Catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome (CAPS) is a rare but potentially life-threatening condition characterized by diffuse vascular thrombosis, leading to multiple organ failure developing over a short period of time in the presence of positive antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL). CAPS is a severe form of antiphospholipid syndrome, developing in about 1% of cases of classic antiphospholipid synd...

Exposure to ambient air pollution particles causes greater health effects in individuals with pre-existing inflammatory lung diseases. To model inflammatory priming in vitro, HTB54 lung epithelial cells were pre-treated with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and then exposed to a panel of environmental particles, including concentrated ambient particles (CAPs). TNF-α priming significantly enhance...

The inflammasome is a cytoplasmic multiprotein complex that promotes proinflammatory cytokine maturation in response to host- and pathogen-derived signals. Missense mutations in cryopyrin (NLRP3) result in a hyperactive inflammasome that drives overproduction of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18, leading to the cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS) disease spectrum. Mouse l...

Cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS) are a subgroup of the hereditary periodic fever syndromes, which are rare autoinflammatory and inherited disorders, characterized by recurrent inflammation and varying degrees of severity. CAPS are thought to be driven by excessive production of interleukin-1β (IL-1β), through over-activation of the inflammasome by gain of function mutations in the...

Particulate air pollution is linked to increased pneumonia epidemiologically and diminished lung bacterial clearance experimentally. We investigated the effect of concentrated ambient particles (CAPs, </= PM(2.5)) on the interaction of murine primary alveolar macrophages (AMs) and the murine macrophage cell line, J774 A.1, with Streptococcus pneumoniae. We found that CAPs increased binding of b...

Previous studies indicated that CAPS (calcium-dependent activator protein for secretion) functions as an essential component for the Ca2+-dependent exocytosis of dense-core vesicles in neuroendocrine cells. However, recent mouse knock-out studies suggested an alternative role in the vesicular uptake or storage of catecholamines. To genetically assess the functional role of CAPS, we characterize...

Priming of large dense-core vesicles (LDCVs) is a Ca-dependent step by which LDCVs enter a release-ready pool. The underlying molecular step involves the formation of the SNAREcomplex consisting of syntaxin, SNAP-25 and synaptobrevin, which is facilitated by priming proteins such as Munc13s. By using mutant mice lacking both isoforms of the calcium dependent activator protein for secretion (CAP...

This paper details an algorithm for unfolding a class of convex polyhedra, where each polyhedron in the class consists of a convex cap over a rectangular base, with several restrictions: the cap’s faces are quadrilaterals, with vertices over an underlying integer lattice, and such that the cap convexity is “radially monotone,” a type of smoothness constraint. Extensions of Cauchy’s arm lemma ar...

4 Yeast Division of the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures, Julianalaan 67, 2628 BC Delft, The Netherlands The septal pore cap (SPC) of Trichosporon sporotrichoides CBS 8245 is vesiculartubular, connected with flat-tubular endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and stains densely with zinc/iodine/osmium tetroxide, as does the ER. The SPC of Schizophy//um commune CBS 340.81 is more complex, about 600 nm ...