An alternative inhibition method for determining cross-reactive allergens

Author(s):  
Yvonne Schmidt-Hieltjes ◽  
Malgorzata Teodorowicz ◽  
Ad Jansen ◽  
Gerco den Hartog ◽  
Lisette Elfvering-Berendsen ◽  
...  

AbstractBackground:Inhibition assays are an useful tool to identify the allergen of primary sensitization of cross-reactive allergens. Classical ELISA-based inhibition assays are limited by both the availability of commercial standardized allergen extracts and the experience and knowledge needed for making home-made extracts. Moreover the direct comparison of the inhibition ELISAs outcomes between different laboratories is difficult because of different sources of used allergen extracts and a number of methodological variations. Therefore, we propose a novel ImmunoCap (Phadia, Thermofisher Scientific) based immunoinhibition method with the use of commercially available Caps as the allergen source.Methods:The novel ImmunoCap based immunoinhibition method was developed and tested with sera from patients with a well-known cross-reactive sensitization for fig (Results:The amount of allergens (fig and ficus extracts) needed to reach a similar degree of inhibition was comparable for both inhibition methods.Conclusions:The ImmunoCap based inhibition assay, in addition to classical inhibition methods, is a valuable tool as the ImmunoCap analyzer and commercial allergens (Caps) are more widely available which makes the outcomes of inhibition tests comparable between different laboratories. Furthermore, in the ImmunoCap inhibition method the same protein source is used for both the inhibition of sIgE and sIgE measurement, which might be even more relevant when multiple cross-reactive allergens are tested.

Author(s):  
Oles Fedoruk

The paper analyzes different sources of anthroponyms in the original and final texts of P. Kulish’s novel “Chorna Rada: Khronika 1663 Roku” (“The Black Council: A Chronicle of the Year 1663”). Three types of sources have been identified: the historical prototypes, names and surnames of Kulish’s friends, and archival (documentary) records. In addition, numerous notes in the early editions of the Russian novel contain references to the works of various people (M. Markevych, D. Bantysh-Kamenskyi, V. Kokhovskyi, etc.). The last group of anthroponyms stands outside of the plot, and the paper does not focus on it. The historical and autobiographical sources of anthroponyms are generally known. Among the first are prototypes of two hetmans — Yakym Somko and Ivan Briukhovetskyi, military secretary M. Vukhaievych, regimental osaul M. Hvyntovka. The second group comprises the occasional characters Hordii Kostomara (a historian M. Kostomarov), Ivan Yusko (a teacher I. Yuskevych-Kraskovskyi), Hulak (M. Hulak, the founder of The Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius), Bilozerets (Kulish’s brother-in-law V. Bilozerskyi), Petro Serdiuk (Kulish’s close friend Petro Serdiukov), Oleksa Senchylo (teacher Oleksa Senchylo-Stefanovskyi). In the novel, Kulish drew the love line as a projection of his relationship with Oleksandra Bilozerska and her mother Motrona. The characters of Petro Shramenko, Lesia Cherevanivna and her mother Melaniia have an autobiographical basis. Accordingly, Lesia’s name was also taken from real life. The third group of sources supplying the anthroponyms is archival records. The paper analуzes Kulish’s extracts from the roster of Cossack regiments of the Hetmanate (1741). This source wasn’t used previously. It contains the anthroponyms Vasyl Nevolnyk (‘Slave’), Puhach, Petro Serdiuk, Taranukha, Chepurnyi, Cherevan, Tur, Shramko and Shramchenko, Shkoda, which the author used in various editions of the novel.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Giovanni Marasco ◽  
Marcello Maida ◽  
Gaetano Cristian Morreale ◽  
Massimo Licata ◽  
Matteo Renzulli ◽  
...  

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been reported to affect the gastrointestinal system with a variety of symptoms, including bleeding. The prevalence of bleeding in these patients remains unclear. The aim of this meta-analysis is to estimate the rate of gastrointestinal bleeding in COVID-19 patients and its association with mortality. MEDLINE and Embase were searched through December 20, 2020. Studies reporting COVID-19 patients with and without gastrointestinal bleeding were included. Estimated prevalence with 95% confidence intervals (CI) was pooled; heterogeneity was expressed as I2. Metaregression analysis was performed to assess the impact of confounding covariates. Ten studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. A total of 91887 COVID-19 patients were considered, of whom 534 reported gastrointestinal bleeding (0.6%) [409 (76.6%) upper and 121 (22.7%) lower gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB and LGIB, resp.)]. The overall pooled gastrointestinal bleeding rate was 5% [95% CI 2–8], with high heterogeneity (I2 99.2%); “small study effect” was observed using the Egger test ( p = 0.049 ). After removing two outlier studies, the pooled bleeding rate was 2% [95% CI 0–4], with high heterogeneity (I2 99.2%), and no “small study effect” ( p = 0.257 ). The pooled UGIB rate was 1% (95% CI 0–3, I2 98.6%, p = 0.214 ), whereas the pooled LGIB rate was 1% (95% CI 0–2, I2 64.7%, p = 0.919 ). Metaregression analysis showed that overall estimates on gastrointestinal bleeding were affected by studies reporting different sources of bleeding. No significant association between gastrointestinal bleeding and mortality was found. In this meta-analysis of published studies, individuals with COVID-19 were found to be at risk for gastrointestinal bleeding, especially upper gastrointestinal bleeding.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-177
Author(s):  
Abraham Cyril Issac

Abstract The world is battling out the pandemic of Covid-19. The World Health Organization (WHO) is jointly acting upon the same daily, which is evident from the ‘situation reports.’ The pandemic, which saw its origin in Wuhan, has spread across the world within a short span of under two months. While the pandemic has effectively instilled a situation of cordon sanitaire across the globe, the virus seems to show no respite. This study collates different sources and establishes the human tendency of knowledge hiding as the prime reason for the spread of such colossal magnitudes. The study underlines the notion by examining some of the critical cases and situations that have unfolded in the very recent past.


Author(s):  
Mykola Makhortykh

AbstractThe chapter examines the role of geospatial data in Russia’s online ecosystem. Facilitated by the rise of geographic information systems and user-generated content, the distribution of geospatial data has blurred the line between physical spaces and their virtual representations. The chapter discusses different sources of these data available for Digital Russian Studies (e.g., social data and crowdsourced databases) together with the novel techniques for extracting geolocation from various data formats (e.g., textual documents and images). It also scrutinizes different ways of using these data, varying from mapping the spatial distribution of social and political phenomena to investigating the use of geotag data for cultural practices’ digitization to exploring the use of geoweb for narrating individual and collective identities online.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saroj Kumar Panda ◽  
Parth Sarthi Sen Gupta ◽  
Satyaranjan Biswal ◽  
Abhik Kumar Ray ◽  
Malay Kumar Rana

<p>SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus causing overwhelming death and infection worldwide, has emerged as a pandemic. Compared to its predecessor SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 is more infective for being highly contagious and exhibiting tighter binding with host angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE-2). The entry of the virus into host cells is mediated by the interaction of its spike protein with hACE-2. Thus, a peptide that has a resemblance to hACE-2 but can overpower the spike protein-hACE-2 interaction will be a potential therapeutic to contain this virus. The non-interacting residues in the receptor-binding domain of hACE-2 have been mutated to generate a library of 136 new peptides. Out of this library, docking and virtual screening discover seven peptides that can exert a stronger interaction with the spike protein than hACE-2. A peptide derived from simultaneous mutation of all the non-interacting residues of hACE-2 yields two-fold stronger interaction than hACE-2 and thus turns out here to be the best peptide-inhibitor of the novel coronavirus. The binding of the spike protein and the best peptide-inhibitor with hACE-2 is explored further by molecular dynamics, free energy, and principal component analysis to demonstrate its efficacy. Further, the inhibition assay study with the best peptide inhibitor is in progress. </p>


Literator ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Foley

This article argues that despite the apparently exhaustive critical attention paid to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), certain key aspects of the novel’s meaning remain unresolved. At the heart of the problem lies the question of how to interpret the reasons for Okonkwo’s downfall or fate. The article suggests that a number of different sources of explanation appear to be plausible at various levels, but it goes on to demonstrate that at least some of these putative explanations are incompatible if not mutually exclusive. The more general difficulty arising from this is that several of these explanations are underpinned by worldviews which differ from and even conflict with each other. The article intends, therefore, through an exploration of the possible reasons for Okonkwo’s demise, to consider what worldview the novel finally supports and, indeed, whether the novel’s outlook is coherent at all. The chief conclusion is that although the overall perspective of the novel is highly complex, it does not necessarily follow that the actual meaning of the novel itself is either illogical or selfcontradictory.


Author(s):  
Muthusamy Palaniswamy ◽  
Vishnu Ts

ABSTRACTObjectives: The study was aimed at isolating and identifying violacein-producing bacteria from the different ecosystems.Methods: The violet color pigment (violacein) producing bacteria was isolated and identified morphologically and genomically.Results: A total of ten bacterial Chromobacterium sp. were isolated from different sources such as soil and water. The violacein productivity wasscreened by the total isolates and the selected two strains were identified as Chromobacterium violaceum CV4 and Chromobacterium vaccinii CV5 bymorphologically and genomically.Conclusion: In the present study, the two isolate was morphologically and genomically identified as Chromobacterium violaceum CV4 andChromobacterium vaccinii CV5, last one was found to be the novel strain from natural sources which possess a high violacein producing capability.Keywords: Chromobacterium sp., Violacein, Pigment production.


2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1772) ◽  
pp. 20132330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Jones ◽  
Michael J. Ryan ◽  
Victoria Flores ◽  
Rachel A. Page

Animals can use different sources of information when making decisions. Foraging animals often have access to both self-acquired and socially acquired information about prey. The fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus , hunts frogs by approaching the calls that frogs produce to attract mates. We examined how the reliability of self-acquired prey cues affects social learning of novel prey cues. We trained bats to associate an artificial acoustic cue (mobile phone ringtone) with food rewards. Bats were assigned to treatments in which the trained cue was either an unreliable indicator of reward (rewarded 50% of the presentations) or a reliable indicator (rewarded 100% of the presentations), and they were exposed to a conspecific tutor foraging on a reliable (rewarded 100%) novel cue or to the novel cue with no tutor. Bats whose trained cue was unreliable and who had a tutor were significantly more likely to preferentially approach the novel cue when compared with bats whose trained cue was reliable, and to bats that had no tutor. Reliability of self-acquired prey cues therefore affects social learning of novel prey cues by frog-eating bats. Examining when animals use social information to learn about novel prey is key to understanding the social transmission of foraging innovations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viacheslav Danilov ◽  
Alex Karpovsky ◽  
Alexander Kirpich ◽  
Diana Litmanovich ◽  
Dato Nefaridze ◽  
...  

Abstract With the novel coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) continually having a devastating effect around the globe, many scientists and clinicians are actively seeking to develop new techniques to assist with the tackling of this disease. Modern machine learning methods have shown promise in their adoption to assist the health care industry through their data and analytics-driven decision making, inspiring researchers to develop new angles to fight the virus. In this paper, we aim to develop a robust method for the detection of COVID-19 by utilizing patients' chest X-ray images. Despite recent progress, scarcity of data has thus far limited the development of a robust solution. We extend upon existing work by combing publicly available data across 5 different sources and carefully annotating the comprising images into three categories: normal, pneumonia, and COVID-19. To achieve a high classification accuracy, we propose a training pipeline based on the directed guidance of traditional classification networks, where the guidance is directed by an external segmentation network. Through this network, we observed that the widely used, standard networks can achieve an accuracy comparable to tailor-made models specifically for COVID-19, furthermore one network, VGG-16, outperformed the best of the tailor-made models.


Hypertension ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean P Didion

Very little is known regarding blood pressure and endothelial function between the sexes in the hypertensive BPH2 mouse. Thus, the first goal was determine whether blood pressure and endothelial function are significantly different between male and female BPH2 mice. Information regarding the role of the renin-angiotensin system in the BPH2 mouse is also limited; therefore the second goal was to determine the role of the renin-angiotensin system by treating BPH2 mice with captopril for 4 weeks. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) was significantly elevated (P<0.05) and yet comparable (P>0.05) in male and female BPH2 mice and averaged 140±3 and 136±3 mmHg, respectively, whereas, in control mice SBP averaged 112±4 mmHg. Endothelial responses to acetylcholine in carotid artery were markedly impaired (P<0.05) and to a similar degree in male and female BPH2 mice as compared to controls. Captopril treatment was associated with a significant (P<0.05) reduction in blood pressure of 35±7 and 43±4 mmHg in male and female BPH2 mice, respectively. Captopril also resulted in an improvement of endothelial responses in male and female BPH2 mice. These findings demonstrate that male and female BPH2 mice are equally hypertensive and both sexes are characterized by endothelial dysfunction. In addition, the renin-angiotensin system may contribute to both hypertension and endothelial dysfunction in this model. Taken together, our data define the BPH2 mouse as an important model to compare and contrast the effects of hypertension between the sexes. Supported by NIH HL-107632.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document