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Highlights • EBV reactivation was observed in patients with COVID-19. • NK + and CD8 + T cell reduction was related to the severity of COVID-19 infection. • An increase of B cells in patients with severe symptoms was documented., Objectives The immunologic profile and opportunistic viral DNA increase were monitored in Italian patients with COVID-19 in order to identify markers of disease severity. Methods A total of 104 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 were evaluated in the study. Of them, 42/104 (40.4%) were hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) and 62/104(59.6%) in a sub-intensive care unit (SICU). Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Parvovirus B19 and Human Herpesvirus 6 virus reactivations were determined by real-time PCR, and lymphocyte subpopulation counts were determined by flow cytometry. Results Among opportunistic viruses, only EBV was consistently detected. EBV DNA was observed in 40/42 (95.2%) of the ICU patients and in 51/61 (83.6%) of the SICU patients. Comparing the two groups of patients, the EBV DNA median level among ICU patients was significantly higher than that observed in SICU patients. In parallel, a significant reduction of CD8 T cell and NK count in ICU patients as compared with SICU patients was observed (p

Significance Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is the premier reference organism for understanding unicellular green algae. Chlamydomonas is an important model for photosynthesis as well as fermentation and other anaerobic pathways under dark anoxic conditions. We have produced a diurnal transcriptome, validated by subproteomic analyses, and matched with measurements of pigments, select metabolites, and physiological parameters. We report that the majority of the algal genome is differentially expressed over the course of the day and the timing of specific genes is dictated by their biological function. We also discovered that fermentation rather than respiration is the preferred metabolic fate of starch-derived glycolytic pyruvate. We offer our rich dataset to the algal and plant communities., The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii displays metabolic flexibility in response to a changing environment. We analyzed expression patterns of its three genomes in cells grown under light–dark cycles. Nearly 85% of transcribed genes show differential expression, with different sets of transcripts being up-regulated over the course of the day to coordinate cellular growth before undergoing cell division. Parallel measurements of select metabolites and pigments, physiological parameters, and a subset of proteins allow us to infer metabolic events and to evaluate the impact of the transcriptome on the proteome. Among the findings are the observations that Chlamydomonas exhibits lower respiratory activity at night compared with the day; multiple fermentation pathways, some oxygen-sensitive, are expressed at night in aerated cultures; we propose that the ferredoxin, FDX9, is potentially the electron donor to hydrogenases. The light stress-responsive genes PSBS, LHCSR1, and LHCSR3 show an acute response to lights-on at dawn under abrupt dark-to-light transitions, while LHCSR3 genes also exhibit a later, second burst in expression in the middle of the day dependent on light intensity. Each response to light (acute and sustained) can be selectively activated under specific conditions. Our expression dataset, complemented with coexpression networks and metabolite profiling, should constitute an excellent resource for the algal and plant communities.

Molecular weight studies have been made of the bulk polymerization of vinyl chloride initiated by borontriethyl-oxygen and by borontriethyl-cumylhydroperoxide at temperatures between − 40° and + 20°. The molecular weight increases with conversion until a constant value is obtained. This behaviour is ascribed to a decrease in the concentration of the initiating radicals with time and to the existence of transfer reactions. As a further explanation of the increase in the molecular weight, variation of the ratio t/kp2 during the polymerization is suggested.

The esterifications of terephthalic acid and monomethylterephthalate with methanol have been studied in order to compare the reaction rate constants of the first and second carboxyl groups of terephthalic acid. The ratio of the two constants is found to be 1 · 18 ± 0 · 07 at 110°. A value of the Hammett substituent constant for the group COOCH3 at the para position is reported (σCOOCH3 = 0 · 59).

Tracer methods have been used to analyse terpolymers formed in radical processes. The results have been used in an attempt to compare the reactivities of styrene, methyl methacrylate and methyl acrylate towards a polymer radical having a terminal maleic anhydride unit. Anomalous results are obtained in an application of the conventional treatment.

The stability of helical conformations in simple polymer chains should depend upon intramolecular interactions, which can be described in a first approximation in terms of repulsive forces between nonbonded atoms along the chain plus a small contribution from dispersion forces. Using the same consistent set of interaction parameters as in a previous work on small molecules, the conformational potential energy of isolated polymer chains satisfying the postulate of the conformational equivalence of each monomeric unit has been investigated as a continuous function of skeletal bond angles. The most stable conformations corresponding to the deepest minima of the potential energy plot for polyethylene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polyoxymethylene and polyethylene oxide are in good agreement with the conformations experimentally observed from X-ray diffraction patterns.

Absolute and percent numbers of peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) subpopulations were evaluated using monoclonal antibodies in 20 subjects splenectomised for trauma. A significant increase was observed in the absolute counts of total PBL, B, null and Leu 7+ cells and in the percent counts of null and Leu 7+ lymphocytes. The percent numbers of OKT11+, OKT4+ and OKT8+ lymphocytes were significantly reduced, but the OKT4+/OKT8+ ratio was not statistically different from normal controls. The increase in B and killer/natural killer cells may provide a compensatory mechanism responsible for surveillance against infections and tumors in splenectomised patients, despite the numerous humoral and cellular abnormalities they commonly display.

Modified galactomannans are described having a total molar substitution exceeding 0.7 and containing an average of between 0.7 and 4 hydrophilic substituents and between 0.0001 and 0.02 hydrophobic substituents per anhydroglycosidic unit, the molar ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic substituents.