Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by autoimmune mediated demyelination and neurodegeneration. The CNS of patients with MS harbors expanded clones of antigen-experienced B cells that reside in distinct compartments including the meninges, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and parenchyma. It is not understood whether this immune infiltrate initiates its development in the CNS or in peripheral tissues. B cells in the CSF can exchange with those in peripheral blood, implying that CNS B cells may have access to lymphoid tissue that may be the specific compartment(s) in which CNS resident B cells encounter antigen and experience affinity maturation. In this study, paired tissues were used to determine whether the B cells that populate the CNS mature in the draining cervical lymph nodes (CLNs). High-throughput sequencing of the antibody repertoire demonstrated that clonally expanded B cells were present in both compartments. Founding members of clonal families were more often found in the draining CLNs. More mature clonal family members derived from these founders were observed in the draining CLNs and also in the CNS, including lesions. These data provide new evidence that B cells traffic freely across the tissue barrier with the majority of B cell maturation occurring outside of the CNS in the secondary lymphoid tissue. Our study may aid in further defining the mechanisms of immunomodulatory therapies that either deplete circulating B cells or impact the intrathecal B cell compartment by inhibiting lymphocyte transmigration into the CNS.

Immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) can provide durable clinical responses and improve overall survival. However, only subsets of patients with specific tumor types respond to ICT. Thus, significant challenges remain, including understanding pathways of resistance, optimizing patient selection, improving management of immune-related adverse events, and identifying rational therapeutic combinations. These challenges will need a focused approach encompassing both clinical and basic research, with the integration of reverse translational studies. This integrated approach will lead to identification of potential targets for subsequent clinical trials, which will guide decisions as we develop novel combination strategies to maximize efficacy and minimize toxicities for patients. Significance: ICTs induce durable antitumor responses for subsets of patients with cancer. Recent evidence suggests that rational combinatorial strategies can improve response by overcoming primary and adaptive resistance mechanisms, although these may carry an increased risk of immune-mediated toxicities. This review surveys the current understanding of mechanisms of response and resistance to ICTs and active areas of investigation, and proposes a path forward to improving efficacy and minimizing toxicities through better patient selection and rational combinations.

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Although immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) myocarditis carries a high reported mortality, increasing reports of smoldering myocarditis suggest a clinical spectrum of disease. Endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) remains the gold standard for diagnosis of ICI myocarditis, but different pathologic diagnostic criteria exist. The objective of this study was to classify the spectrum of ICI myocarditis and myocardial inflammation by pathology findings on EMB and correlate this with clinical outcomes.

Invagination of epithelial sheets to form furrows is a fundamental morphogenetic movement and is found in a variety of developmental events including gastrulation and vertebrate neural tube formation. The cephalic furrow is a deep epithelial invagination that forms during Drosophila gastrulation. In the first phase of cephalic furrow formation, the initiator cells that will lead invagination undergo apicobasal shortening and apical constriction in the absence of epithelial invagination. In the second phase of cephalic furrow formation, the epithelium starts to invaginate, accompanied by both basal expansion and continued apicobasal shortening of the initiator cells. The cells adjacent to the initiator cells also adopt wedge shapes, but only after invagination is well underway. Myosin II does not appear to drive apical constriction in cephalic furrow formation. However, cortical F-actin is increased in the apices of the initiator cells and in invaginating cells during both phases of cephalic furrow formation. These findings suggest that a novel mechanism for epithelial invagination is involved in cephalic furrow formation.

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This note proposes an Input to State practically Stable (ISpS) formulation of distributed nonlinear model predictive controller (NMPC) for formation control of constrained autonomous vehicles in presence of communication bandwidth limitation and transmission delays. Planned trajectories are compressed using neural networks resulting in considerable reduction of data packet size, while being robust to propagation delays and uncertainty in neighbors' trajectories. Collision avoidance is achieved by means of spatially filtered potential field. Analytical results proving ISpS and generalized small gain conditions are presented for both strongly-and weakly-connected networks, and illustrated by simulations.

ESR1 mutations were recently found to be an important mechanism of endocrine resistance in ER-positive (ER + ) metastatic breast cancer. To determine the clinicopathological features driving the emergence of the ESR1 mutations we studied plasma cfDNA and detailed clinical data collected from patients with metastatic breast cancer. Droplet Digital PCR was performed for the detection of the most common ESR1 mutations and PIK3CA mutations. Among the patients with ER + /HER2- disease, ESR1 mutations were detected in 30% of the patients. There were no associations between the pathological features of the primary disease or time to distant recurrence and the emergence of ESR1 mutations in metastatic disease. The prevalence of the ESR1 mutations was significantly associated with prior treatment with an aromatase inhibitor in the adjuvant or metastatic setting. The prevalence of the ESR1 mutations was also positively associated with prior fulvestrant treatment. Conversely, the prevalence of ESR1 mutations was lower after treatment with a CDK4/6 inhibitor. There were no significant associations between specific systemic treatments and the prevalence of PIK3CA mutations. These results support the evolution of the ESR1 mutations under the selective pressure of treatment with aromatase inhibitors in the adjuvant and metastatic settings and have important implications in the optimization of adjuvant and metastatic treatment in ER + breast cancer.