Altered Brain Functional Connectivity Varies By Form Of Craniosynostosis

This study uses functional MRI (fMRI) to study long-term neurocognitive sequelae of nonsyndromic craniosynostosis (NSC), and understand if these aberrations vary by form of synostosis. Twenty adolescent participants with treated NSC (10 sagittal (SSO), 5 right unilateral coronal (UCS), 5 metopic (MSO)) were matched to controls by age, gender, and handedness. A subgroup of MSO was classified as severe metopic synostosis (SMS) based on the endocranial bifrontal angle. Resting-state fMRI was acquired in a 3T Siemens TIM Trio scanner, and data was motion- corrected, cluster-corrected with nonparametric permutation tests, and analyzed with BioImage Suite. SSO had decreased intrinsic connectivity compared to controls in the superior parietal lobules and the angular gyrus (p=0.071). UCS had decreased intrinsic connectivity throughout the prefrontal cortex (p=0.031). The SMS subgroup had significantly decreased connectivity among multiple subcortical structures. SSO had changes in regions associated with visuomotor integration and attention, while UCS had changes in circuits crucial in executive function. Finally, severity of metopic synostosis may influence the degree of neurocognitive aberration. This study provides neurologic evidence of long-term sequelae of NSC that varies by suture type, which may underlie different phenotypes of neurocognitive impairment

Transduction of SIV-Specific TCR Genes into Rhesus Macaque CD8+ T Cells Conveys the Ability to Suppress SIV Replication

The SIV/rhesus macaque model for HIV/AIDS is a powerful system for examining the contribution of T cells in the control of AIDS viruses. To better our understanding of CD8(+) T-cell control of SIV replication in CD4(+) T cells, we asked whether TCRs isolated from rhesus macaque CD8(+) T-cell clones that exhibited varying abilities to suppress SIV replication could convey their suppressive properties to CD8(+) T cells obtained from an uninfected/unvaccinated animal.We transferred SIV-specific TCR genes isolated from rhesus macaque CD8(+) T-cell clones with varying abilities to suppress SIV replication in vitro into CD8(+) T cells obtained from an uninfected animal by retroviral transduction. After sorting and expansion, transduced CD8(+) T-cell lines were obtained that specifically bound their cognate SIV tetramer. These cell lines displayed appropriate effector function and specificity, expressing intracellular IFNγ upon peptide stimulation. Importantly, the SIV suppression properties of the transduced cell lines mirrored those of the original TCR donor clones: cell lines expressing TCRs transferred from highly suppressive clones effectively reduced wild-type SIV replication, while expression of a non-suppressing TCR failed to reduce the spread of virus. However, all TCRs were able to suppress the replication of an SIV mutant that did not downregulate MHC-I, recapitulating the properties of their donor clones.Our results show that antigen-specific SIV suppression can be transferred between allogenic T cells simply by TCR gene transfer. This advance provides a platform for examining the contributions of TCRs versus the intrinsic effector characteristics of T-cell clones in virus suppression. Additionally, this approach can be applied to develop non-human primate models to evaluate adoptive T-cell transfer therapy for AIDS and other diseases

Correction: Transduction of SIV-Specific TCR Genes into Rhesus Macaque CD8+ T Cells Conveys the Ability to Suppress SIV Replication.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023703.]

Flow cytometry analysis of transduced T cells.

<p>A, analysis of the TCR-transduced EZP cell lines for CM9 peptide/MHC tetramer and SL8 peptide/MHC tetramer is presented with that of the untransduced CD8⁺ control cell line from recipient animal EZP. B, tetramer analysis of two SIV-specific CTL clones isolated from donor animal DAJ is presented above tetramer-sorted TCR transduced CD8⁺ cell lines. The DAJ SL8–42 clone is the TCR gene donor for the SL8–42 TCR EZP cell line.</p

In <i>vitro</i> virus suppression assay of TCR-transduced cell lines.

<p>Flow cytometry analyses of mixed cultures consisting of effector CD8⁺ T-cell lines and a target autologous CD4⁺ T-cell clone that was untreated or exposed to either wild-type SIV_mac239 or SIV_myr- are presented. Effectors are labeled above each column and targets are labeled at the left of each row. The effector CD8⁺ T cells in the co-cultures were stained with CellTrace Violet® and excluded from the analysis so that only the target cells were counted.</p

Diagram of TCR expressing retroviral vector and the mature TCR chains.

<p>The MSGV1 murine retroviral vectors sequences are displayed as black boxes and lines while the TCR expression cassette is in white. The fine structure of the TCR chain fusion cassette is presented below the vector with the different MamuA*01-restricted TCRs molecularly-cloned from DAJ T-cell clones that were inserted into the vectors indicated above the cassette. The sequences separating the TCR genes, the furin recognition sequence, KAKR, the S-G-S-G spacer, and the P2A fowl pox self-cleaving peptide, are shaded gray. The furin cleavage site and the P2A self-cleavage site are indicated below the cassette with arrows. The mature α and β chains produced by this vector are displayed at the bottom of the figure.</p