VISTA Emerges as a Promising Target against Immune Evasion Mechanisms in Medulloblastoma.

Background: Relapsed medulloblastoma (MB) poses a significant therapeutic challenge due to its highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have struggled to mitigate this challenge, largely due to low T-cell infiltration and minimal PD-L1 expression. Identifying the mechanisms driving low T-cell infiltration is crucial for developing more effective immunotherapies.

Crow deaths caused by West Nile virus during winter.

In New York, an epizootic of American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) deaths from West Nile virus (WNV) infection occurred during winter 2004-2005, a cold season when mosquitoes are not active. Detection of WNV in feces collected at the roost suggests lateral transmission through contact or fecal contamination.

Method for the analysis of thyreostats in meat tissue using gas chromatography with nitrogen phosphorus detection and tandem mass spectrometric confirmation.

An analytical method not requiring a mercury column cleanup step is described for the isolation and detection of four thyreostatic agents in meat tissue. The use of these growth promotants in livestock has been banned by regulatory agencies. The meat tissue is homogenized with acetonitrile-water, centrifuged, and the supernatant is partitioned with petroleum ether.

Potential artifact formation of dioxins in ball clay during supercritical fluid extraction.

Earlier surveys indicate that meat, fish and dairy products are the principal source of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin (PCDD) exposure in the diet. A recent finding by others of PCDDs in chickens that consumed a feed containing PCDD led to the finding of ball clay, an anti-caking agent, as the source. Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) was studied as a means to isolate PCDDs from commercial ball clays using GC-electron capture detection (muECD) as a means to screen for these contaminants.

Supercritical fluid extraction of atrazine and other triazine herbicides from fortified and incurred eggs.

Triazines are a class of important pre-emergent weed herbicides. Some members of this class of herbicides exhibit carcinogenic and immunotoxicity properties, which make their use controversial in areas where animal feed crops are grown. It is therefore important to determine if triazine residues are transported to animal food products in order to ascertain the extent of human exposure.