Hybrid organic-inorganic structures trigger the formation of primitive cell-like compartments.

Alkaline hydrothermal vents have become a candidate setting for the origins of life on Earth and beyond. This is due to several key features including the presence of gradients of temperature, redox potential, pH, the availability of inorganic minerals, and the existence of a network of inorganic pore spaces that could have served as primitive compartments. Chemical gardens have long been used as experimental proxies for hydrothermal vents. This paper investigates-10pc]Please note that the spelling of the following author name in the manuscript differs from the spelling provided in the article metadata: Richard J. G. Löffler. The spelling provided in the manuscript has been retained; please confirm. a set of prebiotic interactions between such inorganic structures and fatty alcohols. The integration of a medium-chain fatty alcohol, decanol, within these inorganic minerals, produced a range of emergent 3 dimensions structures at both macroscopic and microscopic scales. Fatty alcohols can be considered plausible prebiotic amphiphiles that might have assisted the formation of protocellular structures such as vesicles. The experiments presented herein show that neither chemical gardens nor decanol alone promote vesicle formation, but chemical gardens grown in the presence of decanol, which is then integrated into inorganic mineral structures, support vesicle formation. These observations suggest that the interaction of fatty alcohols and inorganic mineral structures could have played an important role in the emergence of protocells, yielding support for the evolution of living cells.

Autoselective transport of mammalian cells with a chemotactic droplet.

Liquid chemical droplets, as models of artificial life, when pushed away from equilibrium possess some life-like behaviors such as fission, fusion, movement and chemotaxis. Chemotaxis, directed motion in response to external gradients, is typically an important process in living systems, but certain artificial systems are also capable of this activity. Previously it was shown that droplet-based chemotactic systems when interfaced with biological systems can act as transporters to move cargo such as hydrogel alginate capsules containing living cells. Here the effectiveness of our system to transport different mammalian cell lines (H460, H1299, A549, HEK293T and HS68) was tested. It was discovered that some lung cancer cell lines release surfactants only when placed in the hydrogel capsules. These surfactants establish the interface between the encapsulated cells and the droplet and also support the chemotaxis of the droplet. Because of this, the droplet-mediated transport system is selective for living cells that produce biosurfactants. This is an example of how the integration of artificial life and biological life could be designed where the systems augment each other and function together as a unit. In this case the living system produces the surfactants that the droplet needs for cargo transport and the artificial system provides the transport for the otherwise sessile mammalian cells. Future applications of droplet-based cell handling that is able to distinguish between cells based not only on viability but cell type, developmental stage or other quantifiable traits are considered.

Transport of Live Cells Under Sterile Conditions Using a Chemotactic Droplet.

1-Decanol droplets, formed in an aqueous medium containing decanoate at high pH, become chemotactic when a chemical gradient is placed in the external aqueous environment. We investigated if such droplets can be used as transporters for living cells. We developed a partially hydrophobic alginate capsule as a protective unit that can be precisely placed in a droplet and transported along chemical gradients. Once the droplets with cargo reached a defined final destination, the association of the alginate capsule and decanol droplet was disrupted and cargo deposited. Both Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis cells survived and proliferated after transport even though transport occurred under harsh and sterile conditions.

Loss of HLA-DR expression and immunoblastic morphology predict adverse outcome in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma - analyses of cases from two prospective randomized clinical trials.

BACKGROUND: Research on prognostically relevant immunohistochemical markers in diffuse large B-cell lymphomas has mostly been performed on retrospectively collected clinical data. This is also true for immunohistochemical classifiers that are thought to reflect the cell-of-origin subclassification of gene expression studies. In order to obtain deeper insight into the heterogeneous prognosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphomas and to validate a previously published immunohistochemical classifier, we analyzed data from a large set of cases from prospective clinical trials with long-term follow-up. DESIGN AND METHODS: We performed morphological and extensive immunohistochemical analyses in 414 cases of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma from two prospective randomized clinical trials (NHL-B1/B2, Germany). Classification into germinal center and non-germinal center subtypes of B-cell lymphoma was based on the expression pattern of CD10, BCL6, and IRF4. Multivariate analyses were performed adjusting for the factors in the International Prognostic Index. RESULTS: Analyzing 20 different epitopes on tissue microarrays, expression of HLA-DR, presence of CD23(+) follicular dendritic cell meshworks, and monotypic light chain expression emerged as International Prognostic Index-independent markers of superior overall survival. Immunoblastic morphology was found to be related to poor event-free survival. The non-germinal center subtype, according to the three-epitope classifier (CD10, BCL6, and IRF4) did not have prognostic relevance when adjusted for International Prognostic Index factors (relative risk=1.2, p=0.328 for overall survival; and relative risk=1.1, p=0.644 for event-free survival). CONCLUSIONS: The previously reported International Prognostic Index-independent prognostic value of stratification into germinal center/non-germinal center B-cell lymphoma using the expression pattern of CD10, BCL6, and IRF4 was not reproducible in our series. However, other markers and the morphological subtype appear to be of prognostic value.