gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Examining the Biosynthesis and Xenoantigenicity of Class II Swine Leukocyte Antigen Proteins (2018)

Genetically engineered pig organs could provide transplants to all patients with end-stage organ failure, but Ab-mediated rejection remains an issue. This study examines the class II swine leukocyte Ag (SLA) as a target of epitope-restricted Ab binding. Transfection of individual α- and β-chains into human embryonic kidney cells resulted in both traditional and hybrid class II SLA molecules. Sera from individuals on the solid organ transplant waiting list were tested for Ab binding and cytotoxicity to this panel of class II SLA single-Ag cells. A series of elution studies from an SLA-DQ cell line were performed. Our results indicate that human sera contain Abs specific for and cytotoxic against class II SLA. Our elution studies revealed that sera bind the SLA-DQ molecule in an epitope-restricted pattern. Site-specific mutation of one of these epitopes resulted in statistically decreased Ab binding. Humans possess preformed, specific, and cytotoxic Abs to class II SLA that bind in an epitope-restricted fashion. Site-specific epitope mutagenesis may decrease the Ab binding of highly sensitized individuals to pig cells.
DEAD box for the living (1998)

Members of a large family of proteins, called the DEAD box family, are ribonucleic acid binding proteins with ATPase activity. Recent investigations into the developmentally and cell type-specific expression patterns of one family member, p68 RNA helicase, suggest that this protein might play a role in organ differentiation and/or maturation, and that its expression is subject to complex regulation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Immune-stimulating complexes containing Quil A and protein antigen prime class I MHC-restricted T lymphocytes in vivo and are immunogenic by the oral route. (1991)

Induction of all forms of protective immunity by oral immunization with subunit vaccines is an ideal goal for the development of novel vaccines, but creates several theoretical problems from the point of view of antigen processing mechanisms. We show here that incorporation of the protein antigen ovalbumin (OVA) in lipophilic immune-stimulating complexes (ISCOMS) induces very strong primary immune responses in mice and requires very small amounts of antigen. OVA ISCOMS were particularly efficient at stimulating T-cell-mediated immunity in vivo, including delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) and potent class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restricted cytotoxic T-cell responses. Furthermore, unlike native protein, OVA in ISCOMS was immunogenic when given orally. Thus, ISCOMS seem to allow protein to enter both the endogenous and exogenous pathways of antigen processing and overcome the usual induction of tolerance after feeding antigen. ISCOMS could provide potentially useful adjuvants for the development of oral subunit vaccines.
Technique and Results of Percutaneous Mitral Valvuloplasty with the Multi‐Track System (2000)

The Multi‐Track System is a simplified double‐balloon technique for percutaneous mitral valvuloplasty. Here we describe the technique and report the results obtained using it. The Multi‐Track catheter has a short distal tip for connection to the guidewire. This leaves the rest of guidewire free to receive other catheters. Various catheters can be introduced over the same guidewire. The balloons are introduced one after the other allowing a smaller size of vascular access and transseptal passage. Furthermore, simultaneous pressure measurements in the left atrium and left ventricle are possible through a simple venous access, allowing avoidance of arterial puncture. We used this technique worldwide between June 1994 and February 2000 for the treatment of 153 patients with mitral stenosis worldwide. In 12 cases, the procedure was done using the exclusive venous approach. The mean mitral valve area increased from 0.75 ± 0.22 to 2 ± 0.33 cm 2 and the mean left atrial pressure dropped from 27 ± 8 to 11 ± 4 mmHg. Four patients had a significant increase in mitral regurgitation, requiring surgical treatment in two patients. There was no mortality. The Multi‐Track system is a valid user‐friendly and cost‐effective alternative for the treatment of mitral stenosis. It is a rapid and effective procedure associated with low risks.
Nutritional therapies for mental disorders (2008)

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 out of the 10 leading causes of disability in the US and other developed countries are mental disorders. Major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are among the most common mental disorders that currently plague numerous countries and have varying incidence rates from 26 percent in America to 4 percent in China. Though some of this difference may be attributable to the manner in which individual healthcare providers diagnose mental disorders, this noticeable distribution can be also explained by studies which show that a lack of certain dietary nutrients contribute to the development of mental disorders. Notably, essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids are often deficient in the general population in America and other developed countries; and are exceptionally deficient in patients suffering from mental disorders. Studies have shown that daily supplements of vital nutrients often effectively reduce patients' symptoms. Supplements that contain amino acids also reduce symptoms, because they are converted to neurotransmitters that alleviate depression and other mental disorders. Based on emerging scientific evidence, this form of nutritional supplement treatment may be appropriate for controlling major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), addiction, and autism. The aim of this manuscript is to emphasize which dietary supplements can aid the treatment of the four most common mental disorders currently affecting America and other developed countries: major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Most antidepressants and other prescription drugs cause severe side effects, which usually discourage patients from taking their medications. Such noncompliant patients who have mental disorders are at a higher risk for committing suicide or being institutionalized. One way for psychiatrists to overcome this noncompliance is to educate themselves about alternative or complementary nutritional treatments. Although in the cases of certain nutrients, further research needs to be done to determine the best recommended doses of most nutritional supplements, psychiatrists can recommend doses of dietary supplements based on previous and current efficacious studies and then adjust the doses based on the results obtained.
BONE MARROW TRANSPLATATION IN MINIATURE SWINE (1988)

Procedures for successful autologous and MHC-matched allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in partially inbred, MHC-defined miniature swine have been established. All marrow recipients were conditioned with single-dose total-body irradiation at the upper level of tolerance, and supported with antibiotics and irradiated blood products during aplasia. Surgical harvest of autologous and allogeneic marrow yielded sufficient numbers of cells to successfully reconstitute recipients. Radiation control animals that received no marrow failed to show recovery of marrow function. Pigs transplanted with autologous marrow at doses greater than 10(8) cells/kg routinely engrafted and recovered normal marrow function. The major clinical complications were acute and chronic infections and hemorrhage. T cell-depleted autologous marrow also engrafted, and there was no observed increase in clinical complications. In bone marrow transplantation across non-MHC allogeneic differences, engraftment and survival were similar to that observed for autologous transplants. The T cell depletion of marrow in such MHC-matched allogeneic recipients was associated in one animal, however, with early reconstitution by cells of autologous origin.
Use of the twin-pass catheter for wiring a jailed side branch. (2010)

Wiring through stent struts into a jailed side branch can be challenging. We describe a case of double-barrel left main coronary artery stenting into the first obtuse marginal branch that resulted in significant ostial circumflex coronary artery stenosis. We were unable to wire the jailed large distal circumflex artery. We introduced the Twin-Pass catheter over the first obtuse marginal wire, placing the proximal lumen tip over the distal circumflex ostium. The distal circumflex artery was successfully wired, allowing balloon dilatation and successful completion of the case.
Tunable filter by FBAR using coupling capacitors (2018)

This paper proposes a fourth-order Chebyshev tunable bandpass filter by film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR) with high electromechanical coupling coefficient (kt2). Using coupling capacitors, the tunable FBAR filter is designed by coupling theory of filter design. The resonators are simulated by the MBVD model with series inductor and simplified by parallel RLC model. Tunable capacitors are used to adjust center frequency, coupling coefficient and external quality factor such that the type of filter response can be designed. The tunable filter by high kt2 lead zirconate titanate (PZT) FBAR with 45MHz bandwidth is designed for center frequency ranging from 2.07GHz to 1.80GHz. The insertion loss is 1.46dB to 5dB. The tuning range of tunable filter with <;4dB insertion loss is about 8.2% by high-Q digital capacitors of Q=150.
Optimization of Plasmid Maintenance in the Attenuated Live Vector Vaccine Strain Salmonella typhi CVD 908- htrA (1999)

The broad objective of the research presented here is to develop a noncatalytic plasmid maintenance system for the stabilization of multicopy expression plasmids encoding foreign antigens in a Salmonella typhi live-vector vaccine strain such as CVD 908-htrA. We have enhanced the maintenance of expression plasmids at two independent levels. First, we removed dependence upon balanced-lethal maintenance systems that involve catalytic enzymes expressed from multicopy plasmids; we accomplished this through incorporation into expression plasmids of a postsegregational killing system based on the noncatalytic hok-sok plasmid addiction system from the antibiotic resistance factor pR1. We also included at least one naturally occurring plasmid partition function in our expression plasmids, which eliminates random segregation of these plasmids, thereby enhancing their inheritance and stability; to accomplish this, we incorporated either the par locus from pSC101, the parA locus from pR1, or both. We monitored the stability of optimized expression plasmids within CVD 908-htrA by quantitating expression of a variant of green fluorescent protein (GFPuv) by using flow cytometry. In this report, we demonstrate the utility of this novel plasmid maintenance system in enhancing the stability of our expression plasmids and go on to show that as the copy number of stabilized plasmids increases, the toxicity of GFPuv synthesis also increases. The implications of these observations for the rational design of immunogenic and protective bacterial live vector vaccines are discussed.
Lens design for a white-light cosine-transform achromat (1995)

We describe the lens design for a twin-imaging white-light interferometer in which the interference pattern at the exit-pupil plane is the cosine transform of the spatial-intensity distribution of the object. The achromatic condition in terms of optical power is derived. The analysis of the transform aberration shows that the even aberrations, e.g., spherical aberration and field curvature, do not degrade the cosine transform and need not be corrected. This significant simplification permits us to design systems with good performance and uncomplicated lens structures. We present a lens design with three elements and a length of 320 mm. The system is capable of resolving more than 10(6) pixels with an operating spectral bandwidth of 100 nm. The results of an experiment with an early four-element design are also presented.
Severe Anemia as a Manifestation of Metastatic Jugular Paraganglioma (1983)

A young woman who had a right glomus jugulare paraganglioma had diffuse pulmonary metastases three years after surgical excision of the paraganglioma. Associated with these developments were profound anemia and an extraordinarily rapid ESR. These findings have been previously noted in patients with metastatic paraganglioma and have not as yet, to our knowledge, had a satisfactory explanation. Noteworthy in our patient was a diminished serum erythropoietin level, which may indicate that metastatic paragangliomas inhibit production of or interfere with maintenance of serum erythropoietin. Symptomatic palliation of the severe anemia was attained in this patient by injections of nandrolone decanoate. Follow-up examinations of patients with paragangliomas should include surveillance of the CBCs and ESR, both of which may reflect tumor activity.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa Evasion of Phagocytosis Is Mediated by Loss of Swimming Motility and Is Independent of Flagellum Expression (2010)

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a pathogenic Gram-negative bacterium that causes severe opportunistic infections in immunocompromised individuals; in particular, severity of infection with P. aeruginosa positively correlates with poor prognosis in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Establishment of chronic infection by this pathogen is associated with downregulation of flagellar expression and of other genes that regulate P. aeruginosa motility. The current paradigm is that loss of flagellar expression enables immune evasion by the bacteria due to loss of engagement by phagocytic receptors that recognize flagellar components and loss of immune activation through flagellin-mediated Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling. In this work, we employ bacterial and mammalian genetic approaches to demonstrate that loss of motility, not the loss of the flagellum per se, is the critical factor in the development of resistance to phagocytosis by P. aeruginosa. We demonstrate that isogenic P. aeruginosa mutants deficient in flagellar function, but retaining an intact flagellum, are highly resistant to phagocytosis by both murine and human phagocytic cells at levels comparable to those of flagellum-deficient mutants. Furthermore, we show that loss of MyD88 signaling in murine phagocytes does not recapitulate the phagocytic deficit observed for either flagellum-deficient or motility-deficient P. aeruginosa mutants. Our data demonstrate that loss of bacterial motility confers a dramatic resistance to phagocytosis that is independent of both flagellar expression and TLR signaling. These findings provide an explanation for the well-documented observation of nonmotility in clinical P. aeruginosa isolates and for how this phenotype confers upon the bacteria an advantage in the context of immune evasion.
Evaluation of the Cytotoxicity of α-Cyclodextrin Derivatives on the Caco-2 Cell Line and Human Erythrocytes (2015)

Cyclodextrins, even the 6-membered α-cyclodextrin, are approved in the various pharmacopoeias as pharmaceutical excipients for solubilizing and stabilizing drugs as well as for controlling drug release. Recently α-cyclodextrin has also been marketed as health food with beneficial effects on blood lipid profiles. However, the concentration of α-cyclodextrin used may be very high in these cases, and its toxic attributes have to be seriously considered. The objective of this study was to investigate the cytotoxicity of various, differently substituted α-cyclodextrin derivatives and determine relationship between the structures and cytotoxicity. Three different methods were used, viability tests (MTT assay and Real Time Cell Electronic Sensing on Caco-2 cells) as well as hemolysis test on human red blood cells. The effect of α-cyclodextrin derivatives resulted in concentration-dependent cytotoxicity, so the IC50 values have been determined. Based on our evaluation, the Real Time Cell Electronic Sensing method is the most accurate for describing the time and concentration dependency of the observed toxic effects. Regarding the cytotoxicity on Caco-2 cells, phosphatidylcholine extraction may play a main role in the mechanism. Our results should provide help in selecting those α-cyclodextrin derivatives which have the potential of being used safely in medical formulations.
Neuropeptide Y: complete amino acid sequence of the brain peptide. (1982)

The amino acid sequence of neuropeptide Y, a 36-residue peptide recently isolated from porcine brain, has been determined by using high performance liquid chromatography for separation of its tryptic and chymotryptic fragments and subsequent sequence analysis of the isolated fragments by an improved dansyl Edman subtractive technique. The amino acid sequence of neuropeptide Y has been found to be: Tyr-Pro-Ser-Lys-Pro-Asp-Asn-Pro-Gly-Glu-Asp-Ala-Pro-Ala-Glu-Asp-Leu-Ala-Arg-Tyr -Tyr-Ser-Ala-Leu-Arg-His-Tyr-Ile-Asn-Leu-Ile-Thr-Arg-Gln-Arg-Tyr-NH2. Neuropeptide Y has a high degree of sequence homology with peptide YY (70%), the newly isolated porcine intestinal peptide, and pancreatic polypeptide (50%). It is therefore proposed that neuropeptide Y, peptide YY, and pancreatic polypeptide are members of a newly recognized peptide family.
Inventario de experiencias de recarga artificial de acuíferos en el mundo (2005)

La recarga artificial de acuiferos es una tecnica ampliamente utilizada en varios paises europeos y otros continentes, muy especialmente en USA y Australia, y que sin embargo esta infrautilizada en Espana. Se ha recopilado una extensa bibliografia sobre experiencias en paises de todo el mundo. El objetivo principal de este articulo es alentar el desarrollo de estas actuaciones en Espana sobre un riguroso control tecnico y cientifico.
Current insulin analogues in the treatment of diabetes: emphasis on type 2 diabetes (2012)

Insulin analogues show some advantage compared with native insulin. However, improvements in reducing their pharmacological variability would be expected to lower the risk of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, as well as to simplify and perhaps also encourage optimal insulin titration in real-life clinical practice. Extending the duration of insulin effect would also allow for greater flexibility and potentially reduce the frequency of blood glucose monitoring.
Origins of domestication and polyploidy in oca (Oxalis tuberosa: Oxalidaceae): nrDNA ITS data (1998)

As part of a study aimed at elucidating the origins of the octoploid tuber crop "oca," Oxalis tuberosa, DNA sequences of the internal trancribed spacer of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA ITS) were determined for oca and several wild Oxalis species, mostly from Bolivia. Phylogenetic analysis of these data supports a group of these species as being close relatives of oca, in agreement with morphology and cytology, but at odds with traditional infrageneric taxonomy. Variation in ITS sequences within this group is quite low (0-7 substitutions in the entire ITS region), contrasting with the highly divergent (unalignable in some cases) sequences within the genus overall. Some groups of morphologically differentiated species were found to have identical sequences, notably a group that includes oca, wild populations of Oxalis that bear small tubers, and several other clearly distinct species. The presence of a second, minor sequence type in at least some oca accessions suggests a possible contribution from a second genome donor, also from within this same species group. ITS data lack sufficient variation to elucidate the origins of oca precisely, but have identified a pool of candidate species and so can be used as a tool to screen yet unsampled species for possible progenitors.
Biomechanical optimization of a model particulate composite for orthopaedic applications (1986)

Particulate composites are a potential solution to the need for an injectable, biocompatible, resorbable material that could be used to reinforce fractures and defects in bone and temporarily to stabilize porous ingrowth prostheses. We have developed a model system for producing and testing particulate composites to determine if mechanical properties suitable for orthopaedic applications can be achieved. The experiments used bovine cortical bone and various forms of hydroxyapatite for the particulate phase and a collagen and particulate reinforce gelatin-resorcinol-formaldehyde (G-R-F) adhesive for the matrix phase. Using unconfined compression testing, we measured the effects of variation in particulate type, size, shape, and volume fraction on the material properties of the particulate composites. We found that compressive strengths greater than 10 MPa and compressive moduli greater than 100 MPa could be achieved in this model system. Rough and irregular particulates exhibited higher compressive strengths and moduli than smooth and spherical particulates. Mechanical properties were largely independent of particulate size in the range of 125-850 microns diameter. This model system suggests that, with the development of new biocompatible matrix materials, particulate composites with mechanical properties suitable for orthopaedic applications can be achieved.
Leukotriene A4 hydrolase: abrogation of the peptidase activity by mutation of glutamic acid-296. (1992)

The metal-binding motif in the sequence of leukotriene A4 (LTA4) (EC 3.3.2.6), a bifunctional zinc metalloenzyme, contains a glutamic acid that is conserved in several zinc hydrolases. To study its role for the two catalytic activities, Glu-296 in mouse leukotriene A4 hydrolase was replaced by a glutamine or alanine residue by site-directed mutagenesis. Wild-type and mutated cDNAs were expressed four or five times in Escherichia coli, and the resulting proteins were purified to apparent homogeneity. With respect to their epoxide hydrolase activities--i.e., the conversion of LTA4 into leukotriene B4--the mutated enzymes [Gln296]LTA4 hydrolase and [Ala296]LTA4 hydrolase exhibited specific activities of 1070 +/- 160 and 90 +/- 30 nmol of LTB4 per mg of protein per min (mean +/- SD; n = 4 or 5), respectively, corresponding to 150% and 15% of unmutated enzyme. In contrast, when the mutated proteins were assayed for peptidase activity toward alanine-4-nitroanilide, they were found to be virtually inactive (less than or equal to 0.2% of unmutated enzyme). To serve as a positive control, we also replaced Ser-298 with an alanine residue, which resulted in a protein ([Ala298]LTA4 hydrolase) with catalytic properties almost indistinguishable from the wild-type enzyme. Substitution of Glu-296 by glutamine or alanine was also carried out with human LTA4 hydrolase, and the mutated human enzymes displayed specific activities similar to the corresponding mouse proteins. Zinc analyses of the purified mouse and human proteins confirmed that the mutations did not significantly influence their zinc content. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicate a direct catalytic role for Glu-296 in the peptidase reaction of LTA4 hydrolase, where it presumably acts as a base to polarize water, whereas its function, if any, is apparently not essential in the epoxide hydrolase reaction.