This study presents a novel miniaturized Hadamard transform fluorescence imaging microscope, by combining a conventional fluorescence microscope with Hadamard transform multiplexing encoding using a ...one-dimensional movable mask to realize spatial resolution and a linear CCD for multichannel detection. The microscope can provide high-resolution automatically-generated 0-255 gray level HT images for morphological analysis and visualization of a single cell, and normalized HT images for cellular quantitative measurements. The microscope's imaging capability was applied to measure the DNA content in human lymphocyte, chicken erythrocyte and eel erythrocyte, and a comparative study was performed. The results show that the calibrated DNA content in a chicken erythrocyte is 2.32 pg when human lymphocyte is used as the standard, and eel erythrocyte may be a potentially reliable and novel standard for determining DNA contents in other species because it has a stable DNA value of 2.06 pg, with a CV of 4.3% when 20 eel erythrocytes are measured. The results also demonstrate that the HT imaging microscope should be valuable in the fields of medicine and cell biology.
An expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for learning sparse and overcomplete representations is presented in this paper. We show that the estimation of the conditional moments of the posterior ...distribution can be accomplished by maximum a posteriori estimation. The approximate conditional moments enable the development of an EM algorithm for learning the overcomplete basis vectors and inferring the most probable basis coefficients.
To study the role of IFN-gamma in the development of granulomatous experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT), DBA1 mice with a disrupted IFN-gamma gene were used for adoptive EAT induction. Effector ...cells from either IFN-gamma(+/+) or IFN-gamma(-/-) donor mice activated with mouse thyroglobulin and anti-IL-2R mAb induced severe granulomatous EAT. A predominant infiltration of the thyroid by eosinophils was observed in recipients of IFN-gamma(-/-) effector cells but not in recipients of IFN-gamma(+/+) cells. Compared with wild-type mice, thyroids of recipients of IFN-gamma(-/-) effector cells had decreased expression of mRNA for Th1 cytokines and inducible nitric oxide synthetase. Expression of Th2 cytokine mRNA was comparable to that of IFN-gamma(+/+) mice, and expression of eotaxin was increased in the thyroids of recipients of IFN-gamma(-/-) effector cells. Activation of cells from either IFN-gamma(+/+) or IFN-gamma(-/-) donors in the presence of IL-12 also induced severe granulomatous EAT. Eosinophil infiltration in recipients of IFN-gamma(-/-) cells was unaffected when effector cells were activated with IL-12, and thyroids expressed predominantly Th2 cytokines. The extent of fibrosis of recipient thyroids was generally greater when donor IFN-gamma(+/+) and IFN-gamma(-/-) cells were activated with IL-12. Compared with IFN-gamma(+/+) mice, IFN-gamma(-/-) mice produced lower levels of mouse thyroglobulin-specific autoantibodies after immunization with MTg and LPS. These results indicate that cells from both IFN-gamma(+/+) and IFN-gamma(-/-) donors can induce severe granulomatous EAT. However, damage of thyroid follicles by IFN-gamma(-/-) and that by IFN-gamma(+/+) cells appear to involve different mediators of inflammation.
Granulomatous inflammatory lesions are a major histopathological feature of a wide spectrum of human infectious and autoimmune diseases. Experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT) with granulomatous ...histopathological features can be induced by mouse thyroglobulin (MTg)-sensitized spleen cells activated in vitro with MTg and anti-interleukin-2 receptor (anti-IL-2R), anti-IL-2, or anti-interferon-gamma (anti-IFN-gamma) monoclonal antibody (MAb). These studies suggested that IFN-gamma-producing T cells requiring IL-2 for growth may negatively regulate activation of granulomatous EAT effector cells. As IL-12 promotes activation of IFN-gamma-producing Th1 cells, the present study was undertaken to determine the role of IL-12 in activation of effector cells for granulomatous EAT. MTg-sensitized cells activated in vitro with MTg, anti-IL2R MAb, and IL-12 induced severe, destructive granulomatous thyroiditis with neutrophil inflammation, fibrin deposition, and necrosis. Many glands ultimately underwent atrophy and became fibrotic; some also showed fibrinoid necrosis and a mixed inflammatory cell infiltration of blood vessel walls indicative of a necrotizing vasculitis. Induction of severe granulomatous EAT by IL-12 required MTg in vitro and was unrelated to the IL-12-induced increase in IFN-gamma production. IL-12 markedly increased IFN-gamma production but did not induce a shift to a Th1-dominant phenotype, as other Th1 and Th2 cytokines were generally unaffected and both Th1 and Th2 cytokines were expressed in recipient thyroids. Addition of IL-12 or neutralization by anti-IL-12 at various times indicated that IL-12 exerted its primary effects in the final 24 hours of the 72-hour culture and was not required in recipient mice. Cells cultured with anti-IL-12, MTg, and anti-IL2R MAb transferred mild lymphocytic EAT but little or no granulomatous EAT. Thus, IL-12 profoundly regulates the in vitro activation of effector cells that induce histologically distinct autoimmune inflammatory lesions in the thyroid.
A novel system of Hadamard transform microscopic fluorescence imaging for single cells is presented, based on which the DNA ploidy of rat hepatocyte was quantitatively measured. The result shows that ...diploid rat hepatocyte has a stable DNA content, thus diploid rat hepatocyte was used to investigate the binding of five clinical anticancer agents, vincristine, cyclophosphamide, nitrogen mustard, cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(n) (CDDP) and mitomycin-C, with cellular DNA when acridine orange (AO) was used as the competitive fluorescence probe. Based on this model, some Schiff base complexes-cellular DNA interactions were investigated. The results indicate that all the twenty-two compounds, including Schiff base ligands of N-2-hydroxy-naphthaldehyde with D-glucoamine (NG) and the complexes of 3d-transitional metals ions with NO and with D-glucoamine (Glu) and the mixed complexes of NG and Glu series with alpha-glycine (GNG), have the ability to enter the cell membrane and interact with cellular DNA. Four of the compounds, CuGlu, Fe(II)NG, Fe(III)NG and CuGluG can intercalate with DNA like AO does and depress AO-DNA fluorescence to 70% or lower. An in intro UV-visible spectroscopic study on the compound-DNA spectra testified the above results and suggests that diverse interaction mechanisms coexist for all these complexes except intercalating mode. This study presents a new in vitro method for initial screening of anticancer compounds.
APCs provide costimulatory and down-regulatory signals to Ag-activated T cells through interactions between B7.1 and B7.2 on APCs with either CD28 or CTL Ag-4 expressed on T cells. Recipients of ...mouse thyroglobulin (MTg)-primed spleen cells activated in the presence of anti-B7.2 had decreased experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT) severity compared with recipients of cells cultured with control rat Ig or anti-B7.1. Blocking B7.2 during in vivo priming also suppressed the ability of MTg-primed spleen cells to transfer EAT, implicating a role for B7.2 for priming and in vitro activation of EAT effector cells. In contrast, administration of anti-B7.2 or anti-B7.2 Fab to recipients of MTg-activated spleen cells increased the severity of EAT compared with recipients receiving control Ig. Thyroids from anti-B7.2-treated recipients had increased expression of IL-4 mRNA compared with thyroids from rat Ig-treated controls. Both B7.1 and B7.2 molecules were expressed in the thyroids of mice with EAT, although B7.2 was more prevalent than B7.1. Administration of both anti-B7.1 and anti-B7.2 to recipient mice suppressed the development of EAT, while anti-B7.1 treatment alone had no effect on EAT severity. The suppression of EAT was not observed when anti-B7.1 and anti-B7.2 treatment was delayed until 7 days after cell transfer, suggesting a requirement for B7 in the initiation of EAT in recipient mice. These results suggest that costimulation is required during the effector phase of EAT and that B7.2 may have opposing roles in the activation versus effector stages of autoreactive T cells.
In north China, most earthquakes occur at depths of 10–25 km and are considered to be the direct result of deformation or rupture of the brittle upper crustal layer. To describe this mechanism, a ...planar horizontal negative dislocation plane is used to represent the force of action of the lower crustal layer on an overlying brittle upper crust layer. An area around Beijing in north China has been chosen for applying this negative dislocation layer assumption. A GPS network (Capital Circle GPS Network, CCGN), has been set up for monitoring crust deformations since 1992. In this paper, observations from 1992, 1995, and 1996 GPS surveying campaigns were used to determine model parameters of a negative dislocation layer. Using a Bayesian inversion procedure, more than 95% of data residuals are found to be <2 mm/yr, indicating that the negative dislocation layer model can fit GPS data well. The inversion results show that the local tectonic movement is −2 ± 1 mm/yr in the north and 7 ± 1 mm/yr in the east, and the high negative dislocation rates occur mainly in the south part of the north Taihang mountain zone with a magnitude of ∼4 ± 1 mm/yr, and the east part of the Yan mountain zone with a magnitude of ∼3 ± 1 mm/yr. By applying this negative dislocation layer model, the continuous GPS surveying data can be inverted to determine the negative dislocation rate distributions in the middle or upper seismogenic crust layer, so as to predict the locations of potential earthquake sources.
PDF