Zinc finger protein Zfp335 is required for the formation of the naïve T cell compartment.

The generation of naïve T lymphocytes is critical for immune function yet the mechanisms governing their maturation remain incompletely understood. We have identified a mouse mutant, bloto, that harbors a hypomorphic mutation in the zinc finger protein Zfp335. Zfp335(bloto/bloto) mice exhibit a naïve T cell deficiency due to an intrinsic developmental defect that begins to manifest in the thymus and continues into the periphery, affecting T cells that have recently undergone thymic egress.

New methods for calculating the free energy of charged defects in solid electrolytes.

A methodology for calculating the contribution of charged defects to the configurational free energy of an ionic crystal is introduced. The temperature-independent Wang-Landau Monte Carlo technique is applied to a simple model of a solid electrolyte, consisting of charged positive and negative defects on a lattice. The electrostatic energy is computed on lattices with periodic boundary conditions, and used to calculate the density of states and statistical-thermodynamic potentials of this system.

Visualization of splenic marginal zone B-cell shuttling and follicular B-cell egress.

The splenic marginal zone is a unique microenvironment where resident immune cells are exposed to the open blood circulation. Even though it has an important role in responses against blood-borne antigens, lymphocyte migration in the marginal zone has not been intravitally visualized due to challenges associated with achieving adequate imaging depth in this abdominal organ. Here we develop a two-photon microscopy procedure to study marginal zone and follicular B-cell movement in the live mouse spleen.