109 research outputs found
Charged Particles on Surfaces: Coexistence of Dilute Phases and Periodic Structures on Membranes
We consider a mixture of one neutral and two oppositely charged types of
molecules confined to a surface. Using analytical techniques and molecular
dynamics simulations, we construct the phase diagram of the system and exhibit
the coexistence between a patterned solid phase and a charge-dilute phase. The
patterns in the solid phase arise from competition between short-range
immiscibility and long-range electrostatic attractions between the charged
species. The coexistence between phases leads to observations of stable
patterned domains immersed in a neutral matrix background.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Direct Numerical Simulations of Electrophoresis of Charged Colloids
We propose a numerical method to simulate electrohydrodynamic phenomena in
charged colloidal dispersions. This method enables us to compute the time
evolutions of colloidal particles, ions, and host fluids simultaneously by
solving Newton, advection-diffusion, and Navier--Stokes equations so that the
electrohydrodynamic couplings can be fully taken into account. The
electrophoretic mobilities of charged spherical particles are calculated in
several situations. The comparisons with approximation theories show
quantitative agreements for dilute dispersions without any empirical
parameters, however, our simulation predicts notable deviations in the case of
dense dispersions.Comment: 4pages, 3figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Generation of cytotoxic T cell responses to an HLA-A24 restricted epitope peptide derived from wild-type p53
Mutations in the p53 gene are the most common genetic alterations found in human tumours, and these mutations result in high levels of p53 protein in the tumour cells. Since the expression levels of wild-type p53 in nonmalignant tissue are usually much lower in contrast, the p53 protein is an attractive target for cancer immunotherapy. We tested p53 encoded HLA-A24 binding peptides for their capacity to elicit anti-tumour cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in vitro. These peptides were in murine p53-derived cytotoxic peptides, which were being presented to CTL by H-2K d and H-2K b molecules, because the HLA-A24 peptide binding motifs were similar to the H-2K d and H-2K b. For CTL induction, we used CD8+T lymphocytes from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of healthy donors and the peptides from pulsed dendritic cells as antigen-presenting cells. We identified the peptide, p53-161 (AIYKQSQHM), which was capable of eliciting CTL lines that lysed tumour cells expressing HLA-A24 and p53. The effectors lysed C1RA24 cells (p53+, HLA-A*2402 transfectant), but not their parental cell lines C1R (p53+, HLA-A,B null cell). These results strongly indicate that the CTL exerts cytotoxic activity in HLA-A24's restricted manner. The identification of this novel p53 epitope for CTL offers the possibility to design and develop specific immunotherapeutic approaches for treating tumours with p53 mutation in HLA-A24-positive patients. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co
Fracture of a biopolymer gel as a viscoplastic disentanglement process
We present an extensive experimental study of mode-I, steady, slow crack
dynamics in gelatin gels. Taking advantage of the sensitivity of the elastic
stiffness to gel composition and history we confirm and extend the model for
fracture of physical hydrogels which we proposed in a previous paper (Nature
Materials, doi:10.1038/nmat1666 (2006)), which attributes decohesion to the
viscoplastic pull-out of the network-constituting chains. So, we propose that,
in contrast with chemically cross-linked ones, reversible gels fracture without
chain scission
Kinetics of water flow through polymer gel
The water flow through the poly(acrylamide) gel under a constant water
pressure is measured by newly designed apparatus. The time evolution of the
water flow in the gel, is calculated based on the collective diffusion model of
the polymer network coupled with the friction between the polymer network and
the water. The friction coefficient are determined from the equilibrium
velocity of water flow. The Young modulus and the Poisson's ratio of the rod
shape gels are measured by the uni-axial elongation experiments, which
determine the longitudinal modulus independently from the water flow
experiments. With the values of the longitudinal modulus and of the friction
determined by the experiments, the calculated results are compared with the
time evolution of the flow experiments. We find that the time evolution of the
water flow is well described by a single characteristic relaxation time
predicted by the collective diffusion model coupled with the water friction.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 27 references, Eqs adde
Adenosquamous carcinoma of the pancreas: a case report
Adenosquamous carcinoma of the pancreas is a rare variant of pancreatic exocrine carcinoma. We report a case of 70 year old man who came to our hospital with abdominal pain, anorexia and jaundice. Imaging of the abdomen showed a mass in the region of the head of the pancreas. Histological evaluation of the pancreatic tumor showed an adenosquamous carcinoma which was extensively infiltrative with perineural invasion, involvement of peripancreatic lymph nodes and all the thickness of the duodenum wall. The tumor exhibited a biphasic malignant growth identified as well to moderate differentiated adenocarcinoma and well to poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma
Specific T-cell immunity against Ki-ras peptides in patients with pancreatic and colorectal cancers
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