St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

About: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a healthcare organization based out in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Virus. The organization has 9344 authors who have published 19233 publications receiving 1233399 citations. The organization is also known as: St. Jude Children's Hospital & St. Jude Hospital.

Antigenic structure of influenza virus haemagglutinin defined by hybridoma antibodies

Abstract: The recurrence of influenza virus infection in man is attributed primarily to changes occurring in the antigenic structure of the viral surface glycoproteins, especially of the haemagglutinin (HA) molecule1–4. Comparative antigenic analysis5 of epidemic influenza virus strains has allowed the description of ‘strain-specific’ and ‘cross-reactive’ antigenic determinants6–8. However, the interpretation of these findings remained ambiguous, because the specificity of the applied antisera was insufficiently defined and because the antigenic differences among the HA molecules of various epidemic virus strains resulted presumably from a large number of amino acid substitutions9–11. Thus, in characterizing the antigenic structure of the HA molecule, our approach has been (1) to generate a panel of monoclonal anti-HA hybridoma antibodies, (2) to use some of these antibodies to select mutants of the influenza A/PR/8/34 (PR8) virus expressing antigenically altered HA molecules, and (3) to construct an operational antigenic map of the HA molecule by comparative antigenic analysis of the mutant viruses with the monoclonal antibodies. As we report here, analysis of the 34 mutant viruses selected has enabled us to define four antigenic sites on the HA molecule. Our observation that these sites have undergone antigenic drift to a different extent in nature implies that the mechanisms responsible for antigenic drift act selectively on distinct structures of the HA molecule.

Conventional compared with individualized chemotherapy for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abstract: Background The rate of clearance of antileukemic agents differs by a factor of 3 to 10 among children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We hypothesized that the outcome of treatment would be improved if doses were individualized to prevent low systemic exposure to the drugs in patients with fast drug clearance. Methods We stratified and randomly assigned 182 children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia to postremission regimens that included high-dose methotrexate and teniposide plus cytarabine. The doses of these drugs were based on body-surface area (in the conventional-therapy group) or the rates of clearance of the three medications in each patient (in the individualized-treatment group). In the individualized-treatment group, doses were increased in patients with rapid clearance and decreased in patients with very slow clearance. Results Patients who received individualized doses had significantly fewer courses of treatment with systemic exposures below the target range than did patien...