Sex-biased genetic regulation of inflammatory proteins in the Dutch population.

Background: Significant differences in immune responses, prevalence or susceptibility of diseases and treatment responses have been described between males and females. Despite this, sex-differentiation analysis of the genetic architecture of inflammatory proteins is largely unexplored. We performed sex-stratified meta-analysis after protein quantitative trait loci (pQTL) mapping using inflammatory biomarkers profiled using targeted proteomics (Olink inflammatory panel) of two population-based cohorts of Europeans.

Imparting Immunomodulatory Activity to Scaffolds via Biotin-Avidin Interactions.

Biotin-avidin interactions have been explored for decades as a technique to functionalize biomaterials, as well as for targeting, but whether changes in these interactions can be leveraged for immunomodulation remain unknown. The goal of this study was to investigate how biotin density and avidin variant can be used to deliver the immunomodulatory cytokine, interleukin 4 (IL4), from a porous gelatin scaffold, Gelfoam, to primary human macrophages . Here, we demonstrate that the degree of scaffold biotinylation controlled the binding of two different avidin variants, streptavidin and CaptAvidin.