Streptococcus pneumoniae is a bacterial microorganism that frequently causes serious infection, particularly in children and the elderly. Protection against infection with S. pneumoniae is based mainly on the generation of antibodies to the pneumococcal capsular polysaccharides (caps-PS), but the mechanisms responsible for the generation of anticapsular antibodies remain incompletely understood...

A very sensitive experimental setup for accurate wavelength-dependent hyper-Rayleigh scattering (HRS) measurements of the molecular first hyperpolarizability beta in the broad fundamental wavelength range of 600 to 1800 nm is presented. The setup makes use of a stable continuously tunable picosecond optical parametric amplifier with kilohertz repetition rate. To correct for multi-photon fluores...

Paradoxical absence of a pro-thrombotic phenotype in a Mouse model of severe hyper-homocysteinemia. The study by Eğin and Akar [1] entitled, First observation of MTHFR 678C-A (Ala 222 Ala) single nucleotide polymorphism, in the recent issue of the Journal (2012; 29: 204-5) requires questioning its importance to thrombosis in the light of Dayal et al.'s findings in a mouse model [2]. I used to t...

The purpose of this study was to measure the level of anticardiolipin antibodies in preeclamptic pregnant women to verify a possible association between the presence of these antibodies and the development of the syndrome. A total of 36 pregnant women with preeclampsia and 19 women with normal pregnancy were evaluated. Anticardiolipin antibodies were determined by enzyme immunoassay. The reacti...

Anti-phosphocholine (PC) antibody mediated protection against many strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, and hybridoma anti-PC antibodies protected mice from fatal infections with types 1 and 3 S. pneumoniae. Live types 1, 3, 5, 6A, and 19F S. pneumoniae had similar amounts of surface PC accessible to antibody. Furthermore, mice expressing the X-linked immunodeficiency (xid) of the CBA/N strain ...

CD40 is a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily, expressed on a wide range of cell types including B cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. CD40 is the receptor for CD40 ligand (CD40L), a molecule predominantly expressed by activated CD4(+) T cells. CD40/CD40L interaction induces the formation of memory B lymphocytes and promotes Ig isotype switching, as demonstrated in mic...

Treatment of patients with coeliac disease with a low gluten containing diet (LGD) remains controversial. We have studied jejunal morphology and antigluten (AG) antibody titres by ELISA in patients on a LGD of 2.5-5 g/day for three to 14 months (median six months) and compared results with patients on a strict gluten free diet (GFD) for six to 27 months (median 13 months). We found no significa...

INTRODUCTION To investigate whether baseline levels of anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) or IgM rheumatoid factor (IgM-RF) and changes in the year thereafter are associated with disease activity, functional and radiographic outcome in early arthritis patients, and provide additional information over baseline autoantibody status. METHODS In 545 early arthritis patients ACPA and IgM-RF...

A fundameatal requirement of any parametrization of sub-gridscale orography (SSO) is that the total (resolved plus pa,rametrized) drag on a mountain rarge should be independent of the model horizontal resolution. However, parametrizations are typically developed and tested (ar:d inevitably tuned) for a single model resolution and so this issue tends not to be addressed. In ihis study, this issu...