391 research outputs found
Allosuppressor and allohelper T cells in acute and chronic graft-vs-host disease. V. F1 mice with secondary chronic GVHD contain F1-reactive allohelper but no allosuppressor T cells.
We studied the alloreactive properties of donor T cells obtained from F1 mice that had recovered from the allosuppression of acute graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) and showed mild symptoms of chronic GVHD, i.e., so-called secondary chronic GVHD. To this end, we used (B10 x DBA/2)F1 mice that had been injected with 10(8) B10 spleen cells 100-150 d previously. Such GVHD F1 mice were repopulated by lympho-hematopoietic cells of donor (B10) origin, which exhibited split tolerance towards the host: Whereas F1-specific donor T helper (Th) cells as well as T cells proliferating in the mixed lymphocyte reaction were readily demonstrable, F1-specific T suppressor (Ts) and T killer (Tk) cells were not, or were hardly, detectable; responses against third-party alloantigens were normal. Upon adoptive transfer to nonirradiated secondary recipients, the B10 cells obtained from the repopulated GVH F1 mice induced F1-specific enlargement of the draining popliteal lymph node and enhancement of the IgG formation therein. B10 cells of the same kind were unable, however, to induce lethal GVHD upon transfer to 950 rad-irradiated secondary (B10 x DBA/2)F1 recipients. We conclude that alloactivated donor Ts/Tk cells disappear from the host at a relatively early stage of GVHD, i.e., at the end of acute GVHD , presumably because they are short-lived. By contrast, the longevity of alloactivated donor Th cells causes the symptoms of secondary chronic GVH
Allosuppressor and allohelper T cells in acute and chronic graft-vs.-host disease. II. F1 recipients carrying mutations at H-2K and/or I-A.
By induction of a graft-vs.-host reaction (GVHR) in nonirradiated H-2-different F1 mice, one can induce stimulatory pathological symptoms, such as lymphadenopathy and hypergammaglobulinemia, combined with the production of autoantibodies characteristic of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Alternatively, the GVHR can lead to the suppressive pathological symptoms, such as pancytopenia and hypogammaglobulinemia, characteristic of acute GVH disease (GVHD). Whether stimulatory or suppressive symptoms are induced by a GVHR depends, in our view (2-4), on the functional subset of donor T cells activated in the F1 host. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether class I and/or class II H-2 alloantigens can selectively trigger, out of a pool of unselected donor T cells, those subpopulations of T cells responsible for the stimulatory and suppressive GVH symptoms, respectively. For the induction of the GVHR, 10(8) lymphoid cells from C57BL/6 (B6) donors were injected into three kinds of F1 hybrid mice, which had been bred from H-2 mutant strains on a B6 background. Whereas the I-A-disparate (B6 X bm12)F1 recipients exclusively developed stimulatory GVH symptoms, including SLE-like autoantibodies and immune complex glomerulonephritis, the K locus-disparate (B6 X bm1)F1 recipients showed neither clearly stimulatory nor clearly suppressive GVH symptoms. In marked contrast, the (bm1 X bm12)F1 recipients, which differ from the B6 donor strain by mutations at both K and I-A locus, initially developed stimulatory GVH symptoms, but rapidly thereafter showed the suppressive pathological symptoms of acute GVHD and died. Moreover, spleen cells obtained from (B6 X bm12)F1 mice injected with B6 donor cells helped the primary anti-sheep erythrocyte (SRBC) response of normal (B6 X bm12)F1 spleen cells in vitro, whereas spleen cells (bm1 X bm12)F1 mice injected with B6 donor cells strongly suppressed the primary anti-SRBC response of normal (bm1 X bm12)F1 spleen cells. Spleen cells from the K locus-disparate (B6 X bm1)F1 recipients also suppressed the primary anti-SRBC of normal (B6 X bm1)F1 spleen cells; this suppression, however, was weak when compared with the suppression induced by spleen cells from GVH (bm1 X bm12)F1 mice. Taken together, these findings indicate that a small class II (I-A) antigenic difference suffices to trigger the alloreactive donor T helper cells causing SLE-like GVHD. In contrast, both class I (H-2K) and class II (I-A) differences are required to trigger the subsets of donor T cells responsible for acute GVHD. It appears that alloreactive donor T helper cells induce the alloreactive T suppressor cells, which then act as the suppressor effector cells causing the pancytopenia of acute GVHD. These findings may help to understand the variability of GVH-like diseases caused by a given etiologic agent, their cellular pathogenesis, and association with certain HLA loc
Josephson Current between Triplet and Singlet Superconductors
The Josephson effect between triplet and singlet superconductors is studied.
Josephson current can flow between triplet and singlet superconductors due to
the spin-orbit coupling in the spin-triplet superconductor but it is finite
only when triplet superconductor has , where and
are the perpendicular components of orbital angular momentum and spin angular
momentum of the triplet Cooper pairs, respectively. The recently observed
temperature and orientational dependence of the critical current through a
Josephson junction between UPt and Nb is investigated by considering a
non-unitary triplet state.Comment: 4 pages, no figure
Level Statistics of XXZ Spin Chains with Discrete Symmetries: Analysis through Finite-size Effects
Level statistics is discussed for XXZ spin chains with discrete symmetries
for some values of the next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) coupling parameter. We show
how the level statistics of the finite-size systems depends on the NNN coupling
and the XXZ anisotropy, which should reflect competition among quantum chaos,
integrability and finite-size effects. Here discrete symmetries play a central
role in our analysis. Evaluating the level-spacing distribution, the spectral
rigidity and the number variance, we confirm the correspondence between
non-integrability and Wigner behavior in the spectrum. We also show that
non-Wigner behavior appears due to mixed symmetries and finite-size effects in
some nonintegrable cases.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure
Expression of oncoproteins and the amount of eosinophilic and lymphocytic infiltrates can be used as prognostic factors in gastric cancer. Dutch Gastric Cancer Group (DGCG).
Preoperative staging of gastric cancer is difficult. Several molecular markers associated with initiation and progression of cancer seem promising for obtaining preoperative prognostic information. To investigate whether these markers are indicative especially for the presence of lymph node metastases in patients with gastric cancer, we have examined primary tumour specimens from 105 patients with primary adenocarcinoma of the stomach entered in a surgical trial. In this trial, lymph node status was determined by strictly quality-controlled lymph node dissection and examination. The selected markers were growth regulators (p53, Rb and myc), metastasis-suppressor gene product (nm23), adhesion molecules (Ep-CAM, E-cadherin, CD44v5 and CD44v6) and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA). Also, the amount of eosinophilic and lymphocytic infiltrates available post-operatively was analysed with respect to its prognostic value for lymph node status. Moreover, the association of these parameters with survival and disease-free period (DFP) was evaluated. Of all molecular markers investigated, only Rb expression had a significant association with the presence of lymph node metastasis in both univariate and multivariate analysis. For curative resectability, a significant association was found with Rb and E-cadherin expression, while in multivariate analysis Rb and myc were selected as the combination with additional independent prognostic value, and E-cadherin had no additional independent value. For overall survival in univariate analysis, the amount of both eosinophilic and lymphocytic infiltrates and Rb and myc expression were of significant prognostic value. Only the amount of lymphocytic infiltrate had a prognostic significance for DFP. In stepwise multivariate analysis, TNM stage (I + II) and marked lymphocytic infiltrate were associated with better overall survival and longer DFP. We conclude that, if these results are confirmed in a larger series of patients, molecular markers can provide useful prognostic information
Bistability in the Tunnelling Current through a Ring of Coupled Quantum Dots
We study bistability in the electron transport through a ring of N coupled
quantum dots with two orbitals in each dot. One orbital is localized (called b
orbital) and coupling of the b orbitals in any two dots is negligible; the
other is delocalized in the plane of the ring (called d orbital), due to
coupling of the d orbitals in the neighboring dots, as described by a
tight-binding model. The d orbitals thereby form a band with finite width. The
b and d orbitals are connected to the source and drain electrodes with a
voltage bias V, allowing the electron tunnelling. Tunnelling current is
calculated by using a nonequilibrium Green function method recently developed
to treat nanostructures with multiple energy levels. We find a bistable effect
in the tunnelling current as a function of bias V, when the size N>50; this
effect scales with the size N and becomes sizable at N~100. The temperature
effect on bistability is also discussed. In comparison, mean-field treatment
tends to overestimate the bistable effect.Comment: Published in JPSJ; minor typos correcte
Higher-Order Results for the Relation between Channel Conductance and the Coulomb Blockade for Two Tunnel-Coupled Quantum Dots
We extend earlier results on the relation between the dimensionless tunneling
channel conductance and the fractional Coulomb blockade peak splitting
for two electrostatically equivalent dots connected by an arbitrary number
of tunneling channels with bandwidths much larger than the
two-dot differential charging energy . By calculating through second
order in in the limit of weak coupling (), we illuminate
the difference in behavior of the large- and
small- regimes and make more plausible extrapolation to the
strong-coupling () limit. For the special case of
and strong coupling, we eliminate an apparent ultraviolet
divergence and obtain the next leading term of an expansion in . We show
that the results we calculate are independent of such band structure details as
the fraction of occupied fermionic single-particle states in the weak-coupling
theory and the nature of the cut-off in the bosonized strong-coupling theory.
The results agree with calculations for metallic junctions in the
limit and improve the previous good
agreement with recent two-channel experiments.Comment: 27 pages, 1 RevTeX file with 4 embedded Postscript figures. Uses eps
Fine structure in the off-resonance conductance of small Coulomb blockade systems
We show how a fine, multiple-peak structure can arise in the off-resonance,
zero-bias conductance of Coulomb blockade systems. In order to understand how
this effect comes about one must abandon the orthodox, mean-field understanding
of the Coulomb blockade phenomenon and consider quantum fluctuations in the
occupation of the single-particle electronic levels. We illustrate such an
effect with a spinless Anderson-like model for multi-level systems and an
equation-of-motion method for calculating Green's functions that combines two
simple decoupling schemes.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, postscript file also available at
http://www.pa.uky.edu/~palacios/papers/eom.ps One figure added. Discussion of
results extende
Josephson current in s-wave superconductor / Sr_2RuO_4 junctions
The Josephson current between an s-wave and a spin-triplet superconductor
SrRuO (SRO) is studied theoretically. In spin-singlet / spin-triplet
superconductor junctions, there is no Josephson current proportional to in the absence of the spin-flip scattering near junction interfaces,
where is a phase-difference across junctions. Thus a dominant term of
the Josephson current is proportional to . The spin-orbit
scattering at the interfaces gives rise to the Josephson current proportional
to , which is a direct consequence of the chiral paring symmetry in
SRO
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