252 research outputs found
Lymphoid/nonlymphoid compartmentalization of donor leukocyte chimerism in rat recipients of heart allografts, with or without adjunct bone marrow
Background. The role of leukocyte migration and chimerism in organ allograft acceptance has been obscured by the lack of information about the late localization of the donor cells. Methods. Male Lewis rat→female Brown Norway abdominal heart transplantation was performed under tacrolimus immunosuppression (days 0-13, 20, and 27) with or without donor bone marrow and (in bone marrow subgroups) a 1-week postoperative course of a possibly chimerism-enhancing drug. Using rat sex-determining region-Y-specific oligonucleotide primers, we determined the donor DNA concentration by polymerase chain reaction in serial venous blood sampies for 100 days and in tissue specimens when animals were killed. Results. Chimerism was detected out to 56 days in 89% of the blood samples but in none of the samples at 100 days. However, donor DNA was detected when animals were killed in 95% of the native hearts, 80% of the skin biopsy specimens, and 23% of the spleens. The presence and quantity of early and late chimerism were strongly correlated the administration of adjunct bone marrow and with a reduction in the vasculopathy and inflammation index in the cardiac allografts. Marginally significant further increases in chimerism and/or reductions in chronic heart rejection beyond those achieved with adjunct bone marrow alone were associated with additional treatment with the growth factors Flt-3 ligand, granulocyte colonystimulating factor, and a recombinant molecular variant of interleukin-6 (interleukin-6 mutein) but not with hepatocyte growth factor or lisofylline. Conclusions. The previously suspected shift of early chimerism in the blood and lymphoid organs to dominance in host nonlymphoid tissues is consistent with the dual mechanisms of clonal exhaustion and immune indifference, governed by antigen migration and localization, that have been postulated elsewhere to account for organ allograft acceptance
Electronic Structures of N-doped Graphene with Native Point Defects
Nitrogen doping in graphene has important implications in graphene-based
devices and catalysts. We have performed the density functional theory
calculations to study the electronic structures of N-doped graphene with
vacancies and Stone-Wales defect. Our results show that monovacancies in
graphene act as hole dopants and that two substitutional N dopants are needed
to compensate for the hole introduced by a monovacancy. On the other hand,
divacancy does not produce any free carriers. Interestingly, a single N dopant
at divacancy acts as an acceptor rather than a donor. The interference between
native point defect and N dopant strongly modifies the role of N doping
regarding the free carrier production in the bulk pi bands. For some of the
defects and N dopant-defect complexes, localized defect pi states are partially
occupied. Discussion on the possibility of spin polarization in such cases is
given. We also present qualitative arguments on the electronic structures based
on the local bond picture. We have analyzed the 1s-related x-ray photoemission
and adsorption spectroscopy spectra of N dopants at vacancies and Stone-Wales
defect in connection with the experimental ones. We also discuss characteristic
scanning tunneling microscope (STM) images originating from the electronic and
structural modifications by the N dopant-defect complexes. STM imaging for
small negative bias voltage will provide important information about possible
active sites for oxygen reduction reaction.Comment: 40 pages, 2 tables, 16 figures. The analysis of Clar sextets is
added. This version is published on PHYSICAL REVIEW B 87, 165401(2013
Anomalous Hall Effect and Magnetic Monopoles in Momentum-Space
Efforts to find the magnetic monopole in real space have been made in cosmic
rays and in accelerators, but up to now there is no firm evidence for its
existence due to the very heavy mass GeV. However, we show that
the magnetic monopole can appear in the crystal-momentum space of solids in the
accessible low energy region (eV) in the context of the anomalous
Hall effect. We report experimental results together with first-principles
calculations on the ferromagnetic crystal SrRuO that provide evidence for
the magnetic monopole in the crystal-momentum space.Comment: 4 figures, the supporting-online-materails are include
Optical Investigations of Charge Gap in Orbital Ordered La1/2Sr3/2MnO4
Temperature and polarization dependent electronic structure of La1/2Sr3/2MnO4
were investigated by optical conductivity analyses. With decreasing
temperature, for E//ab, a broad mid-infrared (MIR) peak of La1/2Sr3/2MnO4
becomes narrower and moves to the higher frequency, while that of
Nd1/2Sr3/2MnO4 nearly temperature independent. We showed that the MIR peak in
La1/2Sr3/2MnO4 originates from orbital ordering associated with CE-type
magnetic ordering and that the Jahn-Teller distortion has a significant
influence on the width and the position of the MIR peak.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
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