BACKGROUND:The role of regulatory T cells (Treg) in tolerance induction of vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) remains unclear. This study was designed to examine characteristics of Treg ...after VCA, and their capacity to rescue allografts from rejection.
METHODS:Osteomyocutaneous allografts were transplanted from Balb/c to C57BL/6 mice. All mice received costimulatory blockade and a short course of rapamycin. To elucidate the role of Treg for tolerance induction, Treg depletion was performed at postoperative day (POD) 0, 30 or 90. To assess capacity of Treg to rescue allografts from rejection, injection of 2x10 Treg isolated from tolerant mice was applied.
RESULTS:80% of VCA recipient mice using costimulatory blockade and RPM regimen developed tolerance. The tolerant recipients had higher ratio of circulating Treg to effector T cells and elevated IL-10 at POD 30. A significantly higher rejection rate was observed when Treg were depleted at POD 30. But Treg depletion at POD 90 had no effect on tolerance. Treg from tolerant recipients showed stronger suppressive potential, and the ability to rescue allografts from rejection. Furthermore, transplanted Treg-containing skin grafts from tolerant mice delayed rejection elicited by adoptively transferred Teff to Rag2/ mice.
CONCLUSION:Circulating Treg are crucial for inducing VCA tolerance in early posttransplant phase and allograft-residing Treg may maintain the tolerance. Treg may therefore serve as a potential cellular therapeutic to improve VCA outcomes.
Exchange Bias Between ZnCoO and IrMn Po-Hsiang Huang; Chih-Huang Lai; Chih-An Yang ...
IEEE transactions on magnetics,
10/2006, Letnik:
42, Številka:
10
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
High-quality epitaxial ZnCo 0.07 O films deposited at room temperature were obtained by using reactive ion beam sputtering. Room-temperature ferromagnetic behavior of ZnCoO was observed with a ...coercivity of 70 Oe. We observed the loop shift at 5 K in the field-cooled samples of ZnCoO/Cu/IrMn and an enhanced coercivity in the zero-field-cooled samples, which indicated the existence of exchange coupling between ZnCoO and IrMn through a thin Cu layer (0.15 nm). Furthermore, the exchange field of ZnCoO was increased from 55 to 113 Oe by increasing the cooling field from 3 to 15 kOe
(Pb1-x,Srx)TiO3 (PST) thin films with various Sr content (x=0.,0.4, and 0.6) were fabricated on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. With the increase of Sr content, the ...structure of PST films changed from tetragonal to cubic symmetry and the grain size slightly decreased. Dielectric and ferroelectric properties were highly depended on the composition of PST films. PST (x=0.2) films showed a good polarization-switching characteristic with a relatively lower dielectric constant. PST (x=0.6) films displayed the excellent tunable dielectric property with a low loss tangent and performed well on the insulating characteristic. These results illustrated that PST thin films with a suitable composition have potential for applications in nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory, dynamic random access memory and tunable devices.
Summary Background Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which represents metabolic abnormality and reflects extra visceral fat deposition, has been shown to be a threat to public health and ...associated with cardiovascular risks. However, data regarding the differences in clinical presentation and related metabolic abnormalities in the aging group population remained scarce in the Taiwanese population. Methods We subsequently examined 8,658 subjects participating general health evaluation in Mackay Memorial hospital from 2003 to 2007. Baseline characteristics, anthropometrics, medical history, and biochemical markers were all collected. Abdominal ultrasonography was performed in all subjects. Two estimated cardiovascular risk scores were calculated according to criteria of the U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III as metabolic score and Framingham risk score. Univariate logistic regression model was used to examine whether the baseline characteristics, anthropometrics, histories, and biochemical markers were independently associated with NAFLD from various age groups (young vs. aging groups) classified by 60 years of age. Respective receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) with area under the curve were generated to test the capability of both cardiovascular risk scores in NAFLD discrimination from different age groups. Results Totally 7,204 subjects (mean age: 44.5 ± 11 years, 36% female) were finally enrolled in our study. Subjects with NAFLD were observed to have high body weight, body mass index, and circumferential waist and significantly abnormal biochemical markers accompanying worsening lipid profiles when compared with those without NAFLD in both the young and aging group populations (all p < 0.001) although alkaline phosphatase, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein did not show significant differences with and without NAFLD in the aging group population. Diabetes history remained a strong independent predictor of NAFLD in both young and aging groups (odds ratio: 3.3, p < 0.001 vs. 2.51, p = 0.014). The prediction model by using different cardiovascular risk scores yielded a meaningful ROC value of 0.82 (young group) and 0.71 (aging group) (both p < 0.001) for metabolic score with ROC value of 0.67 (young group) and 0.52 (aging group) for Framingham risk score ( p < 0.001 vs. 0.408, respectively). Conclusion The prevalence of NAFLD demonstrated a bimodal distribution with age in different genders. Although baseline characters and biochemical markers were demonstrated to be potential screening tools in detecting such clinical abnormality, they actually exerted diverse capabilities in the prediction of NAFLD in the different age groups. Traditional cardiovascular risk scores were less effective in predicting NAFLD in the aging group population.
This study examined the efficacy of an intensive one-day intergroup contact intervention for two groups under tension: local and mainland Chinese college students in Hong Kong. The differential ...effects of contact intimacy at cognitive, interpersonal, and emotional levels in fostering changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior were evaluated. Adopting a two-arm Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) design, participants (
N
= 72) were randomly assigned to the intervention group that facilitated progressively higher levels of contact intimacy, or the control group that had limited level of contact intimacy. The results support the short-term intervention efficacy in enhancing outgroup knowledge, attitude, and behavior, with Cohen’s
d
of 0.97, 0.60 and 0.30, respectively. Specifically, cognitive-level intergroup contact enhanced outgroup knowledge only. Adding interpersonal-level intergroup contact further enhanced outgroup attitude. Notably, adding emotional-level intergroup contact enhanced changes in all three domains: knowledge, attitude, and behavior. One-month maintenance effect was found in outgroup knowledge, with Cohen’s
d
increased to 1.33.
Geological isolation with limited gene flow can shape phenotypic diversification among different populations or species. From Luzon northward to Taiwan lies a series of isolated volcanic islands (the ...Taiwan–Luzon volcanic belt) where three Pachyrhynchus species P. sarcitis (Behrens, 1887), P. nobilis (Heller, 1912) and P. semperi (Heller, 1912) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae: Pachyrhynchini) are sympatrically distributed. With intraspecific color variation across different islands, these three weevil species provide a unique opportunity to study genetic divergence associated with geographic isolation and/or phenotypic differences. In this study, genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data derived from ddRAD-seq was used to reconstruct the speciation history and to delimit species within each of the three species. Our results indicate all three species have ancient diversification histories in southern islands of the Taiwan–Luzon volcanic belt instead of more recent diversification histories in northern islands. Ancestral effective population size estimations also support a scenario of a series of founder colonization events from southern to northern islands in the volcanic belt. Most island populations are monophyletic, and early-divergent populations with deep genetic structures are supported statistically as distinct species. However, color variations could occur between populations with very recent diversification, indicating a fast-evolving rate in the change of coloration, possibly due to müllerian mimicry or founder effects across this region.
Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a clinically defined syndrome of disturbed neurologic function in the newborn with evidence of perinatal asphyxia. Stages of HIE are categorised into mild, ...moderate or severe based on the Sarnat classification. Neurological dysfunction constitutes a part of the wide spectrum of hypoxic ischemic insult as affected infants can have co-existing multi-organ dysfunction which further contributes to morbidities and mortality. This study aims to determine the relationship between the severity of HIE with multi-organ complications and early clinical outcomes.
All neonates who were admitted to the NICU at Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim between January 2018 to December 2022, who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included. Demographic data, clinical course and investigation results were retrospectively obtained from the medical records.
From a total of 90 infants (n = 90) who fulfilled our inclusion criteria, 31 (34%) were mild, 31 (34%) were moderate and 28 (31%) were severe HIE. The mean maternal age was 27 years. Common antenatal issues include diabetes mellitus (37.8%) and anaemia (22.2%). The Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes, initial resuscitation requiring intubation, chest compression and adrenaline were associated with higher severity of HIE (p < 0.05). Coagulation dysfunction was the most common complication (79.7%), followed by respiratory dysfunction (33.3%), cardiac dysfunction (28.9%), renal dysfunction (16.1%), haematological dysfunction (15.6%) and hepatic dysfunction (12%). Respiratory and haematological dysfunctions were significantly associated with higher mortality (p < 0.05). There was a significant longer hospital stay (p = 0.023), longer duration of ventilation (p < 0.001) and increase in frequency of seizures (p < 0.001) when comparing moderate and severe HIE patients to mild HIE patients. With increasing severity of HIE, there was also statistically significant higher mortality (p < 0.001).
There is a significant relationship between multiorgan dysfunction, the severity of HIE and mortality. Early anticipation of multi-organ injury is crucial for optimal early management which would reduce the mortality and improve the neurological outcome of the patients.
Chimerism has been associated with the induction and maintenance of tolerance to vascularized composite allotransplants (VCA). Although most VCA studies have examined chimerism using flow cytometry, ...we proposed that precision in the measurement of chimerism may be better approximated when complimentary polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is applied to a specific short tandem repeat (STR). We identified a STR, D10Rat25, which exhibited a ~20bp difference in length between two rat strains (BN and LEW) often utilized as the donor and recipient in many allotransplantation studies. D10Rat25 was PCR-amplified and quantified with capillary electrophoresis. With pure LEW and BN DNA, a standard curve was constructed to measure chimerism with good linearity. When applied to rat VCA, the relationship between systematic (in peripheral blood) or local (at specific organ/tissues) chimerism to allograft outcomes was noted. We found that peripheral chimerism was elevated by up to ~9% postoperative month 1 (POM 1) but then reduced regardless of the final VCA outcome. However, differences in VCA skin chimerism between early rejection and POM 1 (shown as DELTAChimerism.sub.POM1-ER) were notable with respect to VCA outcomes. ROC analysis identified the optimum cutoff value as 17.7%. In summary, we have developed a reliable method to quantify the percentage of BN cells/DNA in BN-LEW chimeras. The detection limit was characterized, and the acquired data were comparable with flow cytometry. This method can be applied to solid organ and composite tissue allotransplantation studies.
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