Caratteristiche farmacologiche e uso clinico del Palivizumab nel trattamento dell’infezione dal virus respiratorio sinciziale

Uno dei principali patogeni del tratto inferiore respiratorio nei bambini sotto i 2 anni è il virus respiratorio sinciziale (RSV). Nel 2015 fu stimato dall’OMS che erano presenti circa 64 milioni di infezioni l’anno e 160mila morti in tutto il mondo causate dall' RSV. Il rischio di infezione da RSV è molto alto nei bambini che nascono prematuri o con displasia broncopolmonare (BPD), o con malattie polmonari croniche (CLD), o con malattie congenite cardiache (CHD). La prevenzione si basa sulla profilassi ambientale, rivolta a minimizzare la diffusione del virus e sulla profilassi farmacologica, la quale prevede la somministrazione di Palivizumab ai bambini ad alto rischio durante il periodo epidemico (dicembre-aprile). Il Palivizumab è un'anticorpo monoclonale che lega un epitopo della glicoproteina F presente sulla superficie dell’ RSV andando a bolccare il legame tra il virus e la cellula bersaglio. Questo trattamento diminuisce l’ospedalizzazione e la criticità clinica dell’infezione del 55% nei neonati ad alto rischio. Sfortunatamente, uno dei principali problemi del farmaco è dovuto all'elevato costo di un singolo trattamento, stimato intorno a 4458 $ per bambino. Di conseguenza la somministrazione viene effettuata solamente su un gruppo ristretto di bambini, andandone a limitare gli studi e l’efficacia. Attraverso molto studi si pensa che l’uso del Palivizumab sia sicuramete d’aiuto per neonati prematuri nati prima della 33 settimana

Non-equilibrium effects on charge and energy partitioning after an interaction quench

Charge and energy fractionalization are among the most intriguing features of interacting onedimensional fermion systems. In this work we determine how these phenomena are modified in the presence of an interaction quench. Charge and energy are injected into the system suddenly after the quench, by means of tunneling processes with a non-interacting one-dimensional probe. Here, we demonstrate that the system settles to a steady state in which the charge fractionalization ratio is unaffected by the pre-quenched parameters. On the contrary, due to the post-quench nonequilibrium spectral function, the energy partitioning ratio is strongly modified, reaching values larger than one. This is a peculiar feature of the non-equilibrium dynamics of the quench process and it is in sharp contrast with the non-quenched case, where the ratio is bounded by one.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Quench-induced entanglement and relaxation dynamics in Luttinger liquids

We investigate the time evolution towards the asymptotic steady state of a one-dimensional interacting system after a quantum quench. We show that at finite times the latter induces entanglement between right- and left-moving density excitations, encoded in their cross-correlators, which vanishes in the long-time limit. This behavior results in a universal time decay ∝t−2 of the system spectral properties, in addition to nonuniversal power-law contributions typical of Luttinger liquids. Importantly, we argue that the presence of quench-induced entanglement clearly emerges in transport properties, such as charge and energy currents injected in the system from a biased probe and determines their long-time dynamics. In particular, the energy fractionalization phenomenon turns out to be a promising platform to observe the universal power-law decay ∝t−2 induced by entanglement and represents a novel way to study the corresponding relaxation mechanism

Genome-wide essential gene identification in Streptococcus sanguinis

A clear perception of gene essentiality in bacterial pathogens is pivotal for identifying drug targets to combat emergence of new pathogens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, for synthetic biology, and for understanding the origins of life. We have constructed a comprehensive set of deletion mutants and systematically identified a clearly defined set of essential genes for Streptococcus sanguinis. Our results were confirmed by growing S. sanguinis in minimal medium and by double-knockout of paralogous or isozyme genes. Careful examination revealed that these essential genes were associated with only three basic categories of biological functions: maintenance of the cell envelope, energy production, and processing of genetic information. Our finding was subsequently validated in two other pathogenic streptococcal species, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus mutans and in two other gram-positive pathogens, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus. Our analysis has thus led to a simplified model that permits reliable prediction of gene essentiality

Lettere

Marca tip. en por

Transport Properties as a Tool to Study Universal Quench-induced Dynamics in 1D Systems

The study of the relaxation process that follows a quantum quench in 1D systems still represents an open research field. Here we consider a sudden change of the interparticle interaction and we identify a peculiar correlator of the system whose behavior is directly and deeply affected by the quench-induced dynamics. Interestingly, it features a universal power-law decay in time. Unfortunately, such a universal decay, although present, turns out to be subleading in intrinsic properties of the system such as the non- equilibrium spectral function. We thus consider a tunnel coupling of the system with a biased tip in order to be able to study also transport properties, namely the charge and energy current flowing from the tip to the system after the quench. In these quantities the universal power-law emerges clearly, especially if one focuses on energy current and its fractionalization into a right- and left- moving components. In particular, we show that the presence of a transient in the energy fractionalization ratio is a direct hallmark of the quench-induced relaxation. Within the setup we have considered, time-dependent transport properties are thus promoted to useful and promising tools to access the mechanisms at the base of the out-of- equilibrium dynamics following quantum quench

Asymmetries in the spectral density of an interaction-quenched Luttinger liquid

The spectral density of an interaction-quenched one-dimensional system is investigated. Both direct and inverse quench protocols are considered and it is found that the former leads to stronger effects on the spectral density with respect to the latter. Such asymmetry is directly reflected on transport properties of the system, namely the charge and energy current flowing to the system from a tunnel coupled biased probe. In particular, the injection of particles from the probe to the right-moving channel of the system is considered. The resulting fractionalization phenomena are strongly affected by the quench protocol and display asymmetries in the case of direct and inverse quench. Transport properties therefore emerge as natural probes for the observation of this quench-induced behavior

Universal scaling of quench-induced correlations in a one-dimensional channel at finite temperature

It has been shown that a quantum quench of interactions in a one-dimensional fermion system at zero temperature induces a universal power law $\propto t^{-2}$ in its long-time dynamics. In this paper we demonstrate that this behaviour is robust even in the presence of thermal effects. The system is initially prepared in a thermal state, then at a given time the bath is disconnected and the interaction strength is suddenly quenched. The corresponding effects on the long times dynamics of the non-equilibrium fermionic spectral function are considered. We show that the non-universal power laws, present at zero temperature, acquire an exponential decay due to thermal effects and are washed out at long times, while the universal behaviour $\propto t^{-2}$ is always present. To verify our findings, we argue that these features are also visible in transport properties at finite temperature. The long-time dynamics of the current injected from a biased probe exhibits the same universal power law relaxation, in sharp contrast with the non-quenched case which features a fast exponential decay of the current towards its steady value, and thus represents a fingerprint of quench-induced dynamics. Finally, we show that a proper tuning of the probe temperature, compared to that of the one-dimensional channel, can enhance the visibility of the universal power-law behaviour