Tumors have several mechanisms to escape from the immune system. One of these involves expression of intracellular anticytotoxic proteins that modulate the execution of cell death. Previously, we have shown that the serine protease inhibitor (serpin) SPI-6, which inactivates the cytotoxic protease granzyme B (GrB), is capable of preventing cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated apoptosis. Despit...

Offspring of female rats fed either a casein (CAS) diet or a low-isoflavone soy protein isolate (SPI) diet were compared in an animal model of chronic ethanol consumption to investigate whether maternal diet regulates the adaptive responses of offspring to postnatal ethanol exposure and potentially affects the development of liver disease in later life. Female rats were fed either a CAS or an S...

Ectromelia virus (ECTV) is a natural pathogen of mice that causes mousepox, and many of its genes have been implicated in the modulation of host immune responses. Serine protease inhibitor 2 (SPI-2) is one of these putative ECTV host response modifier proteins. SPI-2 is conserved across orthopoxviruses, but results defining its mechanism of action and in vivo function are lacking or contradicto...

OBJECTIVE: Spiral Projection Imaging (SPI) is a versatile, fast 3D data acquisition. Data are sampled on 2D spiral planes that are rotated to fill a sphere in k-space (figure 1). The spiral basis of SPI provides flow insensitivity. Furthermore, it has been shown that SPI allows for six degrees of motion correction similar to that used in PROPELLER. SPI requires far fewer excitations than a line...

Spi-B and PU.1 are hematopoietic-specific transcription factors that constitute a subfamily of the Ets family of DNA-binding proteins. Here we show that contrary to previous reports, PU.1 and Spi-B have very different expression patterns. PU.1 is expressed at high levels in B cells, mast cells, megakaryocytes, macrophages, neutrophils, and immature erythroid cells and at lower levels in mature ...

We introduce the spi calculus, an extension of the pi calculus designed for describing and analyzing cryptographic protocols. We show how to use the spi calculus, particularly for studying authentication protocols. The pi calculus (without extension) suffices for some abstract protocols; the spi calculus enables us to consider cryptographic issues in more detail. We represent protocols as proce...

Software process improvement (SPI) has emerged as a critical area for organizations involved in software development. There is now considerable evidence that SPI can provide substantial gains in quality, productivity, and cycle time. Currently, most organizations that embark upon a SPI program tend to use a framework like the Capability Maturity Model for their process improvement. In this arti...

As seen in literature, about 70% of the improvement initiatives fail, and a significant number do not even get started. This paper analyses the problem of failing initiatives on Software Process Improvement (SPI), and proposes good practices supported by motivational tools that can help minimizing failures. It elaborates on the hypothesis that human factors are poorly addressed by deployers, es...

Intracellular trafficking of the precursor of Spitz (Spi), the major Drosophila EGF receptor (EGFR) ligand, is facilitated by the chaperone Star, a type II transmembrane protein. This study identifies a novel mechanism for modulating the activity of Star, thereby influencing the levels of active Spi ligand produced. We demonstrate that Star can efficiently traffic Spi even when present at sub-s...

Invasion of the intestinal epithelium is a critical step in Salmonella enterica infection and requires functions encoded in the gene cluster known as Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 1 (SPI-1). Expression of SPI-1 genes is repressed by L-arabinose, and not by other pentoses. Transport of L-arabinose is necessary to repress SPI-1; however, repression is independent of L-arabinose metabolism and o...