124 research outputs found
On the moduli space of positive Ricci curvature metrics on homotopy spheres
We show that the moduli space of Ricci positive metrics on certain homotopy
spheres has infinitely many connected components.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures. The text has been substantially re-written to
improve the expositio
Positive Ricci curvature on highly connected manifolds
For let be a -connected closed manifold. If
mod assume further that is -parallelisable. Then
there is a homotopy sphere such that admits a
Ricci positive metric. This follows from a new description of these manifolds
as the boundaries of explicit plumbings.Comment: Corrected some minor typos and changed document class to amsart. The
new document class added 10 pages, so the paper is now now 46 page
A generalization of the Perelman gluing theorem and applications
We prove a gluing result that allows to glue two Riemannian manifolds of
positive intermediate Ricci curvature along their boundaries, provided the
boundaries are isometric and the sum of second fundamental forms is positive
semi-definite. This holds in particular for positive sectional curvature and
generalizes a result of Perelman for positive Ricci curvature. As application
we derive a sufficient condition for the existence of a metric with positive
intermediate Ricci curvature and totally geodesic boundary, and obtain results
on the observer moduli space of metrics of positive intermediate Ricci
curvature on the sphere.Comment: 21 page
On Ptolemaic metric simplicial complexes
We show that under certain mild conditions, a metric simplicial complex which satisfies
the Ptolemy inequality is a CAT(0) space. Ptolemy’s inequality is closely related to inversions
of metric spaces. For a large class of metric simplicial complexes, we characterize
those which are isometric to Euclidean space in terms of metric inversions
Protein kinase C theta is required for efficient induction of IL-10-secreting T cells
<div><p>Secretion of interleukin-10 (IL-10) by CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells is an essential immunoregulatory mechanism. The work presented here assesses the role of the signaling molecule protein kinase C theta (PKCθ) in the induction of IL-10 expression in CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells. Using wildtype and PKCθ-deficient Tg4 T cell receptor transgenic mice, we implemented a well-described protocol of repeated doses of myelin basic protein (MBP)Ac1-9[4Y] antigen to induce Tr1-like IL-10<sup>+</sup> T cells. We find that PKCθ is required for the efficient induction of IL-10 following antigen administration. Both serum concentrations of IL-10 and the proportion of IL-10<sup>+</sup> T cells were reduced in PKCθ-deficient mice relative to wildtype mice following [4Y] treatment. We further characterized the T cells of [4Y] treated PKCθ-deficient Tg4 mice and found reduced expression of the transcription factors cMaf, Nfil3 and FoxP3 and the surface receptors PD-1 and Tim3, all of which have been associated with the differentiation or function of IL-10<sup>+</sup> T cells. Finally, we demonstrated that, unlike [4Y] treated wildtype Tg4 T cells, cells from PKCθ-deficient mice were unable to suppress the priming of naïve T cells <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i>. In summary, we present data demonstrating a role for PKCθ in the induction of suppressive, IL-10-secreting T cells induced in TCR-transgenic mice following chronic antigen administration. This should be considered when contemplating PKCθ as a suitable drug target for inducing immune suppression and graft tolerance.</p></div
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