Determination of the Gyrotropic Characteristics of Hexaferrite Ceramics From 75 to 600 GHz

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Profoundly reduced neovascularization capacity of bone marrow mononuclear cells derived from patients with chronic ischemic heart disease

Background— Cell therapy with bone marrow–derived stem/progenitor cells is a novel option for improving neovascularization and cardiac function in ischemic heart disease. Circulating endothelial progenitor cells in patients with coronary heart disease are impaired with respect to number and functional activity. However, whether this impairment also extends to bone marrow–derived mononuclear cells (BM-MNCs) in patients with chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICMP) is unclea

Combinatorial RNA Design: Designability and Structure-Approximating Algorithm

In this work, we consider the Combinatorial RNA Design problem, a minimal instance of the RNA design problem which aims at finding a sequence that admits a given target as its unique base pair maximizing structure. We provide complete characterizations for the structures that can be designed using restricted alphabets. Under a classic four-letter alphabet, we provide a complete characterization of designable structures without unpaired bases. When unpaired bases are allowed, we provide partial characterizations for classes of designable/undesignable structures, and show that the class of designable structures is closed under the stutter operation. Membership of a given structure to any of the classes can be tested in linear time and, for positive instances, a solution can be found in linear time. Finally, we consider a structure-approximating version of the problem that allows to extend bands (helices) and, assuming that the input structure avoids two motifs, we provide a linear-time algorithm that produces a designable structure with at most twice more base pairs than the input structure.Comment: CPM - 26th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching, Jun 2015, Ischia Island, Italy. LNCS, 201

Sex-dependent influence of endogenous estrogen in pulmonary hypertension

Rationale: The incidence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is greater in women suggesting estrogens may play a role in the disease pathogenesis. Experimentally, in males exogenously administered estrogen can protect against PH; however in models that display female susceptibility estrogens may play a causative role. Objectives: To clarify the influence of endogenous estrogen and gender in PH and assess the therapeutic potential of a clinically available aromatase inhibitor. Methods: We interrogated the effect of reduced endogenous estrogen in males and females using the aromatase inhibitor, anastrozole, in two models of PH; the hypoxic mouse and Sugen 5416/hypoxic rat. We also determined the effects of gender on pulmonary expression of aromatase in these models and in lungs from PAH patients. Results: Anastrozole attenuated PH in both models studied, but only in females. To verify this effect was due to reduced estrogenic activity we confirmed that in hypoxic mice inhibition of estrogen receptor alpha also has a therapeutic effect specifically in females. Female rodent lung displays increased aromatase and decreased BMPR2 and Id1 expression compared to male. Anastrozole treatment reversed the impaired BMPR2 pathway in females. Increased aromatase expression was also detected in female human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells compared to male. Conclusions: The unique phenotype of female pulmonary arteries facilitates the therapeutic effects of anastrozole in experimental PH confirming a role for endogenous estrogen in the disease pathogenesis in females and suggests aromatase inhibitors may have therapeutic potential

Influence of severe plastic deformation on the precipitation hardening of a FeSiTi steel

The combined strengthening effects of grain refinement and high precipitated volume fraction (~6at.%) on the mechanical properties of FeSiTi alloy subjected to SPD processing prior to aging treatment were investigated by atom probe tomography and scanning transmission electron microscopy. It was shown that the refinement of the microstructure affects the precipitation kinetics and the spatial distribution of the secondary hardening intermetallic phase, which was observed to nucleate heterogeneously on dislocations and sub-grain boundaries. It was revealed that alloys successively subjected to these two strengthening mechanisms exhibit a lower increase in mechanical strength than a simple estimation based on the summation of the two individual strengthening mechanisms

Therapeutic DNA vaccine induces broad T cell responses in the gut and sustained protection from viral rebound and AIDS in SIV-infected rhesus macaques.

Immunotherapies that induce durable immune control of chronic HIV infection may eliminate the need for life-long dependence on drugs. We investigated a DNA vaccine formulated with a novel genetic adjuvant that stimulates immune responses in the blood and gut for the ability to improve therapy in rhesus macaques chronically infected with SIV. Using the SIV-macaque model for AIDS, we show that epidermal co-delivery of plasmids expressing SIV Gag, RT, Nef and Env, and the mucosal adjuvant, heat-labile E. coli enterotoxin (LT), during antiretroviral therapy (ART) induced a substantial 2-4-log fold reduction in mean virus burden in both the gut and blood when compared to unvaccinated controls and provided durable protection from viral rebound and disease progression after the drug was discontinued. This effect was associated with significant increases in IFN-γ T cell responses in both the blood and gut and SIV-specific CD8+ T cells with dual TNF-α and cytolytic effector functions in the blood. Importantly, a broader specificity in the T cell response seen in the gut, but not the blood, significantly correlated with a reduction in virus production in mucosal tissues and a lower virus burden in plasma. We conclude that immunizing with vaccines that induce immune responses in mucosal gut tissue could reduce residual viral reservoirs during drug therapy and improve long-term treatment of HIV infection in humans

Liver transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh, 1984 to 1990

This report updates patient and primary graft survival statistics for the liver transplantation program at the University of Pittsburgh for 1984 through 1990. Minimum follow-up for all patients is one year and only patients who received a primary liver graft in Pittsburgh are included. Recipients of multiple organ or multivisceral transplants, patients who received a primary graft at another center and were sent to Pittsburgh for rescue with FK506 or for retransplantation, and patients who underwent an extended resection (“cluster operation”) for cancer were excluded

Lymph node hemophagocytosis in rickettsial diseases: a pathogenetic role for CD8 T lymphocytes in human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME)?

BACKGROUND: Human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME) and Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) are caused by Ehrlichia chaffeensis and Rickettsia rickettsii, respectively. The pathogenesis of RMSF relates to rickettsia-mediated vascular injury, but it is unclear in HME. METHODS: To study histopathologic responses in the lymphatic system for correlates of immune injury, lymph nodes from patients with HME (n = 6) and RMSF (n = 5) were examined. H&E-stained lymph node tissues were examined for five histopathologic features, including hemophagocytosis, cellularity, necrosis, and vascular congestion and edema. The relative proportions of CD68 macrophages, CD8 and CD4 T lymphocytes, and CD20 B lymphocytes were evaluated by immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS: Hemophagocytosis was similar in HME and RMSF, and was greater than in control cases (p = .015). Cellularity in HME was not different from controls, whereas RMSF lymph nodes were markedly less cellular (p < 0.002). E. chaffeensis-infected mononuclear phagocytes were infrequent compared to R. rickettsii-infected endothelial cells. More CD8 cells in lymph nodes were observed with HME (p < .001), but no quantitative differences in CD4 lymphocytes, macrophages, or B lymphocytes were identified. CONCLUSION: Hemophagocytosis, CD8 T cell expansion, and the paucity of infected cells in HME, suggest that E. chaffeensis infection leads to macrophage activation and immune-mediated injury

The influence of HLA matching on cytomegalovirus hepatitis and chronic rejection after liver transplantation

Previous findings in liver transplantation patients have raised the concept that HLA plays a dualistic role. HLA matching will reduce rejection but may augment MHC restricted cellular immune mechanisms of liver allograft injury. To evaluate this concept, we studied CMV hepatitis in 399 FK506-treated liver transplant patients, including 355 cases for which complete HLA-A, B, DR, DQ typing information was available. CMV hepatitis developed in 25 patients, and 17 of them (or 68%) showed a one or two HLA-DR antigen match with the donor. In contrast, HLA-DR matches were found in only 35% of 330 patients without CMV hepatitis (P=0.005). No significant associations were seen for HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DQ antigens. In pretransplant CMV-seronegative patients with seropositive grafts (n=39), the frequency of CMV hepatitis was 44% for HLA-DR-matched livers but 14% for HLA-DR-un-matched livers. In seropositive recipients (n=187), these frequencies were 12% and 2% for HLA-DR-matched and unmatched liver grafts. Chronic rejection developed in 29 patients (or 8%) during a follow-up between 10 and 24 months after transplantation. Its incidence was higher in the CMV hepatitis group (24% vs. 6%) (P=0.007). Although no associations were found between HLA matching and the incidence of chronic rejection, there was an earlier onset of chronic rejection of HLA-DR-matched livers irrespective of CMV hepatitis. These findings suggest that an HLA-DR match between donor and recipient increases the incidence of CMV hepatitis in both primary and secondary CMV infections. Although HLA compatibility leads to less acute cellular rejection, it is suggested that DR matching may accelerate chronic rejection of liver transplants, perhaps through HLA-DR-restricted immunological mechanisms toward viral antigens, including CMV. © 1993 by Williams and Wilkins