459 research outputs found
A Novel Recombinant Peste des Petits Ruminants-Canine Adenovirus Vaccine Elicits Long-Lasting Neutralizing Antibody Response against PPR in Goats
BACKGROUND: Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly contagious infectious disease of goats, sheep and small wild ruminant species with high morbidity and mortality rates. The Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) expresses a hemagglutinin (H) glycoprotein on its outer envelope that is crucial for viral attachment to host cells and represents a key antigen for inducing the host immune response. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To determine whether H can be exploited to generate an effective PPRV vaccine, a replication-competent recombinant canine adenovirus type-2 (CAV-2) expressing the H gene of PPRV (China/Tibet strain) was constructed by the in vitro ligation method. The H expression cassette, including the human cytomegalovirus (hCMV) promoter/enhancer and the BGH early mRNA polyadenylation signal, was inserted into the SspI site of the E3 region, which is not essential for proliferation of CAV-2. Infectious recombinant rCAV-2-PPRV-H virus was generated in transfected MDCK cells and used to immunize goats. All vaccinated animals produced antibodies upon primary injection that were effective in neutralizing PPRV in vitro. Higher antibody titer was obtained following booster inoculation, and the antibody was detectable in goats for at least seven months. No serious recombinant virus-related adverse effect was observed in immunized animals and no adenovirus could be isolated from the urine or feces of vaccinated animals. Results showed that the recombinant virus was safe and could stimulate a long-lasting immune response in goats. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This strategy not only provides an effective PPR vaccine candidate for goats but may be a valuable mean by which to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals (the so-called DIVA approach)
Elliptic flow of electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays in Au+Au collisions at 200, 62.4, and 39 GeV
We present measurements of elliptic flow () of electrons from the decays
of heavy-flavor hadrons () by the STAR experiment. For Au+Au collisions
at 200 GeV we report , for transverse momentum
() between 0.2 and 7 GeV/c using three methods: the event plane method
({EP}), two-particle correlations ({2}), and four-particle
correlations ({4}). For Au+Au collisions at = 62.4 and
39 GeV we report {2} for GeV/c. {2} and {4} are
non-zero at low and intermediate at 200 GeV, and {2} is consistent
with zero at low at other energies. The {2} at the two lower beam
energies is systematically lower than at 200 GeV for
GeV/c. This difference may suggest that charm quarks interact less
strongly with the surrounding nuclear matter at those two lower energies
compared to GeV.Comment: Version accepted by PR
Centrality and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow of multi-strange hadrons and meson in Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV
We present high precision measurements of elliptic flow near midrapidity
() for multi-strange hadrons and meson as a function of
centrality and transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at center of mass energy
200 GeV. We observe that the transverse momentum dependence of
and is similar to that of and , respectively,
which may indicate that the heavier strange quark flows as strongly as the
lighter up and down quarks. This observation constitutes a clear piece of
evidence for the development of partonic collectivity in heavy-ion collisions
at the top RHIC energy. Number of constituent quark scaling is found to hold
within statistical uncertainty for both 0-30 and 30-80 collision
centrality. There is an indication of the breakdown of previously observed mass
ordering between and proton at low transverse momentum in the
0-30 centrality range, possibly indicating late hadronic interactions
affecting the proton .Comment: 7 pages and 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Observation of charge asymmetry dependence of pion elliptic flow and the possible chiral magnetic wave in heavy-ion collisions
We present measurements of and elliptic flow, , at
midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at 200, 62.4, 39, 27,
19.6, 11.5 and 7.7 GeV, as a function of event-by-event charge asymmetry,
, based on data from the STAR experiment at RHIC. We find that
() elliptic flow linearly increases (decreases) with charge asymmetry
for most centrality bins at and higher.
At , the slope of the difference of
between and as a function of exhibits a
centrality dependence, which is qualitatively similar to calculations that
incorporate a chiral magnetic wave effect. Similar centrality dependence is
also observed at lower energies.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Azimuthal anisotropy in U+U and Au+Au collisions at RHIC
Collisions between prolate uranium nuclei are used to study how particle
production and azimuthal anisotropies depend on initial geometry in heavy-ion
collisions. We report the two- and four-particle cumulants, and
, for charged hadrons from U+U collisions at =
193 GeV and Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV. Nearly fully
overlapping collisions are selected based on the amount of energy deposited by
spectators in the STAR Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs). Within this sample, the
observed dependence of on multiplicity demonstrates that ZDC
information combined with multiplicity can preferentially select different
overlap configurations in U+U collisions. An initial-state model with gluon
saturation describes the slope of as a function of multiplicity in
central collisions better than one based on Glauber with a two-component
multiplicity model.Comment: Final paper version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. New
version includes comparisons to a constituent quark glauber mode
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