case errors range from below 2% (spatially uniform noise) to approximately 10% (spatially variable noise). Repeated acquisitions of in vivo datasets show that the estimated parameters are stable and have lower variances than compared methods.Comment: v2: added publisher DOI statement, fixed text typo in appendix A

Holographic Penta and Hepta Quark State in Confining Gauge Theories

We study a new embedding solutions of D5 brane in an asymptotic AdS${}_5\times S^5$ space-time, which is dual to a confining $SU(N_c)$ gauge theory. The D5 brane is wrapped on $S^5$ as in the case of the vertex of holographic baryon. However, the solution given here is different from the usual baryon vertex in the point that it couples to $k$-anti-quarks and $N_c+k$ quarks on the opposite two points of $S^5$, the north and south poles, respectively. The total quark number of this state is preserved as $N_c$ when minus one is assigned to anti-quark, then it forms a color singlet like the baryon. However, this includes anti-quarks and quarks, whose number is larger than that of the baryon. When we set as $N_c=3$, we find the so called penta and hepta-quark states. We study the dynamical properties of these states by solving the vertex and string configurations for such states. The mass spectra of these states and the tension of the stretched vertex are estimated, and they are compared with that of the baryon.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure