Trained Immunity Carried by Non-immune Cells

“Trained immunity” is a term proposed by Netea to describe the ability of an organism to develop an exacerbated immunological response to protect against a second infection independent of the adaptative immunity. This immunological memory can last from 1 week to several months and is only described in innate immune cells such as monocytes, macrophages, and natural killer cells. Paradoxically, the lifespan of these cells in the blood is shorter than the duration of trained immunity. This observation suggested that trained immunity could be carried by long lifespan cells such as stem cells and non-immune cells like fibroblasts. It is now evident that in addition to performing their putative function in the development and maintenance of tissue homeostasis, non-immune cells also play an important role in the response to pathogens by producing anti-microbial factors, with long-term inflammation suggesting that non-immune cells can be trained to confer long-lasting immunological memory. This review provides a summary of the current relevant knowledge about the cells which possess immunological memory and discusses the possibility that non-immune cells may carry immunological memory and mechanisms that might be involved

Complaint Ontology Pattern - COP

In this paper we present an ontology design pattern to conceptualize complaints - an important domain still uncovered by ODPs. The proposed Complaint Ontology Pattern (COP) has been designed based on the analysis of free text complaints from available complaint datasets (banking, air transport, automobile) among other knowledge sources. We present a detailed use case from consumer disputes. We evaluate the pattern by annotating the complaints from our use case and by discussing how COP aligns to existing ontologies

La mémoire immunitaire entraînée chez les invertébrés

L’un des mécanismes de défense de l’hôte consiste en l’immunité entraînée, composante de l’immunité innée, également connue sous le nom de mémoire immunitaire innée. La mémoire immunitaire innée est définie comme une protection exacerbée d’un organisme lors d’un deuxième contact avec un corps étranger, comme un micro-organisme pathogène. Il s’agit d’une immunité qui ne fait pas intervenir les composants de l’immunité acquise, comme les lymphocytes B ou les lymphocytes T. Elle repose essentiellement sur la machinerie cellulaire et moléculaire de la réponse innée. La mémoire immunitaire innée a été décrite aussi bien chez les invertébrés et que les vertébrés, mais son mécanisme ne commence à être élucidé que depuis récemment, en particulier chez les vertébrés. La plupart des recherches sur la mémoire immunitaire innée repose, aujourd’hui, sur des modèles vertébrés, oubliant que ce mécanisme existe également chez les invertébrés. Pourtant, les invertébrés présentent l’avantage de pouvoir étudier la mémoire immunitaire dans des modèles qui sont naturellement dépourvus d’immunité acquise. L’objectif de cette revue est donc de réaliser un point sur la mémoire immunitaire innée des invertébrés

Fall detection and warning system for nursing homes based on bluetooth low energy

Fall accidents are a frequent problem with the elderly and lead to severe injuries and/or could have a lethal ending. To prevent these potential deaths the nursing personnel visits the elderly on a regular basis. This has an enormous influence on the mental and physical capabilities of the nursing personnel. In combination with the ever-growing presence of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, this paper proposes a low-power wireless fall detection and warning system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The aim of the system is to lower the workload of the nursing personnel and prevent elderly from dying from hypothermia. The system consists of a patient wearable (P) monitoring the movement of the elderly, a Detection Node (DN) scanning the room of the elderly to pinpoint the position of the fallen elderly, multiple Network Nodes (NNs) in the hallways sending the alert messages to the closest caretaker wearing a Caretaker Node (CN). This node visualizes all vital parameters, so the nursing personnel can help in the fastest way possible. A proof-of-concept is proposed in this paper, together with measurements and power analysis

Novel hydroquinone-alumina composites stabilizing a guest-free clathrate structure: applications in gas processing

International audienceOrganic clathrates formed by hydroquinone (HQ) and gases such as CO2 and CH4 are solid supramolecular host–guest compounds in which the gaseous guest molecules are encaged in a host framework of HQ molecules. Not only are these inclusion compounds fascinating scientific curiosities but they can also be used in practical applications such as gas separation. However, the development and future use of clathrate-based processes will largely depend on the effectiveness of the reactive materials used. These materials should enable fast and selective enclathration and have a large gas storage capacity. This article discusses the properties and performance of a new composite material able to form gas clathrates with hydroquinone (HQ) deposited on alumina particles. Apart from the general characterization of the HQ-alumina composite, one of the most remarkable observations is the unexpected formation of a guest-free clathrate structure with long-term stability (>2 years) inside the composite. Interestingly enough, in addition to a slight improvement in the enclathration kinetics of pure CO2 compared to powdered HQ, preferential capture of CO2 molecules is observed when the HQ-alumina composite is exposed to an equimolar CO2/CH4 gas mixture. In terms of gas capture selectivity toward CO2, the performance of this new composite exceeds that of pure HQ and HQ-silica composites developed in a previous study, opening up new opportunities for the design and use of these novel materials for gas separation

Detection of orthologous genes with expression shifts linked to nickel hyperaccumulation across Eudicots

Abstract The remarkable capacity of plants to tolerate and accumulate tremendous amount of nickel is a complex adaptative trait that appeared independently in more than 700 species distributed in about fifty families. Nickel hyperaccumulation is thus proposed as a model to investigate the evolution of complex traits in plants. However, the mechanisms involved in nickel hyperaccumulation are still poorly understood in part because comparative transcriptomic analyses struggle to identify genes linked to this trait from a wide diversity of species. In this work, we have implemented a methodology based on the quantification of the expression of orthologous groups and phylogenetic comparative methods to identify genes which expression is correlated to the nickel hyperaccumulation trait. More precisely, we performed de novo transcriptome assembly and reads quantification for each species on its own transcriptome using available RNA-Seq datasets from 15 nickel hyperaccumulator and non-accumulator species. Assembled contigs were associated to orthologous groups built using proteomes predicted from completed plant genome sequences. We then analyzed the transcription profiles of 5953 orthologous groups from distant species using a phylogenetic ANOVA. We identified 31 orthologous groups with an expression shift associated with nickel hyperaccumulation. These orthologous groups correspond to genes that have been previously implicated in nickel accumulation, and to new candidates involved in this trait. We thus believe that this method can be successfully applied to identify genes linked to other complex traits from a wide diversity of species

Detection of orthologous genes with expression shifts linked to nickel hyperaccumulation across Eudicots

Abstract The remarkable capacity of plants to tolerate and accumulate tremendous amount of nickel is a complex adaptative trait that appeared independently in more than 700 species distributed in about fifty families. Nickel hyperaccumulation is thus proposed as a model to investigate the evolution of complex traits in plants. However, the mechanisms involved in nickel hyperaccumulation are still poorly understood in part because comparative transcriptomic analyses struggle to identify genes linked to this trait from a wide diversity of species. In this work, we have implemented a methodology based on the quantification of the expression of orthologous groups and phylogenetic comparative methods to identify genes which expression is correlated to the nickel hyperaccumulation trait. More precisely, we performed de novo transcriptome assembly and reads quantification for each species on its own transcriptome using available RNA-Seq datasets from 15 nickel hyperaccumulator and non-accumulator species. Assembled contigs were associated to orthologous groups built using proteomes predicted from completed plant genome sequences. We then analyzed the transcription profiles of 5953 orthologous groups from distant species using a phylogenetic ANOVA. We identified 31 orthologous groups with an expression shift associated with nickel hyperaccumulation. These orthologous groups correspond to genes that have been previously implicated in nickel accumulation, and to new candidates involved in this trait. We thus believe that this method can be successfully applied to identify genes linked to other complex traits from a wide diversity of species