To determine the role of interleukin-5 (IL-5) and eosinophils in protection against Strongyloides ratti, mice treated with anti-IL-5 monoclonal antibody (mAb) were infected with S. ratti larvae. Strongyloides ratti egg numbers in faeces (EPG) in mAb treated mice were higher than those in control mice on days 6 and 7 after inoculation. The numbers of migrating worms in mAb treated mice 36h after inoculation were higher than those observed in control mice. Intestinal worm numbers in mAb treated mice 5 days after inoculation were higher than those in control mice. These results show that eosinophils effectively protected the host against S. ratti infection by mainly the larval stage in primary infections. The involvement of eosinophils in protection against secondary infection was also examined. Before secondary infection, mice were treated with anti-IL-5 mAb and infected with S. ratti. Patent infections were not observed in either mAb treated or control Ab treated mice. The numbers of migrating worms in the head and lungs of mAb treated mice increased to 60% of that in primary infected mice. Intestinal worms were not found in mAb treated mice or in contcrol mice after oral implantation of adult worms. Eosinophils were therefore mainly involved in protection against tissue migrating worms in secondary infections.

The red snow algae species found in snow at Resolute, Canadian Arctic, is a unicellular Chlamydomonas nivalis. Investigations by SEM-EDX, TEM, FT-IR, GC and GC-MS suggest that clay aerosols may provide nutrients for these unique systems. The clays provide P, S, K, Si, Ca, and Mg. Soot is also present and halite is very common. This salt probably plays a significant role in lowering the freezing temperature. The red snow algae is coated by a sticky thin film composed of both organic membrane material and inorganics consisting of mica and smectite. Green algae rich in Ca are involved in active photosynthesis while red algae are in a resting stage. Protamine, stearic acid, and decanoic acid were found at Ca-rich green cells while carminic acid and nopalcol BR-13 were found at Ca-poor red cells. The cell wall of red algae is composed of protein with cellulose. The major fatty acides in cells are all of even-carbon species with maximum concentrations of palmitic acid, stearic acid, and behenic acid, suggesting normal chemistry of algae species without C22. High concentration of n-alkanes with n-C24 is a characteristic component in this red snow algae, suggesting the presence of hydrocarbons that could be derived from the Arctic cold desert and/or organic debris of wind-transported bacteria. It is likely that such organic and inorganic matter provide the nutrient sources for the red snow algae in ice.

This paper gives an overview of the IAU B5 commission session on “Laboratory Astrophysics Activities” at the 2022 IAU General Assembly (GA). It provides a brief overview of the talks that were given in that session. The IAU 2022 GA B5 commission meeting was organised to present Laboratory Astrophysics activities in various parts of the world in an attempt to provide a first step towards a “Global Network of Laboratory Astrophysics Network of Activities and Data”. The program (10.5281/zenodo.7051332) and the presentations can be found in the ZENODO “cb5-labastro” community (https://zenodo.org/communities/cb5-labastro).

ABSTRACT IMPACT: Our data demonstrate that VC2 oncolytic virotherapy has significant clinical potential. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Use our novel oncolytic herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1), VC2, to understand how oncolytic virotherapy affects the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment as a mechanism of efficacy. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We tested the efficacy of VC2 as an oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) in a syngeneic B16F10-derived mouse model of melanoma. We modified the B16F10 to express nectin-1 (B16F10n-1), the major receptor for HSV-1. Engrafted B16F10n-1 tumors were intratumorally treated with either phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) or 1x10^6 pfu VC2. At indicated time points, treated tumors were excised and processed for immunohistochemistry or flow cytometry analysis. For our experimental metastasis studies, mice were intravenously challenged with B16F10n-1 cells. For our depletion studies, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were depleted in mice by treatment with mouse anti-CD4 and anti-CD8 monoclonal antibodies respectively, while the control mice were given Rat IgG2b isotype. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We found that VC2 slowed tumor growth rates and significantly enhanced survival times over control treated mice. VC2-treated mice that survived initial tumor engraftment were able to reject a second tumor challenge and were also resistant to lung colonization (experimental metastasis) of tumor cells. Furthermore, VC2 treatment promoted increased intratumoral T cell infiltration and induced a strong antitumor effect that decreased growth rates of distant, untreated tumors. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: Our data demonstrate that VC2 OVT has significant clinical potential. Furthermore, due to the increased survival rates and CD8+ T cells dependence, our model will enable study of the immunological correlates of protection for VC2 OVT and OVT in general, as well as to inform the rational design of future OVs with improved therapeutic potentials.

Stress elicits adaptive responses from the brain, but it can also lead to maladaptive consequences. For example, stress can precipitate mental illness, including depression. Prolonged stress also causes damage to neurons in the hippocampus. Antidepressant drugs must be evaluated, not only for their ability to potentiate adaptive responses, but also to inhibit maladaptive consequences of stress. Ongoing research in our laboratory has compared the atypical tricyclic antidepressant, tianeptine, with the typical tricyclics, desipramine and imipramine, with respect to the effects of isolation and repeated restraint stress. Tianeptine and desipramine similarly attenuated isolation stress-induced increases in locus coeruleus and midbrain tyrosine hydroxylase mRNA levels and isolation-stress induced decreases in preproenkephalin mRNA levels in striatum and nucleus accumbens. However, tianeptine and imipramine differed in their effects in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus on 5HT2, and 5HT1A receptor levels but, surprisingly, produced similar effects on levels of the serotonin transporter labelled with [3H] paroxetine. Tianeptine also prevented stress-induced reductions in the length and number of branchpoints of dendrites of CA3 pyramidal neurons in hippocampus; comparison with effects of typical tricyclics are ongoing. Tianeptine also blocked effects of corticosterone treatment to reduce branching and length of CA3 dendrites. These actions of tianeptine may be due to interactions between 5HT and excitatory amino acids in the mossy fiber terminals on CA3 pyramidal neurons. Taken together, these results indicate that tianeptine has unique properties compared to some other antidepressant drugs, but shares in common with those drugs the ability to attenuate stress effects on tyrosine hydroxylase gene expression and on the serotonin transporter. It remains to be seen whether these actions are the basis of a common antidepressant action.

The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

To characterise the dissemination patterns of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) in a community, we conducted a study utilising molecular and fundamental descriptive epidemiology. The subjects, consisted of women having community-acquired acute urinary tract infection (UTI), were enrolled in the study from 2011 to 2012. UPEC isolates were subjected to antibacterial-susceptibility testing, O serogrouping, phylotyping, multilocus-sequence typing with phylogenetic-tree analysis and pulsed-field-gel electrophoresis (PFGE). From the 209 unique positive urinary samples 166 UPEC were isolated, of which 129 were fully susceptible to the tested antibiotics. Of the 53 sequence types (STs), the four most prevalent STs (ST95, ST131, ST73 and ST357) accounted for 60% of all UPEC strains. Antimicrobial resistance was less frequently observed for ST95 and ST73 than for the others. A majority of rare STs and a few common STs constituted the diversity pattern within the population structure, which was composed of the two phylogenetically distinct clades. Eleven genetically closely related groups were determined by PFGE, which accounted for 42 of the 166 UPEC isolates, without overt geo-temporal clustering. Our results indicate that a few major lineages of UPEC, selected by unidentified factors, are disseminated in this community and contribute to a large fraction of acute UTIs.

The purpose of this report is to describe the appropriate use of indices relating to crystallinity, such as the ‘crystallinity index’, the ‘Hinckley index’, the ‘Kü bler index’, and the ‘Árkai index’. A ‘crystalline’ solid is defined as a solid consisting of atoms, ions, or molecules packed together in a periodic arrangement. A ‘crystallinity index’ is purported to be a measure of crystallinity, although there is uncertainty about what this means (see below). This report discusses briefly the nature of order, disorder and crystallinity in phyllosilicates and discusses why the use of a ‘crystallinity index’ should be avoided. If possible, it is suggested that indices be referred to using the name of the author who originally described the parameter, as in ‘Hinckley index’ or ‘Kübler index’, or in honour of a researcher who investigated the importance of the parameter extensively, as in ‘Árkai index’.

Whether monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins differ from each other in a variety of phenotypes is important for genetic twin modeling and for inferences made from twin studies in general. We analyzed whether there were differences in individual, maternal and paternal education between MZ and DZ twins in a large pooled dataset. Information was gathered on individual education for 218,362 adult twins from 27 twin cohorts (53% females; 39% MZ twins), and on maternal and paternal education for 147,315 and 143,056 twins respectively, from 28 twin cohorts (52% females; 38% MZ twins). Together, we had information on individual or parental education from 42 twin cohorts representing 19 countries. The original education classifications were transformed to education years and analyzed using linear regression models. Overall, MZ males had 0.26 (95% CI [0.21, 0.31]) years and MZ females 0.17 (95% CI [0.12, 0.21]) years longer education than DZ twins. The zygosity difference became smaller in more recent birth cohorts for both males and females. Parental education was somewhat longer for fathers of DZ twins in cohorts born in 1990–1999 (0.16 years, 95% CI [0.08, 0.25]) and 2000 or later (0.11 years, 95% CI [0.00, 0.22]), compared with fathers of MZ twins. The results show that the years of both individual and parental education are largely similar in MZ and DZ twins. We suggest that the socio-economic differences between MZ and DZ twins are so small that inferences based upon genetic modeling of twin data are not affected.

Uniaxial compression tests were performed on samples of the Greenland Ice Gore Project (GRIP) deep ice core, both in the field and later in a cold-room laboratory, in order to understand the ice-flow behavior of large ice sheets. Experiments were conducted under conditions of constant strain rate (type A) and constant load (type B). Fifty-four uniaxial-compression test specimens from 1327-2922 m were selected. Each test specimen (25 mm x 25 mm x 90 mm) was prepared with its uniaxial stress axis inclined 45° from the core axis in order to examine the flow behavior of strong single-maximum ice-core samples with basal planes parallel to the horizontal plane of the ice sheet. The ice-flow enhancement factors show a gradual increase with depth down to approximately 2000 m. These results can be interpreted in terms of an increase in the fourth-order Schmid factor. Below 2000 m depth, the flow-enhancement factor increases to about 20-30 with a relatively high variability When the Schmid factor was > 0.46, the enhancement factor obtained was higher than expected from the .-axis concentrations measured. The higher values of flow-enhancement factor were obtained from specimens with a cloudy band structure. It was revealed that cloudy bands affect ice-deformation processes, but the details remain unclear.

A deep ice core drilled to 2503 m depth at Dome Fuji, Antarctica, contains 25 visible tephra layers during the past 340 ka. The thickness of tephra layers is in the range 1-24 mm. The thickness and duration at deposition, determined by a simple ice-flow model, suggests that a violent volcanic eruption caused ash to fall onto the Antarctic ice sheet for ~5 years and to form a ~100 mm thick tephra layer at 117 ka BE Two tephra layers at depths of 573 and 2202 m probably originated from volcanoes in the South Sandwich Islands, Southern Ocean, given the size of tephra shards, >20μm in diameter, and their major chemical composition. Only eight of the 25 tephra layers can also be recognized in the Vostok (Antarctica) ice core, but all correspond to the Vostok tephras if we consider cloudy bands to be volcanic.

An X-ray transmission method has been developed to obtain a continuous profile of bulk densities of ice cores. Intensities of X-rays transmitted through an ice-core sample were continuously measured by an X-ray detector during translation of the sample across the X-ray beam. A thick section of an ice core with a constant thickness was prepared by band-sawing followed by microtome planing. The X-ray intensity profile obtained was converted to a density profile using a calibration curve for X-ray absorption vs ice thickness. Using this method, spatial resolution of the density profile was down to 1 mm. X-ray radiographs were also taken on a two-dimensional detector imaging plate, in order to observe layer structures of the ice cores.

The method was applied to Dome Fuji (Antarctica) ice cores from the surface to 110 m depth. From the density profile obtained we calculated the power spectrum of the density variation by the discrete Fourier transform, and obtained several peaks at different frequencies. The center period in the spectrum was close to the annual accumulation thickness at the drill site.

The North Greenland Icecore Project (NorthGRIP) was initiated in 1995 as a joint international programme involving Denmark, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Iceland, the U.S.A., France and Switzerland. the main goal was to obtain undisturbed high-resolution information about the Eemian climatic period (115–130 kyr BP). the records from the Greenland Icecore Project (GRIP) and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) in central Greenland are different and disturbed down in the ice covering this period. Internal radio-echo sounding layers show that NorthGRIP, placed 325 km north-northwest of GRIP at the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet, is located on a gently sloping ice ridge with very flat bedrock and internal layers found so high that an undisturbed Eemian record is possible. Internal layers much farther above bedrock than their apparent counter parts at GRIP suggest that conditions are favourable for recovery of an undisturbed Eemian record. So far, a 1351 mdeep ice core (NorthGRIP1) and a 3001 mdeep ice core (NorthGRIP 2) have been recovered. the ice thickness is expected to be 3080 m, and the ice temperature at 3001 m is –5.6°C, so we expect basal melting at the bedrock. Most of the Eemian ice will be melted away, leaving only the last part and the transition between the Eem and the Last Glacial Period. At 3001 m the age of the ice is 110 kyr BP and the annual layers are of the order 1 cm.With modern methods the annual layers can be resolved, resulting in detailed information on the decline of the warm Eemian period into the Last Glacial Period.

An updated compilation of published and new data of major-ion (Ca, Cl, K, Mg, Na, NO3, SO4) and methylsulfonate (MS) concentrations in snow from 520 Antarctic sites is provided by the national ITASE (International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition) programmes of Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and the national Antarctic programme of Finland. The comparison shows that snow chemistry concentrations vary by up to four orders of magnitude across Antarctica and exhibit distinct geographical patterns. The Antarctic-wide comparison of glaciochemical records provides a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of the fundamental factors that ultimately control the chemistry of snow or ice samples. This paper aims to initiate data compilation and administration in order to provide a framework for facilitation of Antarctic-wide snow chemistry discussions across all ITASE nations and other contributing groups. The data are made available through the ITASE web page (http://www2.umaine.edu/itase/content/syngroups/snowchem.html) and will be updated with new data as they are provided. In addition, recommendations for future research efforts are summarized.