Receptor-mediated endocytosis is an essential process used by eukaryotic cells to internalise many molecules. Several clathrin-independent endocytic routes exist, but the molecular mechanism of each pathway remains to be uncovered. The present study focuses on a clathrin-independent dynamin-dependent pathway used by interleukin 2 receptors (IL-2R), essential players of the immune response. Ras-...

Sera and urine samples from 115 Sicilian patients with boutonneuse fever (BF), obtained at the time of diagnosis and after clinical recovery, were analyzed for concentrations of interleukin (IL)-2 and soluble IL-2 receptor (sIL-2R). There were significantly high levels of sIL-2R in the urine and sera of patients with acute BF compared with healthy controls, and the values returned to normal fol...

A soluble IL-2 receptor (sIL-2R) is a circulating form of a membrane receptor localized on lymphoid and some cancer cells. The biological function of sIL-2R has not been completely understood. Substantially, it seems to reflect T-lymphocyte activation in diseases of different pathology. Moreover, the soluble receptor has been considered, at least in part, responsible for unsuccessful immunother...

In the 2R/R converters imprecision of resistors introduces two types of error. Positive errors introduce a gap in the analog domain, while negative errors cause non-monotonicity in the input/output characteristics. Changing the resistor ratio from 2R/R to 2R/R, with R>R, we intentionally introduce an additional negative error in order to avoid resulting positive error gap. In this paper we prop...

A newly isolated Galactomyces geotrichum ZJUTZQ200 strain containing an epoxide hydrolase was used to resolve racemic ethyl 3-phenylglycidate (rac-EPG) for producing (2R,3S)-ethyl-3-phenylglycidate ((2R,3S)-EPG). G. geotrichum ZJUTZQ200 was verified to be able to afford high enantioselectivity in whole cell catalyzed synthesis of this chiral phenylglycidate synthon. After the optimization of th...

Mammals infected with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi develop suppressed cellular and humoral immune responses. This immunosuppression has been correlated with reduced T-cell responses involving deficient interleukin-2 (IL-2) production and is apparently mediated primarily by suppressor macrophages. Various forms of immunosuppression in other systems have been associated with increased...

The Kneser graph K(n, r) has as vertices all r-subsets of an n-set with two vertices adjacent if the corresponding subsets are disjoint. It is conjectured that, except for K(5, 2), these graphs are Hamiltonian for all n ≥ 2r +1. In this note we describe an inductive construction which relates Hamiltonicity of K(2r + 2s, r) to Hamiltonicity of K(2r′+s, r′). This shows (among other things) that H...

By using mAb and flow cytometry, a constitutive expression of the p75 IL-2R was revealed in human peripheral blood CD8+ T cells and TCR delta-1+ T cells as well as in CD16+ NK cells. Anti-p75 IL-2R mAb almost completely inhibited the induction of cytolytic activity in these T cells by brief exposure to IL-2, as estimated by anti-TCR/CD3 mAb-targeted cytotoxicity. While anti-p55 IL-2R mAb alone ...

The levels of soluble IL-2R were measured in pleural fluid from patients with tuberculosis pleurisy. There were significantly elevated soluble IL-2R values in tuberculous pleural fluid as compared with pleural fluid of nontuberculous etiology including malignant, bacterial and transudative pleural effusions. In patients with tuberculous pleurisy, the level of soluble IL-2R in pleural fluid was ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) could be a useful marker of disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); sIL-2R levels in serum and in synovial fluid were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. METHODS Sixty five serum and 27 synovial fluid samples were obtained from patients with RA. Twenty five serum and 28 synovial fluid samples from pat...