Toll-Like Receptors 2 and 4 Regulate the Frequency of IFNγ-Producing CD4+ T-Cells during Pulmonary Infection with Chlamydia pneumoniae

TLR2 and TLR4 are crucial for recognition of Chlamydia pneumoniae in vivo, since infected TLR2/4 double-deficient mice are unable to control the infection as evidenced by severe loss of body weight and progressive lethal pneumonia. Unexpectedly, these mice display higher pulmonary levels of the protective cytokine IFNγ than wild type mice. We show here, that antigen-specific CD4+ T-cells are responsible for the observed IFNγ-secretion in vivo and their frequency is higher in TLR2/4 double-deficient than in wild type mice. The capacity of TLR2/4 double-deficient dendritic cells to re-stimulate CD4+ T-cells did not differ from wild type dendritic cells. However, the frequency of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T-cells was considerably higher in wild type compared to TLR2/4 double-deficient mice and was inversely related to the number of IFNγ-secreting CD4+ effector T-cells. Despite increased IFNγ-levels, at least one IFNγ-mediated response, protective NO-secretion, could not be induced in the absence of TLR2 and 4. In summary, CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T-cells fail to expand in the absence of TLR2 and TLR4 during pulmonary infection with C. pneumoniae, which in turn enhances the frequency of CD4+IFNγ+ effector T-cells. Failure of IFNγ to induce NO in TLR2/4 double-deficient cells represents one possible mechanism why TLR2/4 double-deficient mice are unable to control pneumonia caused by C. pneumoniae and succumb to the infection

Diets containing sea cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus) meals are hypocholesterolemic in young rats

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The ocean sampling day consortium

Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits

Caipirini: using gene sets to rank literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Keeping up-to-date with bioscience literature is becoming increasingly challenging. Several recent methods help meet this challenge by allowing literature search to be launched based on lists of abstracts that the user judges to be 'interesting'. Some methods go further by allowing the user to provide a second input set of 'uninteresting' abstracts; these two input sets are then used to search and rank literature by relevance. In this work we present the service 'Caipirini' (<url>http://caipirini.org</url>) that also allows two input sets, but takes the novel approach of allowing ranking of literature based on one or more sets of genes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To evaluate the usefulness of Caipirini, we used two test cases, one related to the human cell cycle, and a second related to disease defense mechanisms in <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>. In both cases, the new method achieved high precision in finding literature related to the biological mechanisms underlying the input data sets.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>To our knowledge Caipirini is the first service enabling literature search directly based on biological relevance to gene sets; thus, Caipirini gives the research community a new way to unlock hidden knowledge from gene sets derived via high-throughput experiments.</p

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Enhanced electric conductivity at ferroelectric vortex cores in BiFeO3

In many large ensembles, the property of the system as a whole cannot be understood from studying the individual entities alone ¿ these ensembles can be made up by neurons in the brain, transport users in traffic networks or data packages in the Internet. The past decade has seen important progress in our fundamental understanding of what such seemingly disparate 'complex systems' have in common; some of these advances are surveyed here

Spectroscopy of four metal-poor galaxies beyond redshift ten

Finding and characterising the first galaxies that illuminated the early Universe at cosmic dawn is pivotal to understand the physical conditions and the processes that led to the formation of the first stars. In the first few months of operations, imaging from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been used to identify tens of candidates of galaxies at redshift (z) greater than 10, less than 450 million years after the Big Bang. However, none of these candidates has yet been confirmed spectroscopically, leaving open the possibility that they are actually low-redshift interlopers. Here we present spectroscopic confirmation and analysis of four galaxies unambiguously detected at redshift 10.3<z<13.2, previously selected from NIRCam imaging. The spectra reveal that these primeval galaxies are extremely metal poor, have masses between 10^7 and a few times 10^8 solar masses, and young ages. The damping wings that shape the continuum close to the Lyman edge are consistent with a fully neutral intergalactic medium at this epoch. These findings demonstrate the rapid emergence of the first generations of galaxies at cosmic dawn.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, Submitte

Health-related qualify of life, angina type and coronary artery disease in patients with stable chest pain.

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is impaired in patients with stable angina but patients often present with other forms of chest pain. The aim of this study was to compare the pre-diagnostic HRQoL in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) according to angina type, gender, and presence of obstructive CAD. From the pilot study for the European DISCHARGE trial, we analysed data from 24 sites including 1263 patients (45.9% women, 61.1 ± 11.3 years) who were clinically referred for invasive coronary angiography (ICA; 617 patients) or coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA; 646 patients). Prior to the procedures, patients completed HRQoL questionnaires: the Short Form (SF)-12v2, the EuroQoL (EQ-5D-3 L) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Fifty-five percent of ICA and 35% of CTA patients had typical angina, 23 and 33% had atypical angina, 18 and 28% had non-anginal chest discomfort and 5 and 5% had other chest discomfort, respectively. Patients with typical angina had the poorest physical functioning compared to the other angina groups (SF-12 physical component score; 41.2 ± 8.8, 43.3 ± 9.1, 46.2 ± 9.0, 46.4 ± 11.4, respectively, all age and gender-adjusted p < 0.01), and highest anxiety levels (8.3 ± 4.1, 7.5 ± 4.1, 6.5 ± 4.0, 4.7 ± 4.5, respectively, all adjusted p < 0.01). On all other measures, patients with typical or atypical angina had lower HRQoL compared to the two other groups (all adjusted p < 0.05). HRQoL did not differ between patients with and without obstructive CAD while women had worse HRQoL compared with men, irrespective of age and angina type. Prior to a diagnostic procedure for stable chest pain, HRQoL is associated with chest pain characteristics, but not with obstructive CAD, and is significantly lower in women. Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02400229