Background
Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) were closely associated with asthma. However, there were no perspective studies about the effects of glucocorticoid on ILC2s in asthma patients. Our ...objective was to perform a perspective study and evaluate the ILC2 activity after glucocorticoid therapy in asthma patients.
Methods
The asthma and asthma with allergic rhinitis patients were treated with glucocorticoid for 3 months. The circulating ILC2 levels were evaluated. The effects of glucocorticoid on ILC2s and possible signalling pathways were investigated in vitro.
Results
The patients were well‐controlled, and the high ILC2 levels were significantly decreased at 1 and 3 months after treatment. Peripheral blood monocytes from allergic patients produced dramatic IL‐5, IL‐13 and IL‐9 in response to IL‐25, IL‐33 plus IL‐2, and glucocorticoid significantly decreased their levels. Moreover, ILC2s were identified to be the predominant source of IL‐5, IL‐13 and IL‐9, and glucocorticoid treatment was able to reverse their high levels. STAT3, STAT5, STAT6, JAK3 and MEK signalling pathways were proved to be involved in regulating ILC2 activity under the glucocorticoid treatment.
Conclusion
The data suggested that glucocorticoid administration could be effective in treating asthma by regulating ILC2s via MEK/JAK‐STAT signalling pathways. This provides a new understanding of glucocorticoid application in regard to allergic diseases.
High circulating ILC2s were found in asthma and asthma with allergic rhinitis patients, and significantly decreased after treatment of glucocorticoid. High levels of IL‐5, IL‐13 and IL‐9 in response to epithelium‐derived cytokines were mostly produced by the increased ILC2s from asthma patients. Glucocorticoid treatment is able to reverse the high levels of IL‐5 and IL‐13 produced by ILC2s via STAT3, STAT5 and STAT6 signalling pathways.
Objectives
Talaromycosis is an invasive mycosis endemic to Southeast Asia. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiology, clinical features and prognostic factors of HIV‐associated talaromycosis ...in Guangdong, China.
Methods
We retrospectively evaluated HIV patients hospitalized with histopathology‐ or culture‐confirmed talaromycosis between 2011 and 2017. Factors associated with poor prognosis were identified using logistic regression.
Results
Overall, 1079 patients with HIV‐associated talaromycosis were evaluated. Both the number and prevalence of talaromycosis among HIV admissions increased from 125 and 15.7% in 2011 to 253 and 18.8% in 2017, respectively, reflecting the increase in HIV admissions. Annual admissions peaked during the rainy season between March and August. Common clinical manifestations included fever (85.6%), peripheral lymphadenopathy (72.3%), respiratory symptoms (60.8%), weight loss (49.8%), skin lesions (44.5%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (44.3%). Common laboratory abnormalities were hypoalbuminaemia (98.6%), anaemia (95.6%), elevated aspartate aminotransferase level (AST) (76.9%), elevated alkaline phosphatase level (55.8%) and thrombocytopenia (53.7%). The median CD4 count was 9 cells/μL. Talaromyces marneffei was isolated from blood and bone marrow cultures of 66.6% and 74.5% of patients, respectively. The rate increased to 86.6% when both cultures were performed concurrently. At discharge, 14% of patients showed worsening conditions or died. Leucocytosis, thrombocytopenia, elevated AST, total bilirubin, creatinine and azole monotherapy independently predicted poor prognosis.
Conclusions
The incidence of HIV‐associated talaromycosis has increased in Guangdong with the high HIV burden in China. Skin lesions were seen in less than half of patients. Induction therapy with azole alone is associated with higher mortality. Findings from this study should help to improve treatment of the disease.
Background
Characterizing blood profile of alopecia areata (AA) is important not only for treatment advancements, but also for possibly identifying peripheral biomarkers that will eliminate the need ...for scalp biopsies. We aimed to compare frequencies of skin homing (CLA+) vs systemic (CLA−) “polar” CD4+ and CD8+ and activated T‐cell subsets in AA vs atopic dermatitis (AD) and control blood.
Methods
Flow cytometry was used to measure IFN‐γ, IL‐13, IL‐9, IL‐17, and IL‐22 cytokines in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Inducible co‐stimulator molecule (ICOS) and HLA‐DR were used to define mid‐ and long‐term T‐cell activation. We compared peripheral blood from 32 moderate‐to‐severe AA adults with 43 moderate‐to‐severe AD patients and 30 age‐matched controls.
Results
AA patients had increased CLA+/CLA− Th2 (P < .007), CLA+ Tc2 (P = .04), and CLA+ Th22 (P < .05) frequencies than controls. Except of CLA− Tc1 cells (P = .03), IFN‐γ levels were mostly similar between AA, AD, and controls (P > .1). ICOS and HLA‐DR activation were significantly higher in AA than controls (P < .05). T regulatory cells were significantly decreased in AA patients than controls (P < .01) and were correlated with activated CD8+ T cells and with multiple cytokine subsets (P < .05). While Th2 and Tc2 clustered with disease severity, IFN‐γ producing cells were linked with AA duration.
Conclusions
Alopecia areata is accompanied by Th2/Tc2 activation in skin‐homing and systemic subsets, correlating with disease severity, while IFN‐γ is linked to disease chronicity. These data hint for a possible role of diverse T‐cells subsets in disease pathogenesis and emphasize the systemic nature of AA supporting the need for systemic therapeutic strategies in severe patients.
Abstract
The dynamics of a nuclear open quantum system could be revealed in the correlations between the breakup fragments of halo nuclei. The breakup mechanism of a proton halo nuclear system is of ...particular interest as the Coulomb polarization may play an important role, which, however, remains an open question. Here we use a highly efficient silicon detector array and measure the correlations between the breakup fragments of
8
B incident on
120
Sn at near-barrier energies. The energy and angular correlations can be explained by a fully quantum mechanical method based on the state-of-the-art continuum discretized coupled channel calculations. The results indicate that, compared to the neutron halo nucleus
6
He,
8
B presents distinctive reaction dynamics: the dominance of the elastic breakup. This breakup occurs mainly via the short-lived continuum states, almost exhausts the
7
Be yield, indicating the effect of Coulomb polarization on the proton halo state. The correlation information reveals that the prompt breakup mechanism dominates, occurring predominantly on the outgoing trajectory. We also show that, as a large environment, the continuum of
8
B breakup may not significantly influence elastic scattering and complete fusion.
We present the sensitivity of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array to gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by individual supermassive black hole binary systems in the early phases of coalescing at the cores ...of merged galaxies. Our analysis includes a detailed study of the effects of fitting a pulsar timing model to non-white timing residuals. Pulsar timing is sensitive at nanoHertz frequencies and hence complementary to Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. We place a sky-averaged constraint on the merger rate of nearby (z < 0.6) black hole binaries in the early phases of coalescence with a chirp mass of 1010 M☉ of less than one merger every 7 yr. The prospects for future GW astronomy of this type with the proposed Square Kilometre Array telescope are discussed.
We make use of a catalog of 1600 Pan-STARRS1 groups produced by the probability friends-of-friends algorithm to explore how the galaxy properties, i.e., the specific star formation rate (SSFR) and ...quiescent fraction, depend on stellar mass and group-centric radius. The work is the extension of Lin et al. In this work, powered by a stacking technique plus a background subtraction for contamination removal, a finer correction and more precise results are obtained than in our previous work. We find that while the quiescent fraction increases with decreasing group-centric radius, the median SSFRs of star-forming galaxies in groups at fixed stellar mass drop slightly from the field toward the group center. This suggests that the main quenching process in groups is likely a fast mechanism. On the other hand, a reduction in SSFRs by ∼0.2 dex is seen inside clusters as opposed to the field galaxies. If the reduction is attributed to the slow quenching effect, the slow quenching process acts dominantly in clusters. In addition, we also examine the density-color relation, where the density is defined by using a sixth-nearest-neighbor approach. Comparing the quiescent fractions contributed from the density and radial effect, we find that the density effect dominates the massive group or cluster galaxies, and the radial effect becomes more effective in less massive galaxies. The results support mergers and/or starvation as the main quenching mechanisms in the group environment, while harassment and/or starvation dominate in clusters.
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) aims to detect serendipitous occultations of stars by small (~1 km diameter) objects in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Such events are very rare (<10 ...super(-3) events per star per year) and short in duration (~200 ms), so many stars must be monitored at a high readout cadence. TAOS monitors typically ~500 stars simultaneously at a 5 Hz readout cadence with four telescopes located at Lulin Observatory in central Taiwan. In this paper, we report the results of the search for small Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in seven years of data. No occultation events were found, resulting in a 95% c.l. upper limit on the slope of the faint end of the KBO size distribution of q - 3.34-3.82, depending on the surface density at the break in the size distribution at a diameter of about 90 km.
The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia/Publications Astronomical Society of Australia,
2013
Journal Article
The objective of this study was to determine whether measuring post-operative B-type natriuretic peptides (NPs) (i.e., B-type natriuretic peptide BNP and N-terminal fragment of proBNP NT-proBNP) ...enhances risk stratification in adult patients undergoing noncardiac surgery, in whom a pre-operative NP has been measured.
Pre-operative NP concentrations are powerful independent predictors of perioperative cardiovascular complications, but recent studies have reported that elevated post-operative NP concentrations are independently associated with these complications. It is not clear whether there is value in measuring post-operative NP when a pre-operative measurement has been done.
We conducted a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis to determine whether the addition of post-operative NP levels enhanced the prediction of the composite of death and nonfatal myocardial infarction at 30 and ≥180 days after surgery.
Eighteen eligible studies provided individual patient data (n = 2,179). Adding post-operative NP to a risk prediction model containing pre-operative NP improved model fit and risk classification at both 30 days (corrected quasi-likelihood under the independence model criterion: 1,280 to 1,204; net reclassification index: 20%; p < 0.001) and ≥180 days (corrected quasi-likelihood under the independence model criterion: 1,320 to 1,300; net reclassification index: 11%; p = 0.003). Elevated post-operative NP was the strongest independent predictor of the primary outcome at 30 days (odds ratio: 3.7; 95% confidence interval: 2.2 to 6.2; p < 0.001) and ≥180 days (odds ratio: 2.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.9 to 2.7; p < 0.001) after surgery.
Additional post-operative NP measurement enhanced risk stratification for the composite outcomes of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction at 30 days and ≥180 days after noncardiac surgery compared with a pre-operative NP measurement alone.
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