Project description:This paper describes the epidemiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Northern Ireland (NI) between 26 February 2020 and 26 April 2020, and analyses enhanced surveillance and contact tracing data collected between 26 February 2020 and 13 March 2020 to estimate secondary attack rates (SAR) and relative risk of infection among different categories of contacts of individuals with laboratory confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Our results show that during the study period COVID-19 cumulative incidence and mortality was lower in NI than the rest of the UK. Incidence and mortality were also lower than in the Republic of Ireland (ROI), although these observed differences are difficult to interpret given considerable differences in testing and surveillance between the two nations. SAR among household contacts was 15.9% (95% CI 6.6%-30.1%), over 6 times higher than the SAR among 'high-risk' contacts at 2.5% (95% CI 0.9%-5.4%). The results from logistic regression analysis of testing data on contacts of laboratory-confirmed cases show that household contacts had 11.0 times higher odds (aOR: 11.0, 95% CI 1.7-70.03, P-value: 0.011) of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to other categories of contacts. These results demonstrate the importance of the household as a locus of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and the urgency of identifying effective interventions to reduce household transmission.
Project description:B*38:01 and B*39:06 are present with phenotypic frequencies <2% in the general population, but are of interest as B*39:06 is the B allele most associated with type 1 diabetes susceptibility and 38:01 is most protective. A previous study derived putative main anchor motifs for both alleles based on peptide elution data. The present study has utilized panels of single amino acid substitution peptide libraries to derive detailed quantitative motifs accounting for both primary and secondary influences on peptide binding. From these analyses, both alleles were confirmed to utilize the canonical position 2/C-terminus main anchor spacing. B*38:01 preferentially bound peptides with the positively charged or polar residues H, R, and Q in position 2 and the large hydrophobic residues I, F, L, W, and M at the C-terminus. B*39:06 had a similar preference for R in position 2, but also well-tolerated M, Q, and K. A more dramatic contrast between the two alleles was noted at the C-terminus, where the specificity of B*39:06 was clearly for small residues, with A as most preferred, followed by G, V, S, T, and I. Detailed position-by-position and residue-by-residue coefficient values were generated from the panels to provide detailed quantitative B*38:01 and B*39:06 motifs. It is hoped that these detailed motifs will facilitate the identification of T cell epitopes recognized in the context of two class I alleles associated with dramatically different dispositions towards type 1 diabetes, offering potential avenues for the investigation of the role of CD8 T cells in this disease.
Project description:Intraflagellar transport (IFT) relies on the IFT complex and is required for ciliogenesis. The IFT-B complex consists of 9-10 stably associated core subunits and six "peripheral" subunits that were shown to dissociate from the core structure at moderate salt concentration. We purified the six "peripheral"IFT-B subunits of Chlamydomonas reinhardtiias recombinant proteins and show that they form a stable complex independently of the IFT-B core. We suggest a nomenclature of IFT-B1 (core) and IFT-B2 (peripheral) for the two IFT-B subcomplexes. We demonstrate that IFT88, together with the N-terminal domain of IFT52, is necessary to bridge the interaction between IFT-B1 and B2. The crystal structure of IFT52N reveals highly conserved residues critical for IFT-B1/IFT-B2 complex formation. Furthermore, we show that of the three IFT-B2 subunits containing a calponin homology (CH) domain (IFT38, 54, and 57), only IFT54 binds αβ-tubulin as a potential IFT cargo, whereas the CH domains of IFT38 and IFT57 mediate the interaction with IFT80 and IFT172, respectively. Crystal structures of IFT54 CH domains reveal that tubulin binding is mediated by basic surface-exposed residues.
Project description:Serum samples from Chagas disease patients, pre-treatment and 2, 6, 12 and 24 months post-treatment with benznidazole and extracted with methanol. Polar C18 chromatography. PRM analysis of acylcarnitine metabolites.