The impact of C-reactive protein levels on the effectiveness of upadacitinib in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a 12-month prospective, non-interventional German study.

Objectives: We investigated whether the effectiveness of upadacitinib in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment is affected by baseline CRP levels in a real-world setting.

Methods: UPwArds was a prospective, non-interventional study. Patients had moderate-to-severe RA and an inadequate response or intolerance to ≥1 disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD).

Non-destructive fluorescence sensing for assessing microclimate, site and defoliation effects on flavonol dynamics and sugar prediction in Pinot blanc grapes.

In an era of growing international competition in modern viticulture, the study and implementation of innovative technologies to increase the production of high-quality grapes and wines are of critical importance. In this study, the non-destructive portable sensor Multiplex, based on fluorescence sensing technique, was applied to evaluate grape maturity parameters and flavonol content of the understudied Pinot blanc variety. The effects of environmental and agronomical factors on flavonol content of Pinot blanc grapes were investigated in eight vineyards characterised by different microclimatic and agronomic conditions.

Bioprocess development workflow: Transferable physiological knowledge instead of technological correlations.

Microbial bioprocesses need to be designed to be transferable from lab scale to production scale as well as between setups. Although substantial effort is invested to control technological parameters, usually the only true constant parameter is the actual producer of the product: the cell. Hence, instead of solely controlling technological process parameters, the focus should be increasingly laid on physiological parameters.

Deterministic generation of multiparticle entanglement by quantum Zeno dynamics.

Multiparticle entangled quantum states, a key resource in quantum-enhanced metrology and computing, are usually generated by coherent operations exclusively. However, unusual forms of quantum dynamics can be obtained when environment coupling is used as part of the state generation. In this work, we used quantum Zeno dynamics (QZD), based on nondestructive measurement with an optical microcavity, to deterministically generate different multiparticle entangled states in an ensemble of 36 qubit atoms in less than 5 microseconds.

Telomerase activity impacts on Epstein-Barr virus infection of AGS cells.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is transmitted from host-to-host via saliva and is associated with epithelial malignancies including nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and some forms of gastric carcinoma (GC). Nevertheless, EBV does not transform epithelial cells in vitro where it is rapidly lost from infected primary epithelial cells or epithelial tumor cells. Long-term infection by EBV, however, can be established in hTERT-immortalized nasopharyngeal epithelial cells.

Activation of NF-κB via endosomal Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) or TLR9 suppresses murine herpesvirus 68 reactivation.

Unlabelled: In order to understand and possibly treat B-cell malignancies associated with latent gammaherpesvirus infection, it is vital to understand the factors that control the balance between the two transcriptional states of gammaherpesviruses: latency and lytic replication. We used murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV 68) as a model system to investigate how engagement of endosomal Toll-like receptors (TLRs) impacts reactivation from latency in vitro and establishment of latent infection in vivo. We found that treatment with TLR7 ligand R848 or TLR9 ligand CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) suppresses reactivation of MHV 68 in vitro.

Entangled states of more than 40 atoms in an optical fiber cavity.

Multiparticle entanglement enables quantum simulations, quantum computing, and quantum-enhanced metrology. Yet, there are few methods to produce and measure such entanglement while maintaining single-qubit resolution as the number of qubits is scaled up. Using atom chips and fiber-optical cavities, we have developed a method based on nondestructive collective measurement and conditional evolution to create symmetric entangled states and perform their tomography.

Surgery for metastasis to the pancreas: is it safe and effective?

Background: Pancreatic metastases are rare and only sparse data exists on treatment options. After recent advances in pancreatic surgery, metastasectomies have become promising treatment alternatives.

Methods: Twenty-six patients underwent pancreatic metastasectomy between 1991 and 2010 at our institution.

Cysteine biosynthesis, in concert with a novel mechanism, contributes to sulfide detoxification in mitochondria of Arabidopsis thaliana.

In higher plants, biosynthesis of cysteine is catalysed by OAS-TL [O-acetylserine(thiol)lyase], which replaces the activated acetyl group of O-acetylserine with sulfide. The enzyme is present in cytosol, plastids and mitochondria of plant cells. The sole knockout of mitochondrial OAS-TL activity (oastlC) leads to significant reduction of growth in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Improved sulfur nutrition provides the basis for enhanced production of sulfur-containing defense compounds in Arabidopsis thaliana upon inoculation with Alternaria brassicicola.

The antifungal activities of many sulfur-containing defense compounds suggest a connection between pathogen infection, primary sulfur metabolism and sulfate nutritional status of plants. This relationship was investigated using Arabidopsis thaliana plants that were cultivated under different sulfur regimes and challenged by Alternaria brassicicola. Plants grown with 500 μM sulfate were significantly less infected compared to plants grown on 50 μM sulfate.

Sulfite reductase defines a newly discovered bottleneck for assimilatory sulfate reduction and is essential for growth and development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The role of sulfite reductase (SiR) in assimilatory reduction of inorganic sulfate to sulfide has long been regarded as insignificant for control of flux in this pathway. Two independent Arabidopsis thaliana T-DNA insertion lines (sir1-1 and sir1-2), each with an insertion in the promoter region of SiR, were isolated. sir1-2 seedlings had 14% SiR transcript levels compared with the wild type and were early seedling lethal.

Plant homologs of the Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine-resistance transporter, PfCRT, are required for glutathione homeostasis and stress responses.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, biosynthesis of the essential thiol antioxidant, glutathione (GSH), is plastid-regulated, but many GSH functions, including heavy metal detoxification and plant defense activation, depend on cytosolic GSH. This finding suggests that plastid and cytosol thiol pools are closely integrated and we show that in Arabidopsis this integration requires a family of three plastid thiol transporters homologous to the Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine-resistance transporter, PfCRT. Arabidopsis mutants lacking these transporters are heavy metal-sensitive, GSH-deficient, and hypersensitive to Phytophthora infection, confirming a direct requirement for correct GSH homeostasis in defense responses.

Mitochondrial serine acetyltransferase functions as a pacemaker of cysteine synthesis in plant cells.

Cysteine (Cys) synthesis in plants is carried out by two sequential reactions catalyzed by the rate-limiting enzyme serine acetyltransferase (SAT) and excess amounts of O-acetylserine(thiol)lyase. Why these reactions occur in plastids, mitochondria, and cytosol of plants remained unclear. Expression of artificial microRNA (amiRNA) against Sat3 encoding mitochondrial SAT3 in transgenic Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants demonstrates that mitochondria are the most important compartment for the synthesis of O-acetylserine (OAS), the precursor of Cys.