Rheumatoid factors (RF), autoantibodies that bind the Fc region of IgG, are one of the major diagnostic marker in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) but occur with lower frequency also in other infectious and inflammatory conditions. Through positional cloning of the previously described quantitative trait locus (QTL) Rf1 in congenic and advanced intercrossed rats, we identified the Ig lambda light chai...

Given a group G, RF-theory constructs a new group RF(G) and an action RF(G) → Isom(XG) by isometries of RF(G) on a canonically associated R-tree XG. We give an overview mostly focusing on the more basic aspects of this theory, up to and including the universal property of RF-groups and their associated R-trees.

OBJECTIVE To analyse the relationship between rheumatoid factor (RF) titre, smoking and HLA-DRB1 alleles coding a "shared epitope" (SE) in relation to anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) positivity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS RA patients (n = 658) attending rheumatology clinics in Cornwall, UK (cohort 1) were stratified according to RF and ACPA titre, and smoking pack years a...

BACKGROUND Respiratory failure (RF) is a serious complication following heart surgery. The profile of patients referred for cardiac surgery has changed during the last decade, making prior investigations of RF after cardiac surgery less relevant to the current population. This study was designed to analyze the incidence, predictors of RF, and early and late outcomes following this complication ...

In the renal proximal tubule, the activities of the basolateral Na(+)/HCO(3)(-) cotransporter (NBC) and the apical Na(+)/H(+) exchanger (NHE3) uniformly vary in parallel, suggesting that they are coordinately regulated. PKA-mediated inhibition of NHE3 is mediated by a PDZ motif-containing protein, the Na(+)/H(+) exchanger regulatory factor (NHE-RF). Given the common inhibition of these transpor...

The intestinal absorption process of vitamin B2 (riboflavin, RF) is carrier-mediated, and all three known human RF transporters, i.e., hRFVT-1, -2, and -3 (products of the SLC52A1, 2 & 3 genes, respectively) are expressed in the gut. We have previously shown that the intestinal RF uptake process is adaptively regulated by substrate level, but little is known about the molecular mechanism(s) inv...

Background: Immunopathological and inflammatory processes play important roles in the initiation and development of Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD). Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the serum levels of several autoantibodies including rheumatoid factor (RF), anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA), anti-small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (anti-Sm), anti-phosphatidylserine (anti-PS) and anti-car...

Traveling Wave Tubes (TWTs) consist of different elements. The most important element of TWT is the RF circuit. RF circuits in helix TWTs need a dielectric support to hold the helix; this support also has an effect in electromagnetic properties of RF circuits. A novel dielectric support is proposed to reduce the second harmonic of helix TWTs. The dielectric support in this structure consists of...