Substrate effects on surface magetetism of Fe/W(110) from first principles

Surface magnetic properties of the pseudomorphic Fe(110) monolayer on a W(110) substrate are investigated from first principles as a function of the substrate thickness (up to eight layers). Analyzing the magnetocrystalline anisotropy energies, we find stable (with respect to the number of substrate layers) in-plane easy and hard axes of magnetization along the [1[overline 1]0] and [001] directions, respectively, reaching a value in good agreement with experiment for thick substrates. Additionally, the changes to the magnetic spin moments and the density of the Fe d states are analyzed with respect to the number of substrate layers as well as with respect to the direction of magnetization. With respect to the number of W(110) substrate layers beneath the Fe(110) surface, we find that the first four substrate layers have a large influence on the electronic and magnetic properties of the surface. Beyond the fourth layer, the substrate has only marginal influence on the surface properties.Comment: 8 Pages, 3 Figures, 3 Table

Instantaneous Bethe-Salpeter equation: improved analytical solution

Studying the Bethe-Salpeter formalism for interactions instantaneous in the rest frame of the bound states described, we show that, for bound-state constituents of arbitrary masses, the mass of the ground state of a given spin may be calculated almost entirely analytically with high accuracy, without the (numerical) diagonalization of the matrix representation obtained by expansion of the solutions over a suitable set of basis states.Comment: 7 page

Diffuse somatostatin-immunoreactive D-cell hyperplasia in the stomach and duodenum

This paper presents the first case of extensive, diffuse, somatostatin- immunoreactive D-cell hyperplasia in the human stomach and duodenum. It occurred in a 37-yr-old woman, who showed clinical signs of dwarfism, obesity, dryness of the mouth, and goiter. The density of the distribution of D cells was increased 39-fold in the stomach fundus, 23- fold in the proximal antrum, 25-fold in the distal antrum, and 31-fold in the upper duodenum in comparison with normal values. At the same time, the gastrin-immunoreactive cells were increased 2.3-fold in the antrum. Although the range in size of the D cells was within normal limits in all regions examined, the G cells showed pronounced hypertrophy of up to 127%. A possible relationship between the immuno- histochemical findings and the clinical picture is discussed

Rescue of myeloid lineage-committed preprogenitor cells from cytomegalovirus-infected bone marrow stroma

The effect of murine cytomegalovirus on myelopoiesis was studied in long-term bone marrow culture to find an in vitro correlate for the lethal virus interference with bone marrow reconstitution (W. Mutter, M. J. Reddehase, F. W. Busch, H.-J. Bühring, and U. H. Koszinowski, J. Exp. Med. 167:1645-1658, 1988). The in vitro generation of granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (CFU-GM) discontinued after infection of the stromal cell layer, whereas the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-GM to granulocyte-monocyte colonies remained unaffected. A protocol was established to probe the functional integrity of earlier hematopoietic cells. Pre-CFU-GM (the progenitors of the CFU-GM) could be recovered from an infected bone marrow donor culture by transfer onto an inductive recipient stromal cell layer. Thus, at least in vitro, infection of bone marrow stroma appears to be the only cause of the defect in myelopoiesis

EPR, ENDOR, and TRIPLE resonance studies of modified bacteriochlorophyll cation radicals

A series of substituted bacteriochlorophyll molecules, all used in reconstitution experiments of reaction centers of Rhodobacter sphaeroides (Struck et al. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1991, 1060, 262-270), were characterized by EPR, electron-nuclear double (ENDOR), and electron-nuclear-nuclear triple (TRIPLE) resonance spectroscopy in their monomeric radical cation states. Effects of different substituents at position 3 in the porphyrin macrocycle were considered, especially for two «crosslinks» between plant and bacterial chlorophylls. These are 3-vinylbacteriochlorophyll where the «bacteria» acetyl group at position 3 was substituted by vinyl and 3-acetylchlorophyll where the «plant» vinyl group was substituted by acety

Accuracy of Approximate Eigenstates

Besides perturbation theory, which requires, of course, the knowledge of the exact unperturbed solution, variational techniques represent the main tool for any investigation of the eigenvalue problem of some semibounded operator H in quantum theory. For a reasonable choice of the employed trial subspace of the domain of H, the lowest eigenvalues of H usually can be located with acceptable precision whereas the trial-subspace vectors corresponding to these eigenvalues approximate, in general, the exact eigenstates of H with much less accuracy. Accordingly, various measures for the accuracy of the approximate eigenstates derived by variational techniques are scrutinized. In particular, the matrix elements of the commutator of the operator H and (suitably chosen) different operators, with respect to degenerate approximate eigenstates of H obtained by some variational method, are proposed here as new criteria for the accuracy of variational eigenstates. These considerations are applied to that Hamiltonian the eigenvalue problem of which defines the "spinless Salpeter equation." This (bound-state) wave equation may be regarded as the most straightforward relativistic generalization of the usual nonrelativistic Schroedinger formalism, and is frequently used to describe, e.g., spin-averaged mass spectra of bound states of quarks.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A (in print); 1 typo correcte

Expression of the insulin-like growth factor-II/mannose-6-phosphate receptor in multiple human tissues during fetal life and early infancy

The insulin like growth factor-II/mannose-6-phosphate (IGF-II/M6P) receptor has been detected in many cells and tissues. In the rat, there is a dramatic developmental regulation of IGF-II/M6P receptor expression, the receptor being high in fetal and neonatal tissues and declining thereafter. We have systematically studied the expression of the human IGF-II/M6P receptor protein in tissues from 10 human fetuses and infants (age 23 weeks gestation to 24 months postnatal). We have asked 1) whether there is differential expression among different organs, and 2) whether or not the human IGF-II/M6P receptor is developmentally regulated from 23 weeks gestation to 24 months postnatal. Protein was extracted from human tissues using a buffer containing 2% sodium dodecyl sulfate and 2% Triton X-100. Aliquots of the protein extracts were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting using an anti-IGF- II/M6P receptor antiserum (no. 66416) and 125I-protein A or an immunoperoxidase stain. IGF-II/M6P receptor immunoreactivity was detected in all tissues studied with the highest amount of receptor being expressed in heart, thymus, and kidney and the lowest receptor content being measured in brain and muscle. The receptor content in ovary, testis, lung, and spleen was intermediate. The apparent molecular weight of the IGF-II/M6P receptor (220,000 kilos without reduction of disulfide bonds) varied among the different tissues: in brain the receptor was of lower molecular weight than in other organs. Immunoquantitation experiments employing 125I-protein A and protein extracts from human kidney at different ages revealed a small, albeit not significant, difference of the receptor content between fetal and postnatal tissues: as in other species, larger amounts of receptor seemed to be present in fetal than in postnatal organs. In addition, no significant difference of the receptor content between human fetal liver and early postnatal liver was measured employing 125I-protein A- immunoquantitation in three fetal and five postnatal liver tissue samples. The distribution of IGF-binding protein (IGEBP) species, another abundant and major class of IGF binding principles, was also measured in human fetal and early postnatal lung, liver, kidney, muscle, and brain using Western ligand blotting with 125I-IGF-II: as with IGF-II/M6P receptor immunoreactivity there was differential expression of the different classes of IGFBPs in the various organs

Failure in generating hemopoietic stem cells is the primary cause of death from cytomegalovirus disease in the immunocompromised host

We have shown in a murine model system for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in the immunocompromised host that CMV infection interferes with the earliest detectable step in hemopoiesis, the generation of the stem cell CFU-S-I, and thereby prevents the autoreconstitution of bone marrow after sublethal irradiation. The antihemopoietic effect could not be ascribed to a direct infection of stem cells. The failure in hemopoiesis was prevented by adoptive transfer of antiviral CD8+ T lymphocytes and could be overcome by syngeneic bone marrow transplantation. CD8+ T lymphocytes and bone marrow cells both mediated survival, although only CD8+ T lymphocytes were able to limit virus multiplication in host tissues. We concluded that not the cytopathic effect of virus replication in host tissues, but the failure in hemopoiesis, is the primary cause of death in murine CMV disease

Impact of tumor-specific targeting on the biodistribution and efficacy of siRNA nanoparticles measured by multimodality in vivo imaging

Targeted delivery represents a promising approach for the development of safer and more effective therapeutics for oncology applications. Although macromolecules accumulate nonspecifically in tumors through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, previous studies using nanoparticles to deliver chemotherapeutics or siRNA demonstrated that attachment of cell-specific targeting ligands to the surface of nanoparticles leads to enhanced potency relative to nontargeted formulations. Here, we use positron emission tomography (PET) and bioluminescent imaging to quantify the in vivo biodistribution and function of nanoparticles formed with cyclodextrin-containing polycations and siRNA. Conjugation of 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid to the 5' end of the siRNA molecules allows labeling with 64Cu for PET imaging. Bioluminescent imaging of mice bearing luciferase-expressing Neuro2A s.c. tumors before and after PET imaging enables correlation of functional efficacy with biodistribution data. Although both nontargeted and transferrin-targeted siRNA nanoparticles exhibit similar biodistribution and tumor localization by PET, transferrin-targeted siRNA nanoparticles reduce tumor luciferase activity by {approx}50% relative to nontargeted siRNA nanoparticles 1 d after injection. Compartmental modeling is used to show that the primary advantage of targeted nanoparticles is associated with processes involved in cellular uptake in tumor cells rather than overall tumor localization. Optimization of internalization may therefore be key for the development of effective nanoparticle-based targeted therapeutics