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- Latanova, Anastasia, et al.
(författare)
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Fusion to Flaviviral Leader Peptide Targets HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase for Secretion and Reduces Its Enzymatic Activity and Ability to Induce Oxidative Stress but Has No Major Effects on Its Immunogenic Performance in DNA-Immunized Mice
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Immunology Research. - : HINDAWI LTD. - 2314-8861 .- 2314-7156.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reverse transcriptase (RT) is a key enzyme in viral replication and susceptibility to ART and a crucial target of immunotherapy against drug-resistant HIV-1. RT induces oxidative stress which undermines the attempts to make it immunogenic. We hypothesized that artificial secretion may reduce the stress and make RT more immunogenic. Inactivated multidrug-resistant RT (RT1.14opt-in) was N-terminally fused to the signal providing secretion of NS1 protein of TBEV (Ld) generating optimized inactivated Ld-carrying enzyme RT1.14oil. Promotion of secretion prohibited proteasomal degradation increasing the half-life and content of RT1.14oil in cells and cell culture medium, drastically reduced the residual polymerase activity, and downmodulated oxidative stress. BALB/c mice were DNA-immunized with RT1.14opt-in or parental RT1.14oil by intradermal injections with electroporation. Fluorospot and ELISA tests revealed that RT1.14opt-in and RT1.14oil induced IFN-gamma/IL-2, RT1.14opt-in induced granzyme B, and RT1.14oil induced perforin production. Perforin secretion correlated with coproduction of IFN-gamma and IL-2 (R = 0,97). Both DNA immunogens induced strong anti-RT antibody response. Ld peptide was not immunogenic. Thus, Ld-driven secretion inferred little change to RT performance in DNA immunization. Positive outcome was the abrogation of polymerase activity increasing safety of RT-based DNA vaccines. Identification of the molecular determinants of low cellular immunogenicity of RT requires further studies.
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| 2. |
- Zakomirnyi, Vadim I., et al.
(författare)
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Refractory titanium nitride two-dimensional structures with extremely narrow surface lattice resonances at telecommunication wavelengths
- 2017
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Ingår i: Applied Physics Letters. - : AMER INST PHYSICS. - 0003-6951 .- 1077-3118. ; 111:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Regular arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles have brought significant attention over the last decade due to their ability to support localized surface plasmons (LSPs) and exhibit diffractive grating behavior simultaneously. For a specific set of parameters (i.e., period, particle shape, size, and material), it is possible to generate super-narrow surface lattice resonances (SLRs) that are caused by interference of the LSP and the grating Rayleigh anomaly. In this letter, we propose plasmonic structures based on regular 2D arrays of TiN nanodisks to generate high-Q SLRs in an important telecommunication range, which is quite difficult to achieve with conventional plasmonic materials. The position of the SLR peak can be tailored within the whole telecommunication bandwidth (from approximate to 1.26 mu m to approximate to 1.62 mu m) by varying the lattice period, while the Q-factor is controlled by changing nanodisk sizes. We show that the Q-factor of SLRs can reach a value of 2 x 10(3), which is the highest reported Q-factor for SLRs at telecommunication wavelengths so far. Tunability of optical properties, refractory behavior, and low-cost fabrication of TiN nanoparticles paves the way for manufacturing cheap nanostructures with extremely stable and adjustable electromagnetic response at telecommunication wavelengths for a large number of applications.
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