Lipid-laden bronchoalveolar macrophages in asthma and chronic cough

SummaryBackgroundThe presence of lipids in alveolar macrophages (AMs) may impair their phagocytic response, and determine airway inflammation and obstruction.ObjectiveTo determine the factors such as severity of asthma, chronic cough, airway inflammation and obesity that may influence the presence of lipids in lung macrophages.MethodsBronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was obtained from 38 asthmatics (21 severe and 17 mild/moderate), 16 subjects with chronic cough and 11 healthy control subjects. The presence of lipids in macrophages was detected using an Oil-red-O stain and an index of lipid-laden macrophages (LLMI) was obtained.ResultsLLMI scores were higher in healthy subjects (median 48 [IQR 10–61]) and the severe asthma group (37 [11.5–61]) compared to mild/moderate asthmatics (7 [0.5–37]; p < 0.05 each). Subjects reporting a history of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) had higher LLMI values (41.5 [11.3–138] versus 13 [0–39.3], p = 0.02). There was no significant correlation between LLMI and chronic cough, BAL cell differential counts, FEV1, FEV1/FVC or body mass index (BMI).ConclusionsThe reduced LLMI in mild/moderate asthma may be related to lower incidence of GORD. However, this was not related to the degree of airflow obstruction, obesity or airway inflammation

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Polyindole-ZnO Nanocomposite: Synthesis, Characterization and Heterogeneous Catalyst for the 3,4-Dihydropyrimidinone Synthesis under Solvent-free Conditions

A Polyindole-ZnO nanocomposite particle was synthesized by using a chemical oxidative polymerization method. Synthesized nanocomposite was characterized by UV-Visible, FTIR, SEM, XRD, EDAX and electrical conductivity measurements. The band at 3c3400 cm 121 and 735 cm 121 in FTIR spectra confirmed the polyindole formation. XRD spectral studies exhibits major diffraction in between 30\u201340\ub0 (2\u3b8) indicates the partial crystalline nature of the polyindole-ZnO nanocomposite. SEM image reveals agglomerated granular particulate nature with ZnO embedded in the polyindole matrix. The application of Polyindole-ZnO nanocomposite as a polymer-supported catalyst was studied for the synthesis of one pot multicomponent Biginelli condensatio

A Novel Enhancement of Nano Structure by Organic Acid Dopants in Emulsion Polymerization of Poly(o-toluidine)

A simple, more facile and green approach for the synthesis of poly(o-toluidine) (POT) has been described, by using oxidative emulsion polymerization in a heterogeneous phase by using ammonium persulfate as an oxidant and organic acids as dopant, acids used such as tartaric, oxalic and citric. The effect or influence of these dopants on conductivity, morphology of the nano structure of POT and physical properties are well studied and found that it depends on the nature and type of the functional organic acid dopants. By using this synthetic approach we have obtained POT nanostructures of uniform granular morphology, with average 40\u2013100 nm particle size doped with oxalic or citric acid, whereas in tartaric acid doped POT fibrilar morphology with 40\u201360 nm size nano fibers was ascertained. These compounds were characterized by UV-Visible, FT-IR, SEM, and XRD. Electrical conductivity studies of these materials were also carried out and found increase in conductivity with citric acid and oxalic acid doped POT as compared to the tartaric acid. XRD studies showed partial crystalline nature of tartaric acid doped POT polymer as compared to others. By using this emulsion process, POT nanostructure formed with 60\u2013100 nm diameter size having high yield, conductivity, and improved solubility in organic solvents in the emeraldine salt phase of polymer (confirmed by the presence of characteristic peaks at 420 nm and 3c800\u2013850 nm). The influences of reaction conditions, e.g. monomer, acid concentration on the physico-chemical properties were also investigated

Geometric Minimum Spanning Trees with GEOFILTERKRUSKAL

Let P be a set of points in R d. We propose GEOFILTERKRUSKAL, an algorithm that computes the minimum spanning tree of P using well separated pair decomposition in combination with a simple modification of Kruskal’s algorithm. When P is sampled from uniform random distribution, we show that our algorithm takes one parallel sort plus a linear number of additional steps, with high probability, to compute the minimum spanning tree. Experiments show that our algorithm works better in practice for most data distributions compared to the current state of the art [31]. Our algorithm is easy to parallelize and to our knowledge, is currently the best practical algorithm on multi-core machines for d &gt; 2