113 research outputs found
The diacylated lipopeptide FSL-1 induces TLR2-mediated Th2 responses
No full textThe diacylated lipopeptide FSL-1 enhanced the generation of IgG antibodies in TLR2+/+ mice, but not in TLR2-/- mice, when administered together with hen egg lysozyme as an antigen. Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide enhanced the generation of antigen-specific antibodies in both TLR2-/- and TLR2+/+ mice. In TLR2+/+ mice, the enhancement level by FSL-1 was similar to that by lipopolysaccharide. Analysis of the IgG antibodies subclass demonstrated that level of Th2-type IgG1 antibodies was higher than that of Th1-type IgG2a antibodies. Both FSL-1 and lipopolysaccharide induced production of IL-10 and IL-6 by splenocytes from TLR2+/+ mice. Lipopolysaccharide also induced production of these cytokines by splenocytes from TLR2-/- mice, but FSL-1 did not. Neither FSL-1 nor lipopolysaccharide induced IL-12p70 production by splenocytes from both types of mice. FSL-1 upregulated B7.2 expression in B220+ cells from TLR2+/+ mice but not those from TLR2-/- mice, whereas lipopolysaccharide upregulated B7.2 expression in B220+ cells from both types of mice. FSL-1 and, to a lesser extent, lipopolysaccharide activated mitogen-activated protein kinases in splenocytes. FSL-1 and, to a lesser extent,lipopolysaccharide induced the expression of c-Fos, which is known to be involved in Th2-type responses, in splenocytes. Thus, this study demonstrated that FSL-1 possessed TLR2-mediated Th2-type responses in vivo
The synthetic analogue of mycoplasmal lipoprotein FSL-1 induces dendritic cell maturation through
No full textGM-CSF-differentiated bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs) were stimulated with FSL-1 or E.coli LPS. FSL-1 induced the production of TNF-α and IL-12 by C57BL/6-derived BMDCs but not by BMDCs from Toll-like receptor 2-deficient (TLR2-/-) mice, whereas LPS induced the production of TNF-α and IL-12 by BMDCs derived from either type of mice. FSL-1 did not induce production of IL-10 by BMDCs from either type of mice, whereas LPS induced small amounts of IL-10 by BMDCs from both types of mice. FSL-1 upregulated the expression of CD80, CD86 and the MHC class II molecule IAb in both dose- and time-dependent manners on the surfaces of C57BL/6-derived BMDCs but not on the surface of TLR2-/--derived BMDCs, whereas LPS upregulated the expression of them on the surfaces of BMDCs from both types of mice. The expression of CD11c on the surfaces of C57BL/6-derived BMDCs was upregulated by stimulation with both FSL-1 and LPS up to 12 h and then the expression was downregulated.The results suggest that FSL-1 has activity to accelerate maturation of BMDCs and that the activity of FSL-1 is mediated by TLR2
The TLR2 ligand FSL-1 is internalized via clathrin-dependent endocytic pathway triggered by CD14 and CD36 but not by TLR2
No full textLittle is known about how Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands are processed after recognition by TLRs. This study was therefore designed to investigate how the TLR2 ligand FSL-1 is processed in macrophages after recognition by TLR2. FSL-1 was internalized into murine macrophage cell line, RAW264.7. Both chlorpromazine and methyl-β-cyclodextrin, which inhibit clathrin-dependent endocytosis, reduced FSL-1 uptake by RAW264.7 cells in a dose-dependent manner, but nystatin which inhibits caveolae- and lipid raft-dependent endocytosis, did not. FSL-1 was colocalized with clathrin but not with TLR2 in the cytosol of RAW264.7 cells. These results suggest that internalization of FSL-1 is clathrin dependent. In addition, FSL-1 was internalized by peritoneal macrophages from TLR2-deficient mice. FSL-1 was internalized by human embryonic kidney 293 cells transfected with CD14 or CD36 but not by the non-transfected cells. Also, knockdown of CD14 or CD36 in the transfectants reduced FSL-1 uptake In this study, we suggest that (i) FSL-1 is internalized into macrophages via a clathrin-dependent endocytic pathway, (ii) the FSL-1 uptake by macrophages occurs irrespective of the presence of TLR2, and (iii) CD14 and CD36 are responsible for the 18 internalization of FSL-1
French as a Second Language (FSL) Storytimes: Fostering Language, Literacy and Lifelong Love of Reading
No full textCanada is a unique country with two official languages. While the majority of Canadian children are brought up in the Anglophone school system, they are still taught French at school in the form of core French classes, French immersion, or extended French programs. Storytimes at the public library have a time-honoured tradition of introducing children to books, developing early literacy skills, and fostering a lifelong love of reading. Combining research on the positive role of storytimes in the development of a child’s reading proficiency and success at school with literature on second language instruction, such as French immersion programs, the author explores the value of French as a Second Language (FSL) storytimes in public libraries. FSL storytimes emerge as a tool for introducing children to the French language through fun activities, including stories, songs, rhymes, and games. The author discusses early observations based on the experience of running an FSL storytime program on a trial basis in a mid-sized public library in Ontario. She also makes a number of practical suggestions about the evaluation of the program effectiveness in the future. The author hopes that this article will benefit other library practitioners seeking to create educational and entertaining reading programs and activities for their youngest clients and start a dialog on integrating FSL storytimes into library programming
The diacylated lipopeptide FSL-1 enhances phagocytosis of bacteria by macrophages through Toll-like receptor 2-mediated signaling pathway
No full textEnormous lines of evidence have been accumulated that Toll-like receptors (TLRs) function as sensors for microbial invasion. However, less is known about how signaling triggered by TLRs leads to phagocytosis of pathogens. This study was designed to determine whether stimulation of TLR2 with mainly the lipopeptide FSL-1 plays a role in phagocytosis of pathogens by macrophages. FSL-1 markedly enhanced phagocytosis of E. coli more strongly than that of S. aureus, but did not enhance phagocytosis of latex beads. FSL-1 stimulation resulted in enhanced phagocytosis of bacteria by macrophages from TLR2+/+mice but not those from TLR2-/- mice. Chinese hamster ovary cells stably expressing TLR2 failed tophagocytose these bacteria, but the cells expressing CD14 did. FSL-1 induced upregulation of the expression of phagocytic receptors including MSR1, CD36, DC-SIGN and Dectin-1 in THP-1 cells.Human embryonic kidney 293 cells transfected with DC-SIGN and MSR1 phagocytosed these bacteria. These results suggest that the FSL-1-induced enhancement of phagocytosis of bacteria by acrophages may be explained partially by the upregulation of scavenger receptors and the C-type lectins through TLR2-mediated signaling pathways and that TLR2 by itself does not function as a phagocytic receptor
Self-Attention Message Passing for Contrastive Few-Shot Learning
No full textHumans have a unique ability to learn new representations from just a handful of examples with little to no supervision. Deep learning models, however, require an abundance of data and supervision to perform at a satisfactory level. Unsupervised few-shot learning (U-FSL) is the pursuit of bridging this gap between machines and humans. Inspired by the capacity of graph neural networks (GNNs) in discovering complex inter-sample relationships, we propose a novel self-attention based message passing contrastive learning approach (coined as SAMP-CLR) for U-FSL pre-training. We also propose an optimal transport (OT) based fine-tuning strategy (we call OpT-Tune) to efficiently induce task awareness into our novel end-to-end unsupervised few-shot classification framework (SAMPTransfer). Our extensive experimental results corroborate the efficacy of SAMPTransferin a variety of downstream few-shot classification scenarios, setting a new state-of-the-art for U-FSL on both miniImageNet and tieredImageNet benchmarks, offering up to 7%+ and 5%+ improvements, respectively. Our further investigations also confirm that SAMPTransferremains on-par with some supervised baselines on miniImageNet and outperforms all existing U-FSL baselines in a challenging cross-domain scenario. Our code can be found in our GitHub repository: https://github.com/ojss/SAMPTransfer/.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic
Boosting BOLD fMRI by K-Space density weighted echo planar imaging
No full textFunctional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become a powerful and influential method to non-invasively study neuronal brain activity. For this purpose, the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) effect is most widely used. T2* weighted echo planar imaging (EPI) is BOLD sensitive and the prevailing fMRI acquisition technique. Here, we present an alternative to its standard Cartesian recordings, i.e. k-space density weighted EPI, which is expected to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in fMRI data. Based on in vitro and in vivo pilot measurements, we show that fMRI by k-space density weighted EPI is feasible and that this new acquisition technique in fact boosted spatial and temporal SNR as well as the detection of local fMRI activations. Spatial resolution, spatial response function and echo time were identical for density weighted and conventional Cartesian EPI. The signal-to-noise ratio gain of density weighting can improve activation detection and has the potential to further increase the sensitivity of fMRI investigations
Boys and French as a second language
No full textFollowing an extensive and federally funded analysis of literature related to boys learning French as a second language (FSL) in Canada, the authors propose a series of research questions to guide future research related to males in FSL classrooms. To better understand the need for this research agenda, the researchers provide an overview of the current state of male participation in FSL programs in Canada and in foreign language programs internationally and review various explanations for the reported lack of male interest in language learning. While acknowledging the existing literature on the topic, the researchers emphasize the lack of research specific to the Canadian context and the need for more Canadian research to understand why males are disinterested in learning French in Canada
Critical literacy through the art of questioning : FSL (v. 0.2)
No full textThe contents of this Interactive Book were developed by the Camerise Communities project (2025) of York University under grant DPPF_2223_034_York_FSL Projects awarded from the Province of Ontario, Ministry of Colleges and Universities and under the funding for the York University FSL Teacher Recruitment and Retention 2025-2026 project awarded by the Ontario Ministry of Education (Agreement number: 2025 0296) Please note that the views expressed in the publication are the views of the Recipient of the award and co-author of the course and do not necessarily reflect those of the Province.This course delves into the fundamental competencies of critical literacy, empowering participants to analyze and interpret texts and media through a critical and informed perspective.
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Outcome evaluation of a short-term hospitalization and community support program for people who abuse ketamine
No full text201809 bcrcVersion of RecordSelf-fundedPublishedC
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