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Previous studies have suggested that Taiji practice may improve immune function. This study was intended to examine whether 5 months of moderate Taiji and Qigong (TQ) practice could improve the immune response to influenza vaccine in older adults. Fifty older adults (mean age 77.2 ± 1.3 years) participated in this study (TQ N = 27; wait-list control [CON] N = 23). Baseline pre-vaccine blood samples were collected. All subjects then received the 2003–2004 influenza vaccine during the first week of the intervention. Post-vaccine blood samples were collected 3, 6 and 20 weeks post-intervention for analysis of anti-influenza hemagglutination inhibition (HI) titers. We found a significant (p < 0.05) increase in the magnitude and duration of the antibody response to influenza vaccine in TQ participants when compared to CON. The vaccination resulted in a 173, 130, and 109% increase in HI titer at 3, 6, and 20 weeks post-vaccine, respectively, in the TQ group compared to 58, 54, and 10% in CON. There was a significant between group difference at 3 and 20 weeks post-vaccine and at 20 weeks the TQ group had significantly higher titers compared to the pre-vaccine time point, whereas the CON group did not. A higher percentage of TQ subjects also responded to the influenza A strains with a protective (> 40HI) antibody response (37% TQ vs. 20% CON for the H1N1 strain and 56% TQ vs. 45% CON for the H3N2 strain), but the differences between groups were not statistically significant. Traditional TQ practice improves the antibody response to influenza vaccine in older adults, but further study is needed to determine whether the enhanced response is sufficient to provide definitive protection from influenza infection.

Nowadays tools based on Scanning Probe Methods (SPM) have become indispensable in a wide range of applications such as cell imaging and spectroscopy, profilometry, or surface patterning on a nanometric scale. Common to all SPM techniques is a typically slow working speed which is one of their main drawbacks. The SPM speed barrier can be improved by operating a number of probes in parallel mode. A key element when developing probe array devices is a convenient read-out system for measurements of the probe deflection. Such a read-out should be sufficiently sensitive, resistant to the working environment, and compatible with the operation of large number of probes working in parallel. In terms of fabrication, the geometrical uniformity i.e. the realisation of large numbers of identical probes, is a major concern but also the material choice compatible with high sensitivity, the detection scheme and the working environment is a challenging issue. Examples of promising applications using parallel SPM are dip-pen-nanolithography, data storage, and parallel imaging.

Antibodies play a significant role in the immunotherapy, basic research and the pharmaceutical industry. Nowadays, both DNA recombinant technology and antibody engineering technology are widely used in many fields such as diagnostics, therapeutics, drug targeted delivery, and research reagents. Computational docking of antigen-antibody complexes and analysis of atomic interactions are important to find effective B-cell epitopes and new antibodies with appropriate properties. In the present study, by using ClusPro 2.0 webserver, docking the antigen (factor H binding protein (fHbp)) to the novel-selected scFv antibody was performed. By analyzing the fHbp-scFv complexes, important amino acids were identified. After docking, peptides Ala192-His198, Asp 211-216, and Gly229-Ser228 of the fHbp antigen were recognized as essential interactive regions to the scFv antibody. Results obtained from our bioinformatics study are important and give us the basis for the favored designs of new molecules such as effective B-cell epitopes targeted by neutralizing antibodies for vaccine design.

Antibodies are responsible for antigen recognition in vertebrate organisms. Practically any molecule can be bound by antibodies. In this work structures of 73 complexes of antibodies with small antigens were taken from PDB database and compared. The main epitope of studied ligands was an aromatic ring. Antibodies bound it with a deep cavity, lying between complementary determining regions (CDR) H3 and L3 and formed by aromatic residues. In most cases the aromatic ring of ligand was placed parallel to one or two aromatic sidechains of binding site at 3.5-4 Angstrom distance. This disposition of aromatic rings is a sign of the presence of π-stacking. It was found that small ligands with aromatics area percentage > 36% predominantly form π-stacking interaction with antibodies. Most often this interaction was observed for residues in positions H33, H95, L32 and L93.