• Macrophage-derived microvesicles induced cellular differentiation in naive monocytes.• Macrophage-derived microvesicles shuttle of miRNAs to target cells.Microvesicles are small membrane-bound particles comprised of exosomes and varioussized extracellular vesicles. These are released by several cell types. Microvesicles have a variety of cellular functions from communication to mediating growth and differentiation. Microvesicles contain proteins and nucleic acids. Previously, we showed that plasma microvesicles contain microRNAs (miRNAs). Based on our previous report, the majority of peripheral blood microvesicles are derived from platelets, while mononuclear phagocytes, including macrophages, are the second most abundant population. Here, we characterized macrophage-derived microvesicles and explored their role in the differentiation of naive monocytes. We also identified the miRNA content of the macrophage-derived microvesicles. We found that RNA molecules contained in the macrophage-derived microvesicles were transported to target cells, including mono cytes, endothelial cells, epithelial cells, and fibroblasts. Furthermore, we found that miR-223 was transported to target cells and was functionally active. Based on our observations, we hypothesize that microvesicles bind to and activate target cells. Furthermore, we find that microvesicles induce the differentiation of macrophages. Thus, defining key components of this response may identify novel targets to regulate host defense and inflammation. (Blood. 2013;121(6):984-995)

We present a novel deep neural network architecture for end-to-end scene flow estimation that directly operates on large-scale 3D point clouds. Inspired by Bilateral Convolutional Layers (BCL), we propose novel DownBCL, Up-BCL, and CorrBCL operations that restore structural information from unstructured point clouds, and fuse information from two consecutive point clouds. Operating on discrete and sparse permutohedral lattice points, our architectural design is parsimonious in computational cost. Our model can efficiently process a pair of point cloud frames at once with a maximum of 86K points per frame. Our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on the Fly-ingThings3D and KITTI Scene Flow 2015 datasets. Moreover, trained on synthetic data, our approach shows great generalization ability on real-world data and on different point densities without fine-tuning.

“Tiger parenting,” as described by Chua (2011), has put parenting in Asian American families in the spotlight. The current study identified parenting profiles in Chinese American families and explored their effects on adolescent adjustment. In a three-wave longitudinal design spanning eight years, from early adolescence to emerging adulthood, adolescents (54% female), fathers and mothers from 444 Chinese American families reported on eight parenting dimensions (e.g., warmth and shaming) and six developmental outcomes (e.g., GPA and academic pressure). Latent profile analyses on the eight parenting dimensions demonstrated four parenting profiles: supportive, tiger, easygoing, and harsh parenting. Over time, the percentage of parents classified as tiger parents decreased among mothers but increased among fathers. Path analyses showed that the supportive parenting profile, which was the most common, was associated with the best developmental outcomes, followed by easygoing parenting, tiger parenting, and harsh parenting. Compared with the supportive parenting profile, a tiger parenting profile was associated with lower GPA and educational attainment, as well as less of a sense of family obligation; it was also associated with more academic pressure, more depressive symptoms and a greater sense of alienation. The current study suggests that, contrary to the common perception, tiger parenting is not the most typical parenting profile in Chinese American families, nor does it lead to optimal adjustment among Chinese American adolescents.

The development of T cell–mediated autoimmune diseases hinges on the balance between effector and regulatory mechanisms. Using two transgenic mouse lines expressing identical myelin basic protein (MBP)–specific T cell receptor (TCR) genes, we have previously shown that mice bearing exclusively MBP-specific T cells (designated T/R−) spontaneously develop experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), whereas mice bearing MBP-specific T cells as well as other lymphocytes (designated T/R+) did not. Here we demonstrate that T/R− mice can be protected from EAE by the early transfer of total splenocytes or purified CD4+ T cells from normal donors. Moreover, whereas T/R+ mice crossed with B cell–deficient, γ/δ T cell–deficient, or major histocompatibility complex class I–deficient mice did not develop EAE spontaneously, T/R+ mice crossed with TCR-α and -β knockout mice developed EAE with the same incidence and severity as T/R− mice. In addition, MBP-specific transgenic mice that lack only endogenous TCR-α chains developed EAE with high incidence but reduced severity. Surprisingly, two-thirds of MBP-specific transgenic mice lacking only endogenous TCR-β chains also developed EAE, suggesting that in T/R+ mice, cells with high protective activity escape TCR-β chain allelic exclusion. Our study identifies CD4+ T cells bearing endogenous α and β TCR chains as the lymphocytes that prevent spontaneous EAE in T/R+ mice.