559 research outputs found
The immunological analysis of epitopes on hCG
The heterodimeric glycoprotein hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin, has been extensively characterized in terms of its recognition by mouse monoclonal antibodies. A number of different approaches have led to the definition of several epitope clusters on the surface of the molecule. These include epitopes located solely on the alpha- or beta-chain, some of which are masked when the two chains associate to form the holo-hormone. Additional epitopes comprise amino acids contributed by both the chains. In contrast to the extensive knowledge regarding B cell epitopes, the characterization of T cell epitopes on hCG has only recently begun to be explored
Cold three-body collisions in hydrogen-hydrogen-alkali atomic system
We have studied hydrogen-hydrogen-alkali three-body systems in the adiabatic
hyperspherical representation. For the spin-stretched case, there exists a
single H molecular state when is one of the bosonic alkali atoms:
Li, Na, K, Rb and Cs. As a result, the {\em
only} recombination process is the one that leads to formation of H
molecules, H+H+H+H, and such molecules will be stable
against vibrational relaxation. We have calculated the collision rates for
recombination and collision induced dissociation as well as the elastic
cross-sections for H+H collisions up to a temperature of 0.5 K, including
the partial wave contributions from = to . We have also found
that there is just one three-body bound state for such systems for
= and no bound states for higher angular momenta.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 4 table
Tomographic imaging and scanning thermal microscopy: thermal impedance tomography
The application of tomographic imaging techniques developed for medical applications to the data provided by the scanning thermal microscope will give access to true three-dimensional information on the thermal properties of materials on a mm length scale. In principle, the technique involves calculating and inverting a sensitivity matrix for a uniform isotropic material, collecting ordered data at several modulation frequencies, and multiplying the inverse of the matrix with the data vector. In practice, inversion of the matrix in impractical, and a novel iterative technique is used. Examples from both simulated and real data are given
Optimal interlayer hopping and high temperature BoseâEinstein condensation of local pairs in quasi 2D superconductors
Both FeSe and cuprate superconductors are quasi 2D materials with high transition temperatures and local fermion pairs. Motivated by such systems, we investigate real space pairing of fermions in an anisotropic lattice model with intersite attraction, V, and strong local Coulomb repulsion, U, leading to a determination of the optimal conditions for superconductivity from BoseâEinstein condensation. Our aim is to gain insight as to why high temperature superconductors tend to be quasi 2D. We make both analytically and numerically exact solutions for two body local pairing applicable to intermediate and strong V. We find that the BoseâEinstein condensation temperature of such local pairs pairs is maximal when hopping between layers is intermediate relative to in-plane hopping, indicating that the quasi 2D nature of unconventional superconductors has an important contribution to their high transition temperatures
The Nernst effect and the boundaries of the Fermi liquid picture
Following the observation of an anomalous Nernst signal in cuprates, the
Nernst effect was explored in a variety of metals and superconductors during
the past few years. This paper reviews the results obtained during this
exploration, focusing on the Nernst response of normal quasi-particles as
opposed to the one generated by superconducting vortices or by short-lived
Cooper pairs. Contrary to what has been often assumed, the so-called Sondheimer
cancelation does not imply a negligible Nernst response in a Fermi liquid. In
fact, the amplitude of the Nernst response measured in various metals in the
low-temperature limit is scattered over six orders of magnitude. According to
the data, this amplitude is roughly set by the ratio of electron mobility to
Fermi energy in agreement with the implications of the semi-classical transport
theory.Comment: Final version, Topical review for JPC
Investigation of factors influencing the immunogenicity of hCG as a potential cancer vaccine
Human hCG and its βâsubunit (hCGβ) are tumour autocrine growth factors whose presence in the serum of cancer patients has been linked to poorer prognosis. Previous studies have shown that vaccines, which target these molecules and/or the 37 amino acid Câterminal hCGβ peptide (hCGβCTP), induce antibody responses in a majority of human recipients. Here we explored whether the immunogenicity of vaccines containing an hCGβ mutant (hCGβR68E, designed to eliminate crossâreactivity with luteinizing hormone) or hCGβCTP could be enhanced by coupling the immunogen to different carriers (KLH or Hsp70) using different crossâlinkers (EDC or GAD) and formulated with different adjuvants (RIBI or Montanide ISA720).
While there was little to choose between KLH and Hsp70 as carriers, their influence on the effectiveness of a vaccine containing the BAChCGβR68E mutant was less marked, presumably because being a foreign species, this mutant protein itself might provide Tâhelper epitopes. The mutant provided a significantly better vaccine than the hCGβCTP peptide irrespective of the carrier used, how it was crossâlinked to the carrier or which adjuvant was used when hCG was the target. Nonetheless, for use in humans where hCG is a tolerated selfâprotein, the need for a carrier is of fundamental importance. Highest antibody titres were obtained by linking the BAChCGβR68E to Hsp70 as a carrier by GAD and using RIBI as the adjuvant, which also resulted in antibodies with significantly higher affinity than those elicited by hCGβCTP peptide vaccine. This makes this mutant vaccine a promising candidate for therapeutic studies in hCGβâpositive cancer patients
Noise-induced perturbations of dispersion-managed solitons
We study noise-induced perturbations of dispersion-managed solitons by
developing soliton perturbation theory for the dispersion-managed nonlinear
Schroedinger (DMNLS) equation, which governs the long-term behavior of optical
fiber transmission systems and certain kinds of femtosecond lasers. We show
that the eigenmodes and generalized eigenmodes of the linearized DMNLS equation
around traveling-wave solutions can be generated from the invariances of the
DMNLS equations, we quantify the perturbation-induced parameter changes of the
solution in terms of the eigenmodes and the adjoint eigenmodes, and we obtain
evolution equations for the solution parameters. We then apply these results to
guide importance-sampled Monte-Carlo simulations and reconstruct the
probability density functions of the solution parameters under the effect of
noise.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
Influence of Amino Acid Substitutions in the Nisin Leader Peptide on Biosynthesis and Secretion of Nisin by Lactococcus lactis
Structural genes for small lanthionine-containing antimicrobial peptides, known as lantibiotics, encode N-terminal leader sequences which are not present in the mature peptide, but are cleaved off at some stage in the maturation process. Leader sequences of the different lantibiotics share a number of identical amino acid residues, but they are clearly different from sec-dependent protein export signal sequences. We studied the role of the leader sequence of the lantibiotic nisin, which is produced and secreted by Lactococcus lactis, by creating site-directed mutations at various positions in the leader peptide sequence. Mutations at Arg-1 and Ala-4, but not at the conserved Pro-2, strongly affected the processing of the leader sequence and resulted in the extracellular accumulation of a biologically inactive precursor peptide. Amino acid analysis and 1H NMR studies indicated that the precursor peptide with an Ala-4 â Asp mutation contained a modified nisin structural part with the (mutated) unmodified leader sequence still attached to it. The Ala-4 â Asp precursor peptide could be activated in vitro by enzymatic cleavage with trypsin, liberating nisin. These results confirmed that cleavage of the leader peptide is the last step in nisin maturation and is necessary to generate a biologically active peptide. Several mutations, i.e. Pro-2 â Gly, Pro-2 â Val, Asp-7 â Ala, Lys-9 â Leu, Ser-10 â Ala/Ser-12 â Ala and Val-11 â Asp/Val-13 â Glu in the leader peptide did not have any detectable effect on nisin production and secretion, although some of them affected highly conserved residues. When mutations were created in the -18 to -15 region of the nisin leader peptide (i.e. Phe-18 â Leu, Leu-16 â Lys, Asp-15 â Ala), no secretion or intracellular accumulation could be detected of nisin or its precursors. This suggested that these conserved residues are involved in the maturation process and may interact with lantibiotic-specific modifying enzymes.
Numerical Approximations Using Chebyshev Polynomial Expansions
We present numerical solutions for differential equations by expanding the
unknown function in terms of Chebyshev polynomials and solving a system of
linear equations directly for the values of the function at the extrema (or
zeros) of the Chebyshev polynomial of order N (El-gendi's method). The
solutions are exact at these points, apart from round-off computer errors and
the convergence of other numerical methods used in connection to solving the
linear system of equations. Applications to initial value problems in
time-dependent quantum field theory, and second order boundary value problems
in fluid dynamics are presented.Comment: minor wording changes, some typos have been eliminate
A statistical mechanics approach to autopoietic immune networks
The aim of this work is to try to bridge over theoretical immunology and
disordered statistical mechanics. Our long term hope is to contribute to the
development of a quantitative theoretical immunology from which practical
applications may stem. In order to make theoretical immunology appealing to the
statistical physicist audience we are going to work out a research article
which, from one side, may hopefully act as a benchmark for future improvements
and developments, from the other side, it is written in a very pedagogical way
both from a theoretical physics viewpoint as well as from the theoretical
immunology one.
Furthermore, we have chosen to test our model describing a wide range of
features of the adaptive immune response in only a paper: this has been
necessary in order to emphasize the benefit available when using disordered
statistical mechanics as a tool for the investigation. However, as a
consequence, each section is not at all exhaustive and would deserve deep
investigation: for the sake of completeness, we restricted details in the
analysis of each feature with the aim of introducing a self-consistent model.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figur
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