TY - JOUR AB - Malaria, a disease caused by parasites of the Plasmodium genus, begins when Plasmodium-infected mosquitoes inject malaria sporozoites while searching for blood. Sporozoites migrate from the skin via blood to the liver, infect hepatocytes, and form liver stages which in mice 48 h later escape into blood and cause clinical malaria. Vaccine-induced activated or memory CD8 T cells are capable of locating and eliminating all liver stages in 48 h, thus preventing the blood-stage disease. However, the rules of how CD8 T cells are able to locate all liver stages within a relatively short time period remains poorly understood. We recently reported formation of clusters consisting of variable numbers of activated CD8 T cells around Plasmodium yoelii (Py)-infected hepatocytes. Using a combination of experimental data and mathematical models we now provide additional insights into mechanisms of formation of these clusters. First, we show that a model in which cluster formation is driven exclusively by T-cell-extrinsic factors, such as variability in “attractiveness” of different liver stages, cannot explain distribution of cluster sizes in different experimental conditions. In contrast, the model in which cluster formation is driven by the positive feedback loop (i.e., larger clusters attract more CD8 T cells) can accurately explain the available data. Second, while both Py-specific CD8 T cells and T cells of irrelevant specificity (non-specific CD8 T cells) are attracted to the clusters, we found no evidence that non-specific CD8 T cells play a role in cluster formation. Third and finally, mathematical modeling suggested that formation of clusters occurs rapidly, within few hours after adoptive transfer of CD8 T cells, thus illustrating high efficiency of CD8 T cells in locating their targets in complex peripheral organs, such as the liver. Taken together, our analysis provides novel insights into and attempts to discriminate between alternative mechanisms driving the formation of clusters of antigen-specific CD8 T cells in the liver. AU - Kelemen, Réka K AU - Rajakaruna, H AU - Cockburn, IA AU - Ganusov, VV ID - 6983 JF - Frontiers in Immunology SN - 1664-3224 TI - Clustering of activated CD8 T cells around Malaria-infected hepatocytes is rapid and is driven by antigen-specific cells VL - 10 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We give fault-tolerant algorithms for establishing synchrony in distributed systems in which each of thennodes has its own clock. Our algorithms operate in a very strong fault model: we require self-stabilisation, i.e.,the initial state of the system may be arbitrary, and there can be up to f> r eff and show that these systems obey universal scaling laws different from neutral particles. An accurate description of these states requires both the Coulomb-modified scattering length and the effective range unless the Coulomb interaction is very weak (D -> ). Our findings are relevant for bound states whose spatial extent is significantly larger than the range of the attractive potential. These states enjoy universality – their character is independent of the shape of the short-range potential. AU - Schmickler, C.H. AU - Hammer, H.-W. AU - Volosniev, Artem ID - 6955 JF - Physics Letters B SN - 0370-2693 TI - Universal physics of bound states of a few charged particles VL - 798 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Activity-dependent bulk endocytosis generates synaptic vesicles (SVs) during intense neuronal activity via a two-step process. First, bulk endosomes are formed direct from the plasma membrane from which SVs are then generated. SV generation from bulk endosomes requires the efflux of previously accumulated calcium and activation of the protein phosphatase calcineurin. However, it is still unknown how calcineurin mediates SV generation. We addressed this question using a series of acute interventions that decoupled the generation of SVs from bulk endosomes in rat primary neuronal culture. This was achieved by either disruption of protein–protein interactions via delivery of competitive peptides, or inhibition of enzyme activity by known inhibitors. SV generation was monitored using either a morphological horseradish peroxidase assay or an optical assay that monitors the replenishment of the reserve SV pool. We found that SV generation was inhibited by, (i) peptides that disrupt calcineurin interactions, (ii) an inhibitor of dynamin I GTPase activity and (iii) peptides that disrupt the phosphorylation-dependent dynamin I–syndapin I interaction. Peptides that disrupted syndapin I interactions with eps15 homology domain-containing proteins had no effect. This revealed that (i) calcineurin must be localized at bulk endosomes to mediate its effect, (ii) dynamin I GTPase activity is essential for SV fission and (iii) the calcineurin-dependent interaction between dynamin I and syndapin I is essential for SV generation. We therefore propose that a calcineurin-dependent dephosphorylation cascade that requires both dynamin I GTPase and syndapin I lipid-deforming activity is essential for SV generation from bulk endosomes. AU - Cheung, Giselle T AU - Cousin, Michael A. ID - 7005 IS - 5 JF - Journal of Neurochemistry SN - 0022-3042 TI - Synaptic vesicle generation from activity‐dependent bulk endosomes requires a dephosphorylation‐dependent dynamin–syndapin interaction VL - 151 ER -