Objective. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of infliximab in the treatment of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA).Methods. This was an international, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study. One hundred twenty-two children with persistent polyarticular JRA despite prior methotrexate (MTX) therapy were randomized to receive infliximab or placebo ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00036374.
Ferromagnetic resonance experiments of magnetic nanostructures over a large frequency range from 1 to 225 GHz are presented. We find unambiguous evidence for a nonlinear frequency dependence of the linewidth. The viscous Gilbert damping and two-magnon scattering are clearly separated. Both angular and frequency dependent measurements give a transverse scattering rate within the magnetic subsystem of the order of 10 9 s −1 , whereas the longitudinal Gilbert relaxation into the thermal bath is one to two orders of magnitude smaller.
nanoScan is a high-resolution integrated system for consecutive PET and MR imaging of small laboratory animals. We evaluated the performance of the system, using the NEMA NU 4-2008 protocol for the PET component and the NEMA MS 1-2007, MS 2-2008, and MS 3-2007 standards for the MR imaging component. Methods:The imaging system uses magnetically shielded position-sensitive photomultiplier tubes and a compact 1-T permanent-magnet MR imaging platform. Spatial resolution, sensitivity, counting rate capabilities, and image quality parameters were evaluated in accordance with the aforementioned NEMA standards. Further in vivo evaluation experiments complement the physical validation results. Results: The spatial resolution of the PET system enabled the 0.8-mm rods of a Derenzo phantom to be resolved. With point source and 2-dimensional filtered backprojection reconstruction, the resolution varied from 1.50 to 2.01 mm in full width at half maximum in the radial direction and from 1.32 to 1.65 mm in the tangential direction within the radius of 25 mm. Peak absolute sensitivity was 8.41%. Scatter fraction was 17.3% and 34.0%, and maximum noise-equivalent counting rate was 406 and 119 kcps in the mouselike and ratlike phantom, respectively. The image quality test found a nonuniformity of 3.52% and a spillover ratio of 6.2% and 5.8% in water and air, respectively. In testing of the MR imaging component, artifact-free images with high signal-to-noise ratio were recorded. Geometric distortion was below 5%, and image uniformity was at least 94.5% and 96.6% for the 60-and 35-mm radiofrequency coils, respectively. Conclusion: The nanoScan integrated small-animal PET/MR imaging system has excellent spatial resolution and sensitivity. The performance characteristics of the PET and the MR imaging components are not compromised as a result of their integration onto a single platform. Because of its combination of features and performance parameters, the system provides crucial advantages for preclinical imaging studies over existing PET/CT systems, especially in neurologic and oncologic research.Key Words: preclinical PET; PET/MR imaging; small-animal imaging; performance evaluation; multimodality imaging The unique advantages of molecular imaging with PET in various fields of biomedical research have clearly been shown during the past few decades. PET can play a significant role in the development of therapeutic drugs and molecular imaging biomarkers, in the exploration of physiologic and biochemical processes, and in the in vivo mapping of receptor transmitters and enzymes (1,2). Because of the increasing availability of animal disease models, there is growing interest in using PET for studies on small animals (3,4). In vivo anatomic and biochemical studies on rodents require dedicated scanners with high resolution and sensitivity.PET can localize picomolar concentrations of a labeled molecule (5) but does not provide the anatomic context of the tracer. Resolving brain morphology is of unique importance in dedicated central nervo...
According to new hypotheses, extracellular heat shock proteins (Hsps) may represent an ancestral danger signal of cellular death or lysis-activating innate immunity. Recent studies demonstrating a dual role for Hsp70 as both a chaperone and cytokine, inducing potent proinflammatory response in human monocytes, provided support for the hypothesis that extracellular Hsp is a messenger of stress. Our previous work focused on the complement-activating ability of human Hsp60. We demonstrated that Hsp60 complexed with specific antibodies induces a strong classical pathway (CP) activation. Here, we show that another chaperone molecule also possesses complement-activating ability. Solid-phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was applied for the experiments. Human Hsp70 activated the CP independently of antibodies. No complement activation was found in the case of human Hsp90. Our data further support the hypothesis that chaperones may messenger stress to other cells. Complement-like molecules and primitive immune cells appeared together early in evolution. A joint action of these arms of innate immunity in response to free chaperones, the most abundant cellular proteins displaying a stress signal, may further strengthen the effectiveness of immune reactions.
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