Development of PD-1 blockade peptide-cell conjugates to enhance cellular therapies for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Blockade of the interaction of the immune checkpoint receptor programmed cell death protein (PD)-1 and its ligand PD-L1 has been found to be a promising cancer treatment. Our previous studies identified that nABPD1 competed with PD-L1 to bind PD-1. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of anti-tumor immunotherapy of ICIK cells conjugated with peptides in vivo and in vitro. Here, we synthesized the nABPD1 derivatives SBP1 and SBP2 and showed that their binding efficiency to PD-1-positive improving cytokine-induced killer (ICIK) cells was 98 and 82%, respectively. The cytotoxicity of ICIK cells to T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cells was increased by conjugating with SBP1 or SBP2, which was 2 times higher than that of ICIK cells alone. Furthermore, mice experiments showed that the fluorescence intensity of leukemia cells in T-ALL xenograft models was reduced by more than 95%, indicating that the peptides enhanced the therapeutic effect in vivo, while morphological evaluations showed that the peptides had no toxicity to important organs. Therefore, peptide-cell conjugates (PCCs) may be a novel method to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy by blocking PD-1 in T-ALL patients.

Prediction of Particulate Concentration Based on Correlation Analysis and a Bi-GRU Model

In recent decades, particulate pollution in the air has caused severe health problems. Therefore, it has become a hot research topic to accurately predict particulate concentrations. Particle concentration has a strong spatial-temporal correlation due to pollution transportation between regions, making it important to understand how to utilize these features to predict particulate concentration. In this paper, Pearson Correlation Coefficients (PCCs) are used to compare the particle concentrations at the target site with those at other locations. The models based on bi-directional gated recurrent units (Bi-GRUs) and PCCs are proposed to predict particle concentrations. The proposed model has the advantage of requiring fewer samples and can forecast particulate concentrations in real time within the next six hours. As a final step, several Beijing air quality monitoring stations are tested for pollutant concentrations hourly. Based on the correlation analysis and the proposed prediction model, the prediction error within the first six hours is smaller than those of the other three models. The model can help environmental researchers improve the prediction accuracy of fine particle concentrations and help environmental policymakers implement relevant pollution control policies by providing tools. With the correlation analysis between the target site and adjacent sites, an accurate pollution control decision can be made based on the internal relationship.

Influence of Hydrocarbon Moiety of DMMP on Flame Propagation in Lean Mixtures

Phosphorus-containing compounds (PCCs) have been found to be significantly more effective than CF₃Br for reducing burning velocity when added to stoichiometric hydrocarbon-air flames. However, when added to lean flames, DMMP (dimethylmethylphosphonate) is predicted to increase the burning velocity. The addition of DMMP to lean mixtures apparently increases the equivalence ratio (fuel/oxidizer) and the combustion temperature, as a result of hydrocarbon content of DMMP molecule. Premixed flames studies with added DMMP, OP(OH)₃, and CF₃Br are used to understand the different behavior with varying equivalence ratio and agent loading. Decrease of the equivalence ratio leads to the decrease of inhibition effectiveness of PCCs relative to bromine-containing compounds. For very lean mixtures CF₃Br becomes more effective inhibitor than PCCs. Calculations of laminar burning velocities for pure DMMP/air mixtures predict the maximum burning velocity of 10.5 cm/s at 4.04 % of DMMP in air and at an initial temperature of 400 K. Adiabatic combustion temperature is 2155 K at these conditions.

The stromal compartments in pancreatic cancer: are there any therapeutic targets?

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterised by an abundant stromal response also known as a desmoplastic reaction. Pancreatic Stellate Cells have been identified as playing a key role in pancreatic cancer desmoplasia. There is accumulating evidence that the stroma contributes to tumour progression and to the low therapeutic response of PDAC patients. In this review we described the main actors of the desmoplastic reaction within PDAC and novel therapeutic approaches that are being tested to block the detrimental function of the stroma.

Serum calcium (S-Ca), the forgotten test: preliminary results of an appropriateness strategy to detect primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT)

BACKGROUND

With the introduction of automated calcium measurements with multichannel continuous-flow analyzers in the 1970s, primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT), the silent disease, began to be detected. Years later, with the first appearance of random access analyzers, laboratory tests were requested if the patient had clinical symptoms and pHPT was again overlooked. In this current scenario, serum calcium (s-Ca) is at risk of becoming a forgotten test. In consensus with endocrinologists and general practitioners (GPs), we implemented a strategy to detect asymptomatic pHPT patients.

METHODS

During a 9 month period, the Laboratory Information System automatically added s-Ca to every sample of blood from primary care patients older than 45 years, without a s-Ca request in the previous three years. If hypercalcemia was detected (albumin-corrected s-Ca > 2.6 mmol/L), phosphate, 25-hydroxy vitamin D and parathyroid hormone (PTH) were automatically processed in the same sample. We reviewed the medical record of every patient with hypercalcemia.

RESULTS

S-Ca was automatically added to 14,461 samples, with 79 hypercalcemia results. 14 hypercalcemia results with PTH levels in the reference range were clinically justified by causes other than pHPT. Of the remaining 65 patients, 41 were referred for evaluation by endocrinology. 34 resulted in a diagnosis of pHPT and 7 are currently in study. 24 patients were not followed by GPs to find out the primary cause of hypercalcemia. After a phone call from the laboratory, they are also currently being studied for hypercalcemia. Each case represented a cost of 110.4 US dollars.

CONCLUSION

Our proposed opportunistic screening to discover pHPT seems cost-effective.