HIV-1 glycoprotein (gp) 120 from different clades is a potent stimulus for IL-4 and IL-13 release from basophils purified from healthy individuals seronegative for Abs to HIV-1 and HIV-2. IL-4 mRNA, constitutively present in basophils, was increased after stimulation by gp120 and was inhibited cyclosporin A and tacrolimus. IL-4 and IL-13 secretion from basophils activated by gp120 was not correlated. There was a correlation between the maximum gp120- and anti-IgE-induced IL-4 release from basophils. The average t1/2 gp120-induced IL-4 release was lower than for IL-13 release. Basophils from which IgE had been dissociated by brief exposure to lactic acid no longer released IL-4 in response to gp120 or to anti-IgE. The response to a mAb cross-linking the α-chain of high-affinity receptor for IgE (FcεRI) was unaffected by this treatment. Three human VH3+ monoclonal IgM inhibited gp120-induced secretion of IL-4 from basophils. In contrast, VH6+ monoclonal IgM did not inhibit the release of IL-4 induced by gp120. Synthetic peptides distant from the NH2 and COOH termini of gp120MN inhibited the activating property of gp120MN. These results indicate that gp120, which acts as a viral superantigen, interacts with the VH3 region of IgE to induce the release of IL-4 and IL-13 from human FcεRI+ cells.

A high‐resolution method to image the horizontal boundaries of gravity and magnetic sources is presented (the enhanced horizontal derivative (EHD) method). The EHD is formed by taking the horizontal derivative of a sum of vertical derivatives of increasing order. The location of EHD maxima is used to outline the source boundaries. While for gravity anomalies the method can be applied immediately, magnetic anomalies should be previously reduced to the pole. We found that working on reduced‐to‐the‐pole magnetic anomalies leads to better results than those obtainable by working on magnetic anomalies in dipolar form, even when the magnetization direction parameters are not well estimated. This is confirmed also for other popular methods used to estimate the horizontal location of potential fields source boundaries. The EHD method is highly flexible, and different conditions of signal‐to‐noise ratios and depths‐to‐source can be treated by an appropriate selection of the terms of the summation. A strategy to perform high‐order vertical derivatives is also suggested. This involves both frequency‐ and space‐domain transformations and gives more stable results than the usual Fourier method. The high resolution of the EHD method is demonstrated on a number of synthetic gravity and magnetic fields due to isolated as well as to interfering deep‐seated prismatic sources. The resolving power of this method was tested also by comparing the results with those obtained by another high‐resolution method based on the analytic signal. The success of the EHD method in the definition of the source boundary is due to the fact that it conveys efficiently all the different boundary information contained in any single term of the sum. Application to a magnetic data set of a volcanic area in southern Italy helped to define the probable boundaries of a calderic collapse, marked by a number of magmatic intrusions. Previous interpretations of gravity and magnetic fields suggested a subcircular shape for this caldera, the boundaries of which are imaged with better detail using the EHD method.

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A new method based on 3D multiridge analysis of potential fields assumes a 3D subset in the harmonic region and studies the behavior of potential field ridges, which are built by joining extreme points of the analyzed field computed at different altitudes. Three types of ridges are formed by searching for the zeros of the first horizontal and first vertical derivatives of the potential field (types I and II, respectively) and the zeros of the potential field itself (type III). This method uses a redundant set of ridges, called a multiridge set, to determine source type and location. For homogeneous potential fields generated by simple sources, all of the ridges are straight lines converging to the source position. This method analyzes the multiridges by using a geometric criterion to find the source position at the intersection of the multiridge set and by solving the three reduced Euler equations associated with ridge types I, II, and III. The reduced Euler type I and II equations are used to obtain the structural index and the vertical and horizontal source positions; equation type III estimates the horizontal and vertical source positions. Tests on synthetic as well as the Bishop model field yield good results even with noise-corrupted data. Results obtained using magnetic data collected over the wreck of a military ship in the Tyrrhenian Sea successfully determine its vertical and horizontal positions and the structural index