A working model for the action of superantigens (SAg) is that they are simple proteins having binding sites for both MHC class II molecules and the V beta domain of the TCR. Binding of a SAg to both molecules cross-links the TCR, inducing a biologic response. In this study, we have tested this working model using a SAg mimic consisting of a hybrid Ab bispecific for the murine MHC class II molec...

In this paper, we study the impacts of non-Personal Identifiable Information (non-PII) on the privacy of graph data with attribute information (e.g., social networks data with users’ profiles (attributes)), namely Structure-Attribute Graph (SAG) data, both theoretically and empirically. Our main contributions are two-fold: (i) we conduct the first attribute-based anonymity analysis for SAG data...

The exotoxins produced by Staphylococcus aureus, staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE) A-E and toxic shock syndrome toxin (TSST)-1, which are associated with serious diseases, including food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome, are termed superantigens (SAgs). To examine whether common antigenic epitopes were present and whether vaccination with 1 bacterial SAg could protect against challenge with a ...

Life in extreme environments poses unique challenges to photosynthetic organisms. The ability for an extremophilic green alga and its genetic and mesophilic equivalent to acclimate to changes in their environment was examined to determine the extent of their phenotypic plasticities. The Antarctic extremophile Chlamydomonas raudensis Ettl. UWO 241 (UWO) was isolated from an ice-covered lake in A...

Though Pollard and Sag 1994] assumes that an unspeciied variant of the formal logic of Carpenter 1992] will provide a formalism for HPSG, a precise formulation of the envisaged formalism is not immediately obvious, primarily because a principal tenet of Carpenter 1992], that feature structures represent partial information, seems to connict with a principal tenet of Pollard and Sag 1994], that ...

Voltage sags can be symmetrical or unsymmetrical depending on the causes of the sag. At the present time, one of the most common procedures for mitigating voltage sags is by the use of dynamic voltage restorers (DVRs). By definition, a DVR is a controlled voltage source inserted between the network and a sensitive load through a booster transformer injecting voltage into the network in order to...

In Staphylococcus aureus, 19 different superantigens (SAgs) have been described. Their genes are all located on mobile genetic elements, such as pathogenicity islands, plasmids, and phages. SAgs bypass conventional antigen recognition by directly cross-linking major histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII) molecules on antigen-presenting cells with T cell receptors. This leads to massive T c...

MRI is commonly used to evaluate lumbar spine abnormalities in patients with symptoms such as lower back pain, leg pain, paresthesia, weakness in the legs, and claudication. Occasionally, these symptoms are caused by pathologic lesions in the cervical or thoracic spine and mistaken for those caused by lumbar spine lesions. Some pathologic lesions in the cervical or thoracic spine may be serious...

B cell superantigens (SAg) interact with normal human nonimmune Igs (Igs), independently of the light chain isotype, and activate a large proportion of the B cell repertoire. Recently, the major envelope protein of HIV-1, gp120, was found to exhibit SAg-like properties for B cells with potential pathologic consequences for the infected host. This unconventional mode of interaction contrasts wit...

The salivary agglutinin glycoprotein (SAG) is present in saliva but is also part of the salivary pellicle, playing a seemingly paradoxical role with regard to bacterial homeostasis. On the one hand, SAG aggregates bacteria in solution, thereby preventing bacterial colonization. On the other hand, when bound to the tooth surface, SAG facilitates bacterial colonization and microbial growth. The p...