Adsorption of Saliva Related Protein on Denture Materials: An X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Quartz Crystal Microbalance Study

The aim of this study was to evaluate the difference in the adsorption behavior of different types of bovine salivary proteins on the PMMA and Ti QCM sensors are fabricated by spin-coating and sputtering onto bare QCM sensors by using QCM and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). SPM, XPS, and contact angle investigations were carried out to determine the chemical composition and surface wettability of the QCM surface. We discuss the quality of each sensor and evaluate the potential of the high-frequency QCM sensors by investigating the binding between the QCM sensor and the proteins albumin and mucin (a salivary-related protein). The SPM image showed a relatively homogeneous surface with nano-order roughness. The XPS survey spectra of the thin films coated on the sensors were similar to the binding energy of the characteristic spectra of PMMA and Ti. Additionally, the amount of salivary-related protein on the PMMA QCM sensor was higher than those on the Ti and Au QCM sensors. The difference of protein adsorption is proposed to be related to the wettability of each material. The PMMA and Ti QCM sensors are useful tools to study the adsorption and desorption of albumin and mucin on denture surfaces

A risk model for privacy in trajectory data

Time sequence data relating to users, such as medical histories and mobility data, are good candidates for data mining, but often contain highly sensitive information. Different methods in privacy-preserving data publishing are utilised to release such private data so that individual records in the released data cannot be re-linked to specific users with a high degree of certainty. These methods provide theoretical worst-case privacy risks as measures of the privacy protection that they offer. However, often with many real-world data the worst-case scenario is too pessimistic and does not provide a realistic view of the privacy risks: the real probability of re-identification is often much lower than the theoretical worst-case risk. In this paper, we propose a novel empirical risk model for privacy which, in relation to the cost of privacy attacks, demonstrates better the practical risks associated with a privacy preserving data release. We show detailed evaluation of the proposed risk model by using k-anonymised real-world mobility data and then, we show how the empirical evaluation of the privacy risk has a different trend in synthetic data describing random movements

Lipopolysaccharide Interaction with Cell Surface Toll-like Receptor 4-MD-2: Higher Affinity than That with MD-2 or CD14

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are innate recognition molecules for microbial products, but their direct interactions with corresponding ligands remain unclarified. LPS, a membrane constituent of gram-negative bacteria, is the best-studied TLR ligand and is recognized by TLR4 and MD-2, a molecule associated with the extracellular domain of TLR4. Although TLR4-MD-2 recognizes LPS, little is known about the physical interaction between LPS and TLR4-MD-2. Here, we demonstrate cell surface LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes. CD14 greatly enhances the formation of LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes, but is not coprecipitated with LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes, suggesting a role for CD14 in LPS loading onto TLR4-MD-2 but not in the interaction itself between LPS and TLR4-MD-2. A tentative dissociation constant (Kd) for LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes was ∼3 nM, which is ∼10–20 times lower than the reported Kd for LPS–MD-2 or LPS–CD14. The presence of detergent disrupts LPS interaction with CD14 but not with TLR4-MD-2. E5531, a lipid A antagonist developed for therapeutic intervention of endotoxin shock, blocks LPS interaction with TLR4-MD-2 at a concentration 100 times lower than that required for blocking LPS interaction with CD14. These results reveal direct LPS interaction with cell surface TLR4-MD-2 that is distinct from that with MD-2 or CD14

SOX2 suppresses CDKN1A to sustain growth of lung squamous cell carcinoma.

Since the SOX2 amplification was identified in lung squamous cell carcinoma (lung SCC), SOX2 transcriptional downstream targets have been actively investigated; however, such targets are often cell line specific. Here, in order to identify highly consensus SOX2 downstream genes in lung SCC cells, we used RNA-seq data from 178 lung SCC specimens (containing tumor and tumor-associated cells) and analyzed the correlation between SOX2 and previously-reported SOX2-controlled genes in lung SCC. In addition, we used another RNA-seq dataset from 105 non-small cell lung cancer cell lines (NSCLC; including 4 lung SCC cell lines) and again analyzed the correlation between SOX2 and the reported SOX2-controlled genes in the NSCLC cell lines (no tumor-associated cells). We combined the two analyses and identified genes commonly correlated with SOX2 in both datasets. Among the 99 genes reported as SOX2 downstream and/or correlated genes, we found 4 negatively-correlated (e.g., CDKN1A) and 11 positively-correlated genes with SOX2. We used biological studies to demonstrate that CDKN1A was suppressed by SOX2 in lung SCC cells. G1 cell cycle arrest induced by SOX2 siRNA was rescued by CDKN1A siRNA. These results indicate that the tumorigenic effect of SOX2 in lung SCC cells is mediated in part by suppression of CDKN1A

A Conversation Analysis Study of Speaking Rate Control by a Dysarthric Patient : A Case in which Dysarthria Improved in Conversation Continuity and Length of Utterances through Using a Pacing Board

ペーシングボードの使用により発話明瞭度が向上したdysarthria例に対して,会話分析の立場から「会話の伝達率」と「1発話の長さ」を検討し,主に以下の結果を得た.(1)ペーシングボード非使用時の会話伝達率は54.0%であったのに比し,使用時では98.1%と向上していた.(2)1発話の長さに関しては,モーラ数による比較ではペーシングボード非使用時の平均モーラ数は5.9,使用時は11.9であった.また平均文節数は非使用時1.4,使用時2.8と両指標とも約2倍に延長していた.以上の結果に基づいて,dysarthriaにおける発話速度調節訓練について会話分析から検討を加えた.Conversational transmissibility and length of utterances were studied in a　dysarthric patient who improved in intelligibility　because of use of a pacing board.The following results were obtained : (1)Conversational transmissibility was 54% when the pacing board was not used, whereas　transmissibility improved to 98.1 % when the board was used. (2) Comparison of the utterance length was made based on the number of mora, in which the average mora was 5.9 without use of the pacing board and 11.9 with use of the board. The number of average segments was 1.4 without　the board as opposed to 2.8 with the board. In both cases the indices increased by　nearly twofold when the pacing board was used. Based on these results, discussion　was held on the training of speaking rate control by the dysarthric speaker based on　conversation analysis

Heart Disease, Other Circulatory Diseases, and Onset of Major Depression among Community Residents in Japan: Results of the World Mental Health Survey Japan 2002-2004

We examined whether selected circulatory diseases (heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension) were associated with an increased risk of major depression in the Japanese community population. Face-to-face household surveys were carried out in 7 areas, and a total of 2,436 persons participated (overall response rate: 58.4%) from 2002 to 2004. The WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview 3.0 was used to diagnose major depression according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and additional interviews assessed the presence of circulatory diseases. Using data from a random subsample of the respondents (n=832), we conducted Cox proportional hazards models to calculate hazard ratios for the onset of major depression with comorbid circulatory diseases as a time-dependent covariate. Heart attack was significantly associated with the onset of major depression (hazard ratio [HR], 7.51 [95%Confidential Interval (CI), 1.36-41.45]) after adjusting for sex, birth cohort, smoking, alcohol intake, and education. Heart disease (HR, 2.12 [95% CI, 0.79-5.70]), diabetes (HR, 2.36 [95% CI, 0.42-13.34]) and hypertension (HR, 0.97 [95% CI, 0.37, 2.50]) were not significantly associated. There were no subjects who developed major depression after stroke. These results suggest that heart attack, and maybe also heart disease and diabetes, affect the onset of major depression.</p

A clinically applicable and scalable method to regenerate T-cells from iPSCs for off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy

動物由来の成分を含まないより安全な製法でiPS細胞から大量の再生T細胞を培養する方法の開発 --T細胞を使ったがん免疫療法での利用も--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-01-18.Clinical successes demonstrated by chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapy have facilitated further development of T-cell immunotherapy against wide variety of diseases. One approach is the development of “off-the-shelf” T-cell sources. Technologies to generate T-cells from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) may offer platforms to produce “off-the-shelf” and synthetic allogeneic T-cells. However, low differentiation efficiency and poor scalability of current methods may compromise their utilities. Here we show improved differentiation efficiency of T-cells from induced PSCs (iPSCs) derived from an antigen-specific cytotoxic T-cell clone, or from T-cell receptor (TCR)-transduced iPSCs, as starting materials. We additionally describe feeder-free differentiation culture systems that span from iPSC maintenance to T-cell proliferation phases, enabling large-scale regenerated T-cell production. Moreover, simultaneous addition of SDF1α and a p38 inhibitor during T-cell differentiation enhances T-cell commitment. The regenerated T-cells show TCR-dependent functions in vitro and are capable of in vivo anti-tumor activity. This system provides a platform to generate a large number of regenerated T-cells for clinical application and investigate human T-cell differentiation and biology