Changes in Expression of Innervation and Accompanying Epithelium within Sjögren\u27s Syndrome NOD/ShiLtJ Mouse Model

The salivary gland produces saliva that aids in digestion and in maintaining homeostasis in the oral cavity. Saliva production is disrupted in Sjögren’s Syndrome (SS), where the salivary gland is attacked by the immune system, leading to loss of function and hyposalivation. SS is thought to be accompanied by changes in the salivary epithelium, which are incompletely understood. In this study we have used the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse as a model for SS to study the changes in salivary gland epithelium, as these models present autoantibodies and other characteristics such as immune infiltrates similar to those found in SS patients. To quantify and explore glandular changes in both mouse and human tissue, epithelial proteins marking specific cell types were compared using multiplexed immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescent microscopy. Epithelial markers were characterized in human SS and two types of human control tissue, autopsy, and non-SS biopsies, and these results were compared to NOD epithelial tissue and healthy CD-1 age-matched controls. Specific protein markers used included cytokeratin 7 for ductal cells, cytokeratin 5 for undifferentiated progenitor cells, aquaporin 5 (AQP5) for acinar cells, smooth muscle α-actin for myoepithelial cells, and a small panel of innervation specific markers. In order to determine the effect of disease progression over time on the submandibular salivary epithelium, protein level and localization were compared between SS-like NOD tissue and CD-1 age-matched control tissues. Changes in protein levels were quantified using specialized quantitative immunohistochemistry, incorporating newly developed protocols. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the NOD mouse model as a model for human disease, mouse tissues were compared to human SS and control tissues. We conclude that while SS-like disease progression in the NOD mouse model occurs over time, the phenotype of the gland at time points previously characterized as late-stage disease may represent an earlier phenotype of diagnosed human SS, which is typically detected at a late stage

Optical carrier wave shocking: detection and dispersion

Carrier wave shocking is studied using the Pseudo-Spectral Spatial Domain (PSSD) technique. We describe the shock detection diagnostics necessary for this numerical study, and verify them against theoretical shocking predictions for the dispersionless case. These predictions show Carrier Envelope Phase (CEP) and pulse bandwidth sensitivity in the single-cycle regime. The flexible dispersion management offered by PSSD enables us to independently control the linear and nonlinear dispersion. Customized dispersion profiles allow us to analyze the development of both carrier self-steepening and shocks. The results exhibit a marked asymmetry between normal and anomalous dispersion, both in the limits of the shocking regime and in the (near) shocked pulse waveforms. Combining these insights, we offer some suggestions on how carrier shocking (or at least extreme self-steepening) might be realised experimentally.Comment: 9 page

Scalable iPSC-based platform to produce tissue-specific Extracellular Vesicles

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The State of the Art in Flow Visualisation: Feature Extraction and Tracking

Flow visualisation is an attractive topic in data visualisation, offering great challenges for research. Very large data sets must be processed, consisting of multivariate data at large numbers of grid points, often arranged in many time steps. Recently, the steadily increasing performance of computers again has become a driving force for new advances in flow visualisation, especially in techniques based on texturing, feature extraction, vector field clustering, and topology extraction

Visual Simulation of Experimental Oil-Flow Visualization by Spot Noise Images from Numerical Flow Simulation

. Comparative visualization of data from different sources provides useful presentations to highlight similarities or differences. Such methods are valuable for comparing results from numerical flow simulation with images taken during windtunnel experiments. The experimental flow visualization technique represents the surface flow field with oil streaks. We visualized the numerical surface flow field using the spot noise technique. The flow data are pre-processed and the parameters of the spot noise texture are tuned to enhance similarity of the resulting images. The result is a `visual simulation', based mainly on the choice of the quantities to be visualized and the mapping of these quantities to the spot noise parameters. Analysis of the relation between the pre-processing steps and the visualization parameters allows conclusions about the important mechanisms in the experimental flow visualization technique. Besides the comparison of numerical data and the windtunnel ex..