Thirty-five rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and 27 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study. Regulatory T (Treg) cell numbers were significantly reduced in RA patients. RA Treg cells exhibited an impaired capacity to inhibit proliferation and cytokine secretion of autologous T effector (Teff) cells. However, the crossover experiments further indicated that this impaired suppression was due to resistance of Teff cells but not to an intrinsic defect of Treg cells in RA patients. RA Teff cells showed a higher expression of membrane tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand and secreted more soluble tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL). TRAIL could induce apoptosis in Treg cells. Neutralization of TRAIL restored the regulation of Teff by Treg in RA patients. In summary, our data suggest that reduced peripheral Treg cell numbers and an increased resistance of Teff cells to suppression by Treg cells were present in RA patients, and TRAIL may be an underlying mechanism for the impaired regulation of Teff cells by Treg cells.
Template growth and catalytic growth are two typical mechanisms for the solution-chemistry synthesis of one-dimensional (1D) II-VI semiconductor nanomaterials. Here, we systematically demonstrate the competition relationship between them by tuning the synthesis of 1D ZnS nanostructures in different chain-length primary alkyl-amines. The template growth, derived from the coordination effect of amines, produces ZnS nanobelts and will compete with the Ag2S-catalyzed mechanism as AgNO3 is added into these amines. In short-chain n-propylamine and n-butylamine the template growth is much stronger than the catalytic growth, leading to the morphology maintenance of ZnS nanobelts, whereas the latter replaces the former in long-chain n-octylamine and n-dodecylamine due to the decrease of coordination ability of amines, which yields ZnS nanowires instead of nanobelts. A balance of competition is built between these two mechanisms in middle-length n-hexylamine, producing a mixture of ZnS nanobelts and nanowires. The morphology and growth mechanism changes of ZnS nanostructures have been rationally investigated using various characterization techniques. Meanwhile, the optical properties of the products synthesized before and after adding AgNO3 are comparatively studied by UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra.
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