Personal health information (PHI) is increasingly becoming a critical component of personalized healthcare. However, investment in PHI capabilities may be severely undermined if consumers are unwilling to share PHI. While consumers are concerned about potential compromise of PHI, they also value the personalization benefits of PHI use. In light of the limited understanding of this tension, this...

Recent simulations have predicted that near jamming for collections of spherical particles, there will be a discontinuous increase in the mean contact number Z at a critical volume fraction phi(c). Above phi(c), Z and the pressure P are predicted to increase as power laws in phi-phi(c). In experiments using photoelastic disks we corroborate a rapid increase in Z at phi(c) and power-law behavior...

The Bcg/Ity/Lsh gene (candidate Nramp) controls natural resistance to several parasites, such as Mycobacterium bovis, Leishmania donovani, and Salmonella typhimurium. Using two macrophage (M phi) cell lines (B10R and B10S) derived from mouse strains congenic at Bcg, we found that M phi s from resistant mice (B10R M phi s) act more effectively against the two morphogenetic forms of the dimorphic...

Introduction: Intracellular pH (pHi) regulates essentially all aspects of cellular activities. However, it is unknown how endoplasmic reticulum (ER) potassium channels sense pHi. In this study, we investigate the direct effects of pHi on ER potassium channels. Methods: We used channel incorporation into the bilayer lipid membrane method. L-α-phosphatidylcholine, a membrane lipid, was extrac...

Utilizing somatic cell hybridization, we have developed a monoclonal antibody that interacts only with cells of the monocyte/macrophage (M phi) line and not with other myeloid or lymphoid cells. This antibody detects a 120,000-dalton determinant present on 37 +/- 2.8% of the peripheral blood M phi from several (HLA-DR)-disparate individuals and only depicts a subpopulation (approximately 30%) o...

Increasing evidence suggests that gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) is the major or sole factor in human lymphokines which activates blood monocyte-derived macrophages (M phi) to inhibit or kill Toxoplasma gondii and certain other intracellular pathogens. In the current studies, we found that IFN-gamma effectively activated tissue M phi from adults (peritoneal M phi) and from newborns (placental M p...

We examine the persistent random motion of self-propelled rods (SPR) as a function of the area fraction phi and study the effect of steric interactions on their diffusion properties. SPR of length l and width w are fabricated with a spherocylindrical head attached to a beaded chain tail, and show directed motion on a vibrated substrate. The mean square displacement (MSD) on the substrate grows ...

The presence of macromolecules in cells geometrically restricts the available space for poplypeptide chains. To study the effects of macromolecular crowding on folding thermodynamics and kinetics, we used an off-lattice model of the all-beta-sheet WW domain in the presence of large spherical particles whose interaction with the polypeptide chain is purely repulsive. At all volume fractions, phi...

In order to determine if human LAK cells were cytotoxic against autologous AM phi, we studied the ability of human peripheral blood MNCs, stimulated in vitro with recombinant human IL-2, to lyse AM phi in a four-hour 51Cr-release assay. These cells showed significant cytotoxicity against autologous AM phi. The AM phi which had been cultured for four days served as better targets than freshly is...

Cells within solid tumors are known to exist in a microenvironment that may be acidic and depend on membrane-based mechanisms (Na+/H+ antiport and Na+-dependent Cl-/HCO3- exchanger) that regulate intracellular pH (pHi). We have used the fluorescent pH indicator 2',7'-bis-(2-carboxyethyl) 5 (and 6)-carboxyfluorescein and flow cytometry to study the distribution of pHi and the activity of these p...