The Gram-positive bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major human pathogen that causes infections ranging from acute otitis media to life-threatening invasive disease. Pneumococci have evolved several strategies to circumvent the host immune response, in particular the complement attack. The pneumococcal glycolytic enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) is both secreted and bound to the bacteria

C1q is the initiator of the classical complement pathway and opsonizes apoptotic cells to facilitate phagocytosis. Deficiency of C1q is the strongest known risk factor for development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)a, which appears to be related to ensuing impaired clearance of apoptotic material. The objective of the current study was to investigate new ligands for C1q on the surface of apo

Dodecyl glucooligosides, a class of interesting non ionic surfactant molecules were synthesized by cyclodextrin glucanotransferase from Bacillus macerans using either alpha-cyclodextrin (alpha-CD) or soluble starch as glycosyl donor and dodecyl beta-D-glucoside (C(12)G(1)) or dodecyl beta-D-maltoside (C(12)G(2)) as acceptor substrates. The primary coupling products obtained in the respective react

Quinoline-3-carboxamides are currently in clinical development for treatment of both autoimmune disease and cancer. Carboxamides such as ABR-215757 (5757) have shown efficacy in several in vivo mouse models of human inflammatory autoimmune disease. Some microbial infections in mice cause GM-CSF dependent accumulation of dendritic cells expressing TNFα and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS; Tip

A rapid and simple approach of lactose analysis is proposed based on 3rd generation amperometric biosensors employing cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) from Trametes villosa or Phanerochaete sordida immobilised on screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs). After optimisation of the working conditions of the biosensors - pH of the carrier buffer, flow rate and applied potential - the sensors were able

We report evidence from an experiment where an employer selects one of two workers to perform a task for a fixed compensation. Workers differ in their ability. The employer’s payoff depends on the worker’s ability and on a non-contractible effort that the worker exerts once employed. We find that selected workers exert an effort higher than the minimum enforceable one. When the employers can send

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the ionisation and fragmentation of the nucleoside thymidine in the gas phase. Two sources of ionisation/excitation are used, namely UV photons and low-energy multiply charged ions, associated with coincidences measurements, respectively photoelectron/photofragment (PEPICO) and fragment/fragment. Coupling these experiments with quantum ch

Streptococci are common causes of infective endocarditis (IE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) has provided a practical tool for their species determination. We aimed to investigate if particular groups of non-beta heamolytic streptococci were associated with IE or to specific presentations thereof. The Swedish Registry of Infective En

In this work, we report a method that allows the deterministic, photo-controlled covalent assembly of nanoparticles directly on surface. As a model system, we study the conjugation of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles on a glass surface and confirm that the immobilized nanoparticles maintain their molecular recognition functionality. The glass slide was first modified with perfluor

Specific combinations of dietary fiber (DF) have been observed to result in improved glucose tolerance at a subsequent standardized breakfast. Arabinoxylan oligosaccharides (AXOS) are considered as DF with prebiotic potential, but so far no studies have investigated their metabolic effects in humans. This randomized cross-over study evaluated the overnight impact of breads containing AXOS-rich whe

Chemotherapy is used in the treatment of children and adolescents with malignant diseases. Some of the chemotherapeutic agents are highly toxic and may cause a number of side effects. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the long-term effects on hearing in cancer survivors who had received platinum-based chemotherapy in childhood or adolescence.

Since the discovery of short, regulatory microRNAs (miRNA) 20 years ago, the understanding of their impact on gene regulation has dramatically increased. Differentiation of cells requires comprehensive changes in regulatory networks at all levels of gene expression. Posttranscriptional regulation by miRNA leads to rapid modifications in the protein level of large gene networks, and it is therefore

We show that, if a groupoid graded ring has a grading satisfying a certain nondegeneracy property, then the commutant of the center of the principal component of the ring has the ideal intersection property, that is it intersects nontrivially every nonzero ideal of the ring. Furthermore, we show that for skew groupoid algebras with commutative principal component, the principal component is maxima

Hydrophobic fumed silica dispersions in organic monomers were explored as a pore-forming system in polymer synthesis. The method developed provides a simple and effective way of controlling the pore size in highly cross-linked polymers. Fumed silica suspensions in divinylbenzene were polymerized with subsequent etching of the silica particles, therefore creating the porosity in the polymer. The re

Over the last decades, many liberal democracies have experienced a tension between the education system’s expressed requirement to foster citizenship norms and the liberal (sub-) ideal of norm neutrality. This dilemma has been accentuated by, on the one hand, increased ethnical and cultural diversity, and, on the other hand, liberalization of society in general and the schooling system in particul

Large-scale multi-species data on population changes of alpine or arctic species are largely lacking. At the same time, climate change has been argued to cause poleward and uphill range shifts and the concomitant predicted loss of habitat may have drastic effects on alpine and arctic species. Here we present a multi-national bird indicator for the Fennoscandian mountain range in northern Europe (F

A search is presented for microscopic black holes in a like-sign dimuon final state in proton-proton collisions at root s = 8 TeV. The data were collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). Using a high track multiplicity requirement, 0.6 +/- 0.2 background events from Standard Model processes are predicted and no

Evidence for distinct human cancer stem cells (CSCs) remains contentious and the degree to which different cancer cells contribute to propagating malignancies in patients remains unexplored. In low- to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), we establish the existence of rare multipotent MDS stem cells (MDS-SCs), and their hierarchical relationship to lineage-restricted MDS progenitors.