1,721,038 research outputs found
Erbb2 DNA vaccine combined with Treg cell deletion enhances antibody response and reveals latent low-avidity T cells. Potential and limits of its therapeutic efficacy
No full textestroy after use. Rat (r) Erbb2 transgenic BALB-neuT mice genetically predestined to develop multiple invasive carcinomas allow an assessment of the potential of a vaccine against the stages of cancer progression. Due to Erbb2 expression in the thymus and its over-expression in the mammary gland, CD8 + T cell clones reacting at high avidity with dominant Erbb2 epitopes are deleted in these mice. In BALB-neuT mice with diffuse and invasive in situ lesions and almost palpable carcinomas, a temporary Treg cells depletion combined with anti-rErbb2 vaccine markedly enhanced the antirErbb2 antibody response and allowed the expansion of latent pools of low-avidity CD8 + T cells bearing T cell receptors repertoire reacting with the rErbb2 dominant peptide. This combination of a higher antibody response and activation of a low-avidity cytotoxic response persistently blocked tumor progression at stages in which the vaccine alone was ineffective. However, when diffuse and invasive microscopic cancers become almost palpable this combination was no longer able to secure a significant extension of mice survival
Distinct and Non-Overlapping T Cell Receptor Repertoires Expanded by DNA Vaccination in Wild-Type and HER-2 Transgenic BALB/c Mice.
Full text linkCentral tolerance to tumor-associated Ags is an immune-escape mechanism that significantly limits the TCR repertoires available for tumor eradication. The repertoires expanded in wild-type BALB/c and rat-HER-2/neu (rHER-2) transgenic BALB-neuT mice following DNA immunization against rHER-2 were compared by spectratyping the variable (V)beta and the joining (J)beta CDR 3. Following immunization, BALB/c mice raised a strong response. Every mouse used one or more CD8(+) T cell rearrangements of the Vbeta9-Jbeta1.2 segments characterized by distinct length of the CDR3 and specific for 63-71 or 1206-1214 rHER-2 peptides. In addition, two CD4(+) T cell rearrangements recurred in >50% of mice. Instead, BALB-neuT mice displayed a limited response to rHER-2. Their repertoire is smaller and uses different rearrangements confined to CD4(+) T cells. Thus, central tolerance in BALB-neuT mice acts by silencing the BALB/c mice self-reactive repertoire and reducing the size of the CD8(+) T cell component. CD8(+) and CD4(+) T cells from both wild-type and transgenic mice home to tumors. This definition of the T cell repertoires available is critical to the designing of immunological maneuvers able to elicit an effective immune reaction against HER-2-driven carcinogenesis
Adenosine A2a receptor stimulation blocks development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in mice by multilevel inhibition of signals that cause immunolipotoxicity
No full textLipotoxicity and immunoinflammation are associated with the evolution of steatosis toward nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). This study reports the ability of adenosine A2a receptor (A2aR) activation to inhibit NASH development by modulating the responses of CD4(+) T-helper (Th) cells to avoid an immuno-mediated potentiation of lipotoxicity. The effect of the A2aR agonist CGS21680 on immunoinflammatory signals, CD4(+)Th cell infiltration and immunolipotoxicity was analyzed in steatotic C57BL/6 mice fed with a methionine-choline-deficient (MCD) diet and in mouse hepatocytes exposed to palmitic acid (PA). CGS21680 inhibited NASH development in steatotic mice and decreased cytokines and chemokines involved in Th cell recruitment or polarization (namely CXCL10, CCL2, tumor necrosis factor alfa [TNFα], tumor growth factor [TGFβ], and IL-12). CGS21680 also reduced the expansion of Th17, Th22, and Th1 cells and increased the immunosuppressive activity of T regulatory cells. In PA-treated mice hepatocytes, CGS21680 inhibited the production of CXCL10, TNFα, TGFβ, IL-12, and CCL2; CGS21680 also prevented JNK-dependent lipotoxicity and its intensification by IL-17 or IL-17 plus IL-22 through Akt/PI3-kinase stimulation and inhibition of the negative regulator of PI3-kinase, (phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted from chromosome 10 (PTEN), which is upregulated by IL-17. In MCD livers, CGS21680 reduced JNK activation and PTEN expression and increased Akt phosphorylation. In conclusion, A2aR stimulation inhibited NASH development by reducing Th17 cell expansion and inhibiting the exacerbation of the IL-17-induced JNK-dependent lipotoxicity. These data promote the implementation of further studies to evaluate the potential clinical application of A2aR agonists that, by being able to function as both cytoprotective and immunomodulatory agents, could efficiently antagonize the multi-faced pathogenesis of NASH
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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