A perspective of immunotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia: Current advances and challenges

During the last decade, the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have been the subject of extensive study which has considerably increased our understanding of the disease. However, both resistance to chemotherapy and disease relapse remain the principal obstacles to successful treatment. Because of acute and chronic undesirable effects frequently associated with conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy, consolidation chemotherapy is not feasible, especially for elderly patients, which has attracted a growing body of research to attempt to tackle this problem. Immunotherapies for acute myeloid leukemia, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, together with T-cell therapy based on engineered antigen receptor have been developed recently. Our review presents the recent progress in immunotherapy for the treatment of AML and discusses effective therapies that have the most potential and major challenges

What we know about grief intervention: a bibliometric analysis

BackgroundGrief is a natural and individualized response to different losses, but if grief persists or becomes pathological, professional interventions are required. Grief and corresponding interventions have received increasing attention, as the related concepts have been incorporated into the DSM-5 and ICD-11. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to explore the developments in the field of grief intervention research.MethodsArticles on grief interventions were systematically searched and screened from the Web of Science Core Collection. The retrieved data were analyzed and visualized using VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software for journals, authors, institutions, countries, references, and keywords.ResultsA total of 9,754 articles were included. The number of articles on grief interventions has increased significantly each year since 1990. Death Studies was the journal that published the most articles in this field. We identified 25,140 authors contributed to this research area and these authors were from 123 countries and 6,630 institutions. Boelen PA secured the first position in article production, Columbia University emerged as the most productive affiliation and the United States was the foremost leading in grief intervention research. The prevalent keywords utilized in this field comprised bereavement, grief, death, depression, and palliative care.ConclusionThe quantity of publications regarding grief interventions is increasing. Although most prior studies have focused on mortality, grief, and health, emerging themes such as COVID-19, grief among workers, and disfranchised grief have drawn increasing attention in recent years. Future studies may focus on investigating the complexities and challenges of grief, including its underlying mechanisms and impact on mental well-being

Can Barrier to Relative Sliding of Carbon Nanotube Walls Be Measured?

Interwall interaction energies, as well as barriers to relative sliding of the walls along the nanotube axis, are first calculated for pairs of both armchair or both zigzag adjacent walls of carbon nanotubes with a wide range of radiuses. It is found that for the pairs with the radius of the outer wall greater than 5 nm both the interwall interaction energy and barriers to the relative sliding per one atom of the outer wall only slightly depends on the wall radius. A wide set of the measurable physical quantities determined by these barriers are estimated as a function of the wall radius: shear strengths and diffusion coefficients for relative sliding of the walls along the axis, as well as frequencies of relative axial oscillations of the walls. For nonreversible telescopic extension of the walls, maximum overlap of the walls for which threshold static friction forces are greater than capillary forces is estimated. Possibility of experimental verification of the calculated barriers by measurements of the estimated physical quantities is discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Temperature-dependent striped antiferromagnetism of LaFeAsO in a Green's function approach

We use a Green's function method to study the temperature-dependent average moment and magnetic phase-transition temperature of the striped antiferromagnetism of LaFeAsO, and other similar compounds, as the parents of FeAs-based superconductors. We consider the nearest and the next-nearest couplings in the FeAs layer, and the nearest coupling for inter-layer spin interaction. The dependence of the transition temperature TN and the zero-temperature average spin on the interaction constants is investigated. We obtain an analytical expression for TN and determine our temperature-dependent average spin from zero temperature to TN in terms of unified self-consistent equations. For LaFeAsO, we obtain a reasonable estimation of the coupling interactions with the experimental transition temperature TN = 138 K. Our results also show that a non-zero antiferromagnetic (AFM) inter-layer coupling is essential for the existence of a non-zero TN, and the many-body AFM fluctuations reduce substantially the low-temperature magnetic moment per Fe towards the experimental value. Our Green's function approach can be used for other FeAs-based parent compounds and these results should be useful to understand the physical properties of FeAs-based superconductors.Comment: 12 page

Superconductivity in carbon nanotube ropes

We investigate the conditions in which superconductivity may develop in ropes of carbon nanotubes. It is shown that the interaction among a large number of metallic nanotubes favors the appearance of a metallic phase in the ropes, intermediate between respective phases with spin-density-wave and superconducting correlations. These arise in samples with about 100 metallic nanotubes or more, where the long-range Coulomb interaction is very effectively reduced and it may be overcome by the attractive interaction from the exchange of optical phonons within each nanotube. We estimate that the probability for the tunneling of Cooper pairs between neighboring nanotubes is much higher than that for single electrons in a disordered rope. The effect of pair hopping is therefore what establishes the intertube coherence, and the tunneling amplitude of the Cooper pairs dictates the scale of the transition to the superconducting state.Comment: 12 page

Comparison of joint status using ultrasound assessments and Haemophilia Joint Health Score 2.1 in children with haemophilia

IntroductionUltrasound (US) has gained popularity in the evaluation of haemophilic joint diseases because it enables the imaging of soft-tissue lesions in the joints and bone-cartilage lesions. We aimed to determine the correlation between US evaluations and clinical assessments performed using HJHS 2.1 and to evaluate their respective characteristics in assessing early haemophilic arthropathy.MethodsA total of 178 joints (32 knees, 85 elbows, and 61 ankles) in 45 haemophilia A patients (median age, 10 years; range, 6–15) were assessed using US and HJHS 2.1. Ultrasonographic scoring was performed in consensus assessments by one imager by using the US scores.ResultsThe total HJHS 2.1 and US scores showed a strong correlation (rS=0.651, P=0.000, CI: 0.553–0.763), with an excellent correlation for the elbows (rS=0.867, P=0.000, CI: 0.709–0.941) and a substantial correlation for the knees (rS=0.681, P=0.000, CI: 0.527–0.797). The correlation for the ankles was relatively moderate (rS=0.518, P=0.000, CI: 0.308–0.705). Nine subjects (15.5%) without abnormalities, as indicated by HJHS 2.1, showed haemophilic arthropathy in US scoring. All nine joints showed moderate (1/9) to severe (8/9) synovial thickening in the ankle (5/9) and elbow joints (4/9). In contrast, 50 joints (50.5%) showed normal US scores and abnormal changes as indicated by HJHS 2.1. S scores correlated well with HJHS 2.1 for overall and individual joints.DiscussionUS could identify some early pathological changes in joints showing normal clinical findings, but still cannot replace the HJHS; however, it can serve as an imaging examination complementing HJHS 2

Observation and Assignment of Silent and Higher Order Vibrations in the Infrared Transmission of C60 Crystals

We report the measurement of infrared transmission of large C60 single crystals. The spectra exhibit a very rich structure with over 180 vibrational absorptions visible in the 100 - 4000 cm-1 range. Many silent modes are observed to have become weakly IR-active. We also observe a large number of higher order combination modes. The temperature (77K - 300K) and pressure (0 - 25KBar) dependencies of these modes were measured and are presented. Careful analysis of the IR spectra in conjunction with Raman scattering data showing second order modes and neutron scattering data, allow the selection of the 46 vibrational modes C60. We are able to fit *all* of the first and second order data seen in the present IR spectra and the previously published Raman data (~300 lines total), using these 46 modes and their group theory allowed second order combinations.Comment: REVTEX v3.0 in LaTeX. 12 pages. 8 Figures by request. c60lon

Coherent Phonons in Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene

We review recent studies of coherent phonons (CPs) corresponding to the radial breathing mode (RBM) and G-mode in single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and graphene. Because of the bandgap-diameter relationship, RBM-CPs cause bandgap oscillations in SWCNTs, modulating interband transitions at terahertz frequencies. Interband resonances enhance CP signals, allowing for chirality determination. Using pulse shaping, one can selectively excite speci!c-chirality SWCNTs within an ensemble. G-mode CPs exhibit temperature-dependent dephasing via interaction with RBM phonons. Our microscopic theory derives a driven oscillator equation with a density-dependent driving term, which correctly predicts CP trends within and between (2n+m) families. We also find that the diameter can initially increase or decrease. Finally, we theoretically study the radial breathing like mode in graphene nanoribbons. For excitation near the absorption edge, the driving term is much larger for zigzag nanoribbons. We also explain how the armchair nanoribbon width changes in response to laser excitation.Comment: 48 pages, 41 figure

Vitamin D-VDR (vitamin D receptor) alleviates glucose metabolism reprogramming in lipopolysaccharide-induced acute kidney injury

Background: Our previous study showed that vitamin D (VD)-vitamin D receptor (VDR) plays a nephroprotective role in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute kidney injury (AKI). Recently, glucose metabolism reprogramming was reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of AKI.Objective: To investigate the role of VD-VDR in glucose metabolism reprogramming in LPS-induced AKI.Methods: We established a model of LPS-induced AKI in VDR knockout (VDR-KO) mice, renal proximal tubular-specific VDR-overexpressing (VDR-OE) mice and wild-type C57BL/6 mice. In vitro, human proximal tubular epithelial cells (HK-2 cells), VDR knockout and VDR overexpression HK-2 cell lines were used.Results: Paricalcitol (an active vitamin D analog) or VDR-OE reduced lactate concentration, hexokinase activity and PDHA1 phosphorylation (a key step in inhibiting aerobic oxidation) and simultaneously ameliorated renal inflammation, apoptosis and kidney injury in LPS-induced AKI mice, which were more severe in VDR-KO mice. In in vitro experiments, glucose metabolism reprogramming, inflammation and apoptosis induced by LPS were alleviated by treatment with paricalcitol or dichloroacetate (DCA, an inhibitor of p-PDHA1). Moreover, paricalcitol activated the phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), and an AMPK inhibitor partially abolished the protective effect of paricalcitol in LPS-treated HK-2 cells.Conclusion: VD-VDR alleviated LPS-induced metabolic reprogramming in the kidneys of AKI mice, which may be attributed to the inactivation of PDHA1 phosphorylation via the AMPK pathway