Identification and characterization of stimulator of interferon genes as a robust adjuvant target for early life immunization

Immunization is key to preventing infectious diseases, a leading cause of death early in life. However, due to age-specific immunity, vaccines often demonstrate reduced efficacy in newborns and young infants as compared to adults. Here, we combined in vitro and in vivo approaches to identify adjuvant candidates for early life immunization. We employed newborn and adult bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) to perform a screening of pattern recognition receptor agonists and found that the stimulator of interferon genes ligand 2'3'-cGAMP (hereafter cGAMP) induces a comparable expression of surface maturation markers in newborn and adult BMDCs. Then, we utilized the trivalent recombinant hemagglutinin (rHA) influenza vaccine, Flublok, as a model antigen to investigate the role of cGAMP in adult and early life immunization. cGAMP adjuvantation alone could increase rHA-specific antibody titers in adult but not newborn mice. Remarkably, as compared to alum or cGAMP alone, immunization with cGAMP formulated with alum (Alhydrogel) enhanced newborn rHA-specific IgG2a/c titers ~400-fold, an antibody subclass associated with the development of IFN\uce\ub3-driven type 1 immunity in vivo and endowed with higher effector functions, by 42 days of life. Highlighting the amenability for successful vaccine formulation and delivery, we next confirmed that cGAMP adsorbs onto alum in vitro. Accordingly, immunization early in life with (cGAMP+alum) promoted IFN\uce\ub3 production by CD4+T cells and increased the proportions and absolute numbers of CD4+CXCR5+PD-1+T follicular helper and germinal center (GC) GL-7+CD138+B cells, suggesting an enhancement of the GC reaction. Adjuvantation effects were apparently specific for IgG2a/c isotype switching without effect on antibody affinity maturation, as there was no effect on rHA-specific IgG avidity. Overall, our studies suggest that cGAMP when formulated with alum may represent an effective adjuvantation system to foster humoral and cellular aspects of type 1 immunity for early life immunization

A Particle Swarm Optimization with Multi-Mutation Operation Based on Wavelet Theory

An improved hybrid particle swarm optimization (PSO) that incorporates a wavelet-based multi-mutation operation is proposed. It applies wavelet theory to enhance PSO in exploring solution spaces more effectively for better solutions. A suite of benchmark test functions are employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. It is shown empirically that the proposed method outperforms significantly the existing methods in terms of convergence speed, solution quality and solution stability.APSIPA ASC 2009: Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association, 2009 Annual Summit and Conference. 4-7 October 2009. Sapporo, Japan. Oral session: Intelligent Circuits and Systems (7 October 2009)

A New Hybrid Differential Evolution with Wavelet Based Mutation and Crossover

An improved Differential Evolution (DE) that incorporates wavelet-based mutation and crossover operations is proposed. In the mutation operation, the scaling factor is controlled by a wavelet function. In the crossover operation, the trial population vectors are modified by a wavelet function. The wavelet theory applied is to enhance DE in exploring the solution space more effectively for a better solution. A suite of benchmark test functions is employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. It is shown empirically that the proposed method outperforms significantly the conventional methods in terms of convergence speed, solution quality and solution stability.APSIPA ASC 2009: Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association, 2009 Annual Summit and Conference. 4-7 October 2009. Sapporo, Japan. Oral session: Intelligent Circuits and Systems (7 October 2009)

A new species of Calappa Weber, 1795 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Calappidae) from East and South Africa

Zootaxa135839-4

Calappa karenae, a new species of box crab from Guam (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Calappidae)

Zootaxa339357-6

A new species of Mursia Desmarest, 1823 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Calappidae) from the Andaman Sea

Zootaxa125557-6

A new differential evolution with wavelet theory based mutation operation

10.1109/CEC.2009.49830712009 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 20091116-112

A revision of the Portunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758) species complex (Crustacea: Brachyura: Portunidae), with the recognition of four species

Raffles Bulletin of Zoology582199-23