Characterization of Phagocytic Pattern Recognition Receptors in Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a powerful model system to study innate immunity. Insects employ multilayered innate immune defenses including antimicrobial peptide responses and phagocytosis. In Drosophila, phagocytosis is carried out by plasmatocytes, a blood cell type similar to mammalian macrophages and neutrophils. The scavenger receptor Eater is expressed by larval and adult plasmatocytes and mediates recognition of a broad range of bacterial pathogens. Eater is required for fly survival after infection with Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. However, the bacterial ligands of Eater, and the mechanisms by which this receptor recognizes these different types of bacteria, remain poorly understood. To address this problem, I generated a soluble, Fc-tagged receptor variant of Eater comprising the N-terminal 199 amino acids (including four N-terminal EGF-like repeats) and raised antibodies against Eater. Using these tools, I established (i) that Eater is expressed on the surface of macrophage-like Drosophila S2 cells, (ii) that it interacts with broad, yet distinct classes of heat- and ethanol-inactivated microbes and (iii) that it binds peptidoglycan from Gram-negative Proteobacteria (E. coli) and Gram-positive Firmicutes (E. faecalis and S. aureus), but not Gram-positive Actinobacteria (M. luteus). In order to identify genes involved in the phagocytosis of M. luteus, I screened 39 candidate genes by RNA interference-mediated knock down in S2 cells. A longstanding question was whether Eater recognizes live, naïve bacteria. I found that Eater-Fc bound equally well to naïve or heat-inactivated S. aureus or E. faecalis, suggesting that in vivo Eater directly targets live Gram-positive bacteria, enabling their phagocytic clearance and destruction. By contrast, Eater-Fc was unable to interact with live Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli, S. marcescens and P. aeruginosa). Eater binding required prior membrane-disrupting treatments. Cecropin A, a prototypic cationic, membrane-disrupting antimicrobial peptide could promote Eater-Fc binding to live E. coli, even at sublethal concentrations. These results suggest a previously unrecognized mechanism by which antimicrobial peptides cooperate with phagocytic receptors

Measurement of the Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section in pp collisions at 7 TeV

The production of b jets in association with a Z/gamma* boson is studied using proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and recorded by the CMS detector. The inclusive cross section for Z/gamma* + b-jet production is measured in a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 inverse femtobarns. The Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section with Z/gamma* to ll (where ll = ee or mu mu) for events with the invariant mass 60 < M(ll) < 120 GeV, at least one b jet at the hadron level with pT > 25 GeV and abs(eta) < 2.1, and a separation between the leptons and the jets of Delta R > 0.5 is found to be 5.84 +/- 0.08 (stat.) +/- 0.72 (syst.) +(0.25)/-(0.55) (theory) pb. The kinematic properties of the events are also studied and found to be in agreement with the predictions made by the MadGraph event generator with the parton shower and the hadronisation performed by PYTHIA.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Aligning the CMS Muon Chambers with the Muon Alignment System during an Extended Cosmic Ray Run

Peer reviewe

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació