Neutrophil Activation Markers and Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment Response to the JAK1/2 Inhibitor Baricitinib.

Objective: Neutrophils play an important role in regulating immune and inflammatory responses in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We assessed whether baricitinib, a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor, could reduce neutrophil activation and whether a neutrophil activation score could predict treatment response.

Methods: Markers of neutrophil activation, calprotectin, and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in plasma from patients with RA (n = 271) and healthy controls (n = 39).

Effects of Gold Nanoparticles on the Stepping Trajectories of Kinesin.

A substantial increase in the temporal resolution of the stepping of dimeric molecular motors is possible by tracking the position of a large gold nanoparticle (GNP) attached to a labeled site on one of the heads. This technique was employed to measure the stepping trajectories of conventional kinesin (Kin1) using the time-dependent position of the GNP as a proxy. The trajectories revealed that the detached head always passes to the right of the head that is tightly bound to the microtubule (MT) during a step.

An analytical correlated random walk model and its application to understand subdiffusion in crowded environment.

Subdiffusion in crowded environment such as movement of macromolecule in a living cell has often been observed experimentally. The primary reason for subdiffusion is volume exclusion by the crowder molecules. However, other effects such as hydrodynamic interaction may also play an important role.

A new coarse-grained model for E. coli cytoplasm: accurate calculation of the diffusion coefficient of proteins and observation of anomalous diffusion.

A new coarse-grained model of the E. coli cytoplasm is developed by describing the proteins of the cytoplasm as flexible units consisting of one or more spheres that follow Brownian dynamics (BD), with hydrodynamic interactions (HI) accounted for by a mean-field approach. Extensive BD simulations were performed to calculate the diffusion coefficients of three different proteins in the cellular environment.