Evaluation of transduction efficiency in macrophage colony-stimulating factor differentiated human macrophages using HIV-1 based lentiviral vectors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Monocyte-derived macrophages contribute to atherosclerotic plaque formation. Therefore, manipulating macrophage function could have significant therapeutic value. The objective of this study was to determine transduction efficiency of two HIV-based lentiviral vector configurations as delivery systems for the transduction of primary human blood monocyte-derived macrophages.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Human blood monocytes were transduced using two VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-1 based lentiviral vectors containing EGFP expression driven by either native HIV-LTR (VRX494) or EF1α promoters (VRX1090). Lentiviral vectors were added to cultured macrophages at different times and multiplicities of infection (MOI). Transduction efficiency was assessed using fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Macrophages transduced between 2 and 120 hours after culturing showed the highest transduction efficiency at 2-hours transduction time. Subsequently, cells were transduced 2 hours after culturing at various vector concentrations (MOIs of 5, 10, 25 and 50) to determine the amount of lentiviral vector particles required to maximally transduce human monocyte-derived macrophages. On day 7, all transduced cultures showed EGFP-positive cells by microscopy. Flow cytometric analysis showed with all MOIs a peak shift corresponding to the presence of EGFP-positive cells. For VRX494, transduction efficiency was maximal at an MOI of 25 to 50 and ranged between 58 and 67%. For VRX1090, transduction efficiency was maximal at an MOI of 10 and ranged between 80 and 90%. Thus, transductions performed with VRX1090 showed a higher number of EGFP-positive cells than VRX494.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This report shows that VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-based lentiviral vectors can efficiently transduce human blood monocyte-derived macrophages early during differentiation using low particle numbers that do not interfere with differentiation of monocytes into macrophages.</p

Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC

Results are presented from searches for the standard model Higgs boson in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the LHC, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb^(−1) at 7 TeV and 5.3 fb^(−1) at 8 TeV. The search is performed in five decay modes: γγ, ZZ, W^+W^−, τ^+τ^−, and bb. An excess of events is observed above the expected background, with a local significance of 5.0 standard deviations, at a mass near 125 GeV, signalling the production of a new particle. The expected significance for a standard model Higgs boson of that mass is 5.8 standard deviations. The excess is most significant in the two decay modes with the best mass resolution, γγ and ZZ; a fit to these signals gives a mass of 125.3±0.4(stat.)±0.5(syst.) GeV. The decay to two photons indicates that the new particle is a boson with spin different from one

Contrôle de la croissance de nanomatériaux d'oxyde de zinc par des copolymères diblocs hydrophiles.

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Synthèse de nanofils de ZnO dans des Matériaux Poreux Ordonnés: Experience et Simulation Moléculaire.

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Future Generation Computer Systems 19 (2003) 983--997

This paper examines issues encountered attempting to exploit a high-bandwidth, high-latency link in support of a high-energy physics (HEP) analysis application. The primary issue was that the TCP additive increase/multiplicative decrease (AIMD) algorithm is not suitable for &quot;long fat networks&quot;. While this is a known problem, the magnitude of the impact on application performance was much greater than anticipated. We were able to overcome much of the impact, by altering the AIMD coefficients. Such an approach, of course, is non-TCP compliant, and there was insufficient time to test the network friendliness of these modifications

A round Robin test of the uncertainty on the measurements o the thermoelectric dimensionless figure of merite of Co0.87Ni0.03Sb3

A round robin test aiming at measuring the high-temperature thermoelectric properties was carried out by a group of European (mainly French) laboratories (labs). Polycrystalline skutterudite Co0.97 Ni 0.03Sb3 was characterized by Seebeck coefficient (8 labs), electrical resistivity (9 labs), thermal diffusivity (6 labs), mass volume density (6 labs), and specific heat (6 labs) measurements. These data were statistically processed to determine the uncertainty on all these measured quantities as a function of temperature and combined to obtain an overall uncertainty on the thermal conductivity (product of thermal diffusivity by density and by specific heat) and on the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. An increase with temperature of all these uncertainties is observed, in agreement with growing difficulties to measure these quantities when temperature increases. The uncertainties on the electrical resistivity and thermal diffusivity are most likely dominated by the uncertainty on the sample dimensions. The temperature-averaged (300–700 K) relative standard uncertainties at the confidence level of 68% amount to 6%, 8%, 11%, and 19% for the Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity, and figure of merit ZT, respectively. Thermal conductivity measurements appear as the least accurate. The moderate value of the temperature-averaged relative expanded (confidence level of 95%) uncertainty of 17% on the mean of ZT is essential in establishing Co0.97 Ni 0.03Sb3 as a high temperature standard n-type thermoelectric material