Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Induces MUC5AC and MUC5B Expression in Human Nasal Airway Epithelial Cells

Objectives Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is known to be associated with inflammatory airway diseases, and three major transmembrane receptors: double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase-like ER kinase, inositol requiring enzyme 1, and activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6) play important roles in ER stress-related proinflammatory signaling. However, the effects of ER stress and these three major signaling pathways on the regulation of the production of airway mucins in human nasal airway epithelial cells have not been elucidated. Methods In primary human nasal epithelial cells, the effect of tunicamycin (an ER stress inducer) and 4-phenylbutyric acid (4-PBA, ER stress inhibitor) on the expression of MUC5AC and MUC5B was investigated by reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction, real-time polymerase chain reaction, enzyme immunoassay, and immunoblot analysis. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection was used to identify the mechanisms involved. Results Tunicamycin increased the expressions of MUC5AC and MUC5B and the mRNA expressions of ER stress-related signaling molecules, including spliced X-box binding protein 1 (XBP-1), transcription factor CCAAT-enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP), and ATF6. In addition, 4-PBA attenuated the tunicamycin-induced expressions of MUC5AC and MUC5B and the mRNA expressions of ER stress-related signaling molecules. Furthermore, siRNA knockdowns of XBP-1, CHOP, and ATF6 blocked the tunicamycin-induced mRNA expressions and glycoprotein productions of MUC5AC and MUC5B. Conclusion. These results demonstrate that ER stress plays an important role in the regulation of MUC5AC and MUC5B via the activations of XBP-1, CHOP, and ATF6 in human nasal airway epithelial cells

Neural Dynamics of Olfactory Perception: Low- and High-Frequency Modulations of Local Field Potential Spectra in Mice Revealed by an Oddball Stimulus

Recent brain connectome studies have evidenced distinct and overlapping brain regions involved in processing olfactory perception. However, neural correlates of hypo- or anosmia in olfactory disorder patients are poorly known. Furthermore, the bottom-up and top-down processing of olfactory perception have not been well-documented, resulting in difficulty in locating the disease foci of olfactory disorder patients. The primary aim of this study is to characterize the bottom-up process of the neural dynamics across peripheral and central brain regions in anesthetized mice. We particularly focused on the neural oscillations of local field potential (LFP) in olfactory epithelium (OE), olfactory blub (OB), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and hippocampus (HC) during an olfactory oddball paradigm in urethane anesthetized mice. Odorant presentations evoked neural oscillations across slow and fast frequency bands including delta (1–4 Hz), theta (6–10 Hz), beta (15–30 Hz), low gamma (30–50 Hz), and high gamma (70–100 Hz) in both peripheral and central nervous systems, and the increases were more prominent in the infrequently presented odorant. During 5 s odorant exposures, the oscillatory responses in power were persistent in OE, OB, and PFC, whereas neural oscillations of HC increased only for short time at stimulus onset. These oscillatory responses in power were insignificant in both peripheral and central regions of the ZnSO4-treated anosmia model. These results suggest that olfactory stimulation induce LFP oscillations both in the peripheral and central nervous systems and suggest the possibility of linkage of LFP oscillations in the brain to the oscillations in the peripheral olfactory system

Broad humoral and cellular immunity elicited by one-dose mRNA vaccination 18 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection

Practical guidance is needed regarding the vaccination of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent individuals in resource-limited countries. It includes the number of vaccine doses that should be given to unvaccinated patients who experienced COVID-19 early in the pandemic. We recruited COVID-19 convalescent individuals who received one or two doses of an mRNA vaccine within 6 or around 18 months after a diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Their samples were assessed for IgG-binding or neutralizing activity and cell-mediated immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 wild-type and variants of concern. A total of 43 COVID-19 convalescent individuals were analyzed in the present study. The results showed that humoral and cellular immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 wild-type and variants of concern, including the Omicron variant, were comparable among patients vaccinated within 6 versus around 18 months. A second dose of vaccine did not significantly increase immune responses. One dose of mRNA vaccine should be considered sufficient to elicit a broad immune response even around 18 months after a COVID-19 diagnosis.This work was supported in part by the Bio & Medical Technology Develop‑ ment Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) & funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (2021M3A9I2080496, to H.-R. Kim & W. B. Park), the Creative-Pioneering Researchers Program through Seoul National University (to C.-H. Lee), and the Seoul National University Hospital Research Fund (112021-5050 to P. G. Choe and 800-20220110 to C.-H. Lee)

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe