Discovery of new mediators of immune cell activation and interaction facilitated elucidation of the various ways of defense against infectious agents and happened some 40 years ago. Each involved ...group of researchers named the mediators according to their scope of investigation; often the same molecules were published at the same time with different names. To avoid confusion resulting from using different names for the same mediators and to prevent a Babylonian confusion, standardization was implemented—as in the field of metrics, music, or science including virology. For cytokines and chemokines a standard nomenclature was proposed some 10 years ago and in conclusion it should be used. In this paper the most relevant biomarkers in HIV-1 and HBV infection and their contribution during viral pathogenesis are listed.
This paper investigates the conditions under which socially responsible investment (SRI) is neutral from the viewpoint of general equilibrium theory. Three conditions are jointly sufficient for ...neutrality of SRI. First, the financial market is complete and SRI does not compromise the spanning opportunities it provides. Second, consumers' rankings of consumption bundles are unaffected by their asset holdings. Third, firms maximize shareholder value. Under an additional assumption that is satisfied, e.g., if SRI takes the form of negative screening, the taxes and transfers needed to implement a Pareto‐optimal allocation are the same as in the absence of SRI. SRI is neutral despite financial market incompleteness if there are perfect substitutes for targeted stocks.
Higher market efficiency due to informed financial trading is typically considered to have positive feedback effects on the real economy. We extend the seminal Grossman-Stiglitz (1980) model to ...highlight an important negative feedback effect from trading to entrepreneurial activity: information revelation via prices leads to a clustering of risk at entrepreneurs. This distorts agents’ occupational choice between financial trading and entrepreneurship, discouraging real economic activity. This negative feedback effect provides explanations for excessive financial trading and multiplicity of equilibria.
•The real and financial sectors compete for talent.•The allocation of talent to financial trading tends to be excessive.•Professional trading increases informational efficiency but not real efficiency.•More informative prices make the values of assets created by entrepreneurial activity more volatile.
The entry of a low-wage country into a world economy with preexisting wage differentials puts the gains from trade in a former low-wage and then medium-wage country under pressure. If negotiations ...over the formation of a free trade area cover international transfers, there is a strong presumption that they bring about global free trade and compensation of the medium-wage country if necessary. In the absence of international transfers, by contrast, the medium-wage country is not compensated when global free trade causes a reduction in its gains from trade, and it may even happen that it is not part of the equilibrium free trade area.
Microfinance investment vehicles (MIVs) play an increasingly important role as a source of funding for microfinance institutions (MFIs). This paper presents theory and evidence on the relation ...between the use of MIV capital and MFI market power. We present a model in which MIVs are social-minded in that they do not lend to MFIs which exploit their market power in the market for microcredit. Consistent with the theoretical model, we find empirically that measures of MFI market power are negatively related to the likelihood of using MIV capital. This suggests that MIVs play an effective role in promoting social objectives in microfinance.
OBJECTIVE:The HIV epidemic in Cameroon is characterized by a high level of strain diversity despite a relatively low prevalence of infection. In this study, HIV strains infecting blood donors in ...Cameroon were characterized to determine the prevalence of subtypes and intersubtype recombinants and if strain prevalence was changing over time.
METHODS:From 1996 through 2004, 676 HIV-infected blood donations were collected at blood banks in Douala and Yaoundé, Cameroon. A subset of the HIV-1 group M strains (n = 574) were classified based on phylogenetic analysis of viral sequences from the gag p24, pol integrase, and env gp41 regions.
RESULTS:HIV-1 group M accounted for 97.3% (n = 658) of infections, whereas group O was present in 2.2% (n = 15) and HIV-2 in 0.4% (n = 3). Within the group M infections, 14 subtypes and circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) and unique recombinant forms (URFs) were identified. Overall, CRF02_AG accounted for 58.2% of infections, URFs 14.8%, and levels of subtypes, A, B, C, D, F2, and G, and CRFs, 01, 06, 09, 11, 13, 22, and 37, varied from 0.2% to 6.1%. Evaluation of HIV strains present in the donor population over this 9-year period showed no substantial changes in the proportion of infections caused by each subtype and CRF, the percentage of intersubtype recombinants, or the strain composition of the URFs.
CONCLUSIONS:HIV-1 strain diversity in Cameroon did not significantly change, suggesting a mature and relatively stable epidemic.
The dynamic organization of actin cytoskeleton meshworks relies on multiple actin-binding proteins endowed with distinct actin-remodeling activities. Filamin A is a large multi-domain scaffolding ...protein that cross-links actin filaments with orthogonal orientation in response to various stimuli. As such it plays key roles in the modulation of cell shape, cell motility, and differentiation throughout development and adult life. The essentiality and complexity of Filamin A is highlighted by mutations that lead to a variety of severe human disorders affecting multiple organs. One of the most conserved activity of Filamin A is to bridge the actin cytoskeleton to integrins, thereby maintaining the later in an inactive state. We here review the numerous mechanisms cells have developed to adjust Filamin A content and activity and focus on the function of Filamin A as a gatekeeper to integrin activation and associated adhesion and motility.
Transmission of infectious agents might be associated with iatrogenic actions of charitable help in health care. An example is the vaccination against yellow fever in USA that transmitted hepatitis B ...virus. Another example is injections of praziquantel for treatment and cure of schistosomiasis in Central and Northern Africa, with a focus in Egypt that has spread hepatitis C virus. There is no indication that human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 was spread by injection treatment for African trypanosomiasis, syphilis and treponematosis, but these treatments might have contributed to the early spread of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in Central Africa. Slave trade contributed as well to the spread of viruses from Africa to the Americas; it was stopped in 1850. Until that date HIV-1 was not transported to the Americas. By analysis of nucleic acid sequence data it can be concluded that the continental spread of HCV and HIV-1 might have started around 1920 with an exponential phase from 1940 to 1970. Further iatrogenic actions that promoted the spread of HCV and HIV-1 might be vaccinations to prevent deadly diseases. The successful vaccination was followed by diminution of the infectious agent in the population such as small pox, yellow fever and measles. Measurements to reduce the spread of plague and cholera were further benefits increasing survival of diseased subjects in a population. Thus, the reduction of exposure to deadly infectious agents might have given a chance to HIV-1 infected subjects to survive and for HIV-1 to be distributed around the world starting from Central Africa in the 1950s.
Coinfections with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and HIV are very frequent. Although HBV is a DNA virus, it replicates via reverse transcription like HIV. Structural similarities between the enzymatic ...pocket of the HBV DNA polymerase and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase are the basis that certain drugs inhibit both enzymes and thus the replication of both viruses. HBV components increase the pathogenic action of HIV and vice versa directly by certain proteins like HBsAg in the case of HBV and HIV-encoded Tat and Vpr and by disturbing the cytokine balance in affected cells. Antiretroviral therapy is highly beneficial for HIV/HBV-coinfected patients, but carries the risk of drug-induced resistance development and hepatotoxicity. Even with restoration of the immune capacity, signs of hepatic inflammation may develop even after 10 years of treatment.
Mammalian filamins (FLNs) are a family of three large actin-binding proteins. FLNa, the founding member of the family, was implicated in migration by cell biological analyses and the identification ...of FLNA mutations in the neuronal migration disorder periventricular heterotopia. However, recent knockout studies have questioned the relevance of FLNa to cell migration. Here we have used shRNA-mediated knockdown of FLNa, FLNb or FLNa and FLNb, or, alternatively, acute proteasomal degradation of all three FLNs, to generate FLN-deficient cells and assess their ability to migrate. We report that loss of FLNa or FLNb has little effect on migration but that knockdown of FLNa and FLNb, or proteolysis of all three FLNs, impairs migration. The observed defect is primarily a deficiency in initiation of motility rather than a problem with maintenance of locomotion speed. FLN-deficient cells are also impaired in spreading. Re-expression of full length FLNa, but not re-expression of a mutated FLNa lacking immunoglobulin domains 19 to 21, reverts both the spreading and the inhibition of initiation of migration.Our results establish a role for FLNs in cell migration and spreading and suggest that compensation by other FLNs may mask phenotypes in single knockout or knockdown cells. We propose that interactions between FLNs and transmembrane or signalling proteins, mediated at least in part by immunoglobulin domains 19 to 21 are important for both cell spreading and initiation of migration.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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