Towards Bright Single-Photon Emission in Elliptical Micropillars.

In recent years, single-photon sources (SPSs) based on the emission of a single semiconductor quantum dot (QD) have been actively developed. While the purity and indistinguishability of single photons are already close to ideal values, the high brightness of SPSs remains a challenge. The widely used resonant excitation with cross-polarization filtering usually leads to at least a two-fold reduction in the single-photon counts rate, since single-photon emission is usually unpolarized, or its polarization state is close to that of the exciting laser.

Long-term outcomes of ruxolitinib therapy in steroid-refractory graft-versus-host disease in children and adults.

Acute and chronic steroid-refractory graft-versus-host disease (srGVHD) is a life-threatening complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation. There are a number of reports on case series describing efficacy of ruxolitinib in both acute and chronic srGVHD. We conducted a prospective study (NCT02997280) in 75 patients with srGVHD (32 acute, 43 chronic, 41 adults, and 34 children).

Immune Components of Liver Damage Associated with Connective Tissue Diseases.

Autoimmune connective tissue diseases are associated with liver abnormalities and often have overlapping pathological and clinical manifestations. As a result, they can present great clinical challenges and evoke questions about diagnostic criteria for liver diseases. Moreover, discriminating between liver involvement as a manifestation of connective tissue disease and primary liver disease can be challenging since they share a similar immunological mechanism.

Identification of a novel HLA-A*680202 allele by sequence-based typing in an African American individual.

The new HLA-A*680202 differs from HLA-A*680201 by one synonymous nucleotide substitution at position 618 (ACG --> ACT).

Identification of a novel HLA-C allele, Cw*021602, by sequence-based typing in a family of German descent.

The novel allele HLA-Cw*021602 differs from HLA-Cw*021601 by a nuecleotide substitution at condon 162 (ACG to ACA).

Effect of desensitization in solid organ transplant recipients depends on some cytokines genes polymorphism.

Desensitization (DS) is widely used to decrease PRA in solid organs transplant candidates (TC). Various numbers of cycles of DS are required to reduce or eliminate donor specific antibodies (DSA). The goal of this study was to investigate if there was a correlation between polymorphism (PM) of some cytokine genes and intensity of DS required to make the recipient/donor cross match compatible.

Identification of a novel HLA-DRB1 allele, DRB1*116502, by sequence-based typing in an African-American individual.

The novel allele HLA-DRB1*116502 differs from HLA-DRB1*110201 by nucleotide substitutions at codon 59 (GAG-->GAC) and 93 (CGG-->AGG).

Regulation of FasL expression in natural killer cells.

Fas ligand (FasL)-mediated cytotoxicity is initiated in natural killer (NK) cells through ligation of their activating receptors. The CD16 receptor has been shown to induce FasL expression and cytotoxicity in NK cells. In this study, we made the novel observation that FasL expression was upregulated in NKL cells stimulated through 2B4 and LFA-1 activating receptors, implying a role for FasL-mediated cytotoxicity early in the immune response.