Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University

About: Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Raman spectroscopy. The organization has 34448 authors who have published 56139 publications receiving 2392398 citations.

Immune activation and inflammation in HIV-1 infection: causes and consequences.

Abstract: Thorough research on HIV is progressively enabling us to understand the intricate mechanisms that link HIV-1 infection to the onset of immunodeficiency. The infection and depletion of CD4(+) T cells represent the most fundamental events in HIV-1 infection. However, in recent years, the role played by chronic immune activation and inflammation in HIV pathogenesis has become increasingly apparent: quite paradoxically, immune activation levels are directly associated with HIV-1 disease progression. In addition, HIV-1-infected patients present intriguing similarities with individuals of old age: their immune systems are characterized by a loss of regenerative capacity and an accumulation of ageing T cells. In this review, we discuss the potential reasons for the establishment of sustained immune activation and inflammation from the early stages of HIV-1 infection, as well as the long-term consequences of this process on the host immune system and health. A simplified model of HIV pathogenesis is proposed, which links together the three major facets of HIV-1 infection: the massive depletion of CD4(+) T cells, the paradoxical immune activation and the exhaustion of regenerative capacity.

UltraVISTA: a new ultra-deep near-infrared survey in COSMOS

Abstract: In this paper we describe the first data release of the UltraVISTA near-infrared imaging survey of the COSMOS field. We summarise the key goals and design of the survey and provide a detailed description of our data reduction techniques. We provide stacked, sky-subtracted images in YJHK_s and narrow-band filters constructed from data collected during the first year of UltraVISTA observations. Our stacked images reach 5σAB depths in an aperture of 2″ diameter of ~25 in Y and ~24 in JHK_s bands and all have sub-arcsecond seeing. To this 5σ limit, our K_s catalogue contains 216 268 sources. We carry out a series of quality assessment tests on our images and catalogues, comparing our stacks with existing catalogues. The 1σ astrometric rms in both directions for stars selected with 17.0 < K_s(AB) < 19.5 is ~0.08″ in comparison to the publicly-available COSMOS ACS catalogues. Our images are resampled to the same pixel scale and tangent point as the publicly available COSMOS data and so may be easily used to generate multi-colour catalogues using this data. All images and catalogues presented in this paper are publicly available through ESO’s “phase 3” archiving and distribution system and from the UltraVISTA web site.

Determinants of community structure in the global plankton interactome

Abstract: Species interaction networks are shaped by abiotic and biotic factors. Here, as part of the Tara Oceans project, we studied the photic zone interactome using environmental factors and organismal abundance profiles and found that environmental factors are incomplete predictors of community structure. We found associations across plankton functional types and phylogenetic groups to be nonrandomly distributed on the network and driven by both local and global patterns. We identified interactions among grazers, primary producers, viruses, and (mainly parasitic) symbionts and validated network-generated hypotheses using microscopy to confirm symbiotic relationships. We have thus provided a resource to support further research on ocean food webs and integrating biological components into ocean models.