High number of antigen binding cells in unimmunized mice and possible occurrence of multispecific lymphocytes

A high frequency of Tobacco Mosaic virus (TMV) binding cells was found in spleen cells from unimmunized mice (about 3 to 4%). TMV binding is strongly inhibited by previous incubation with anti immunoglobulin antisera. After stripping of membrane receptors, a full recovery for antigen binding capacity can be observed after 24 hr culture. Experiments are presented to exclude artefactual fluorescent cells: interaction of TMV with some non immunoglobulin membrane components; interaction of fluorescent anti TMV antibody with the Fc receptor of B cells; the binding of TMV to cytophilic immunoglobulins. The occurrence of lymphocytes able to bind several non crossreactive antigens is suggested by three lines of evidence: the high number of antigen binding cells in unimmunized mice, presence of surface immunoglobulins on some TMV binding cells after complete capping of TMV receptors and the direct demonstration of lymphocytes binding TMV and hemocyanin at different membrane sites.

Super-resolution in confocal scanning microscopy: II :The incoherent case

For pt.I see ibid. vol.3, p.195 (1987). The authors have shown that the resolution of a confocal scanning microscope can be improved by recording the full image at each scanning point and then inverting the data. These analyses were restricted to the case of coherent illumination. They investigate, along similar lines, the incoherent case, which applies to fluorescence microscopy. They investigate the one-dimensional and two-dimensional square-pupil problems and they prove, by means of numerical computations of the singular value spectrum and of the impulse response function, that for a signal-to-noise ratio of, say 10%, it is possible to obtain an improvement of approximately 60% in resolution with respect to the conventional incoherent light confocal microscope. This represents a working bandwidth of 3.5 times the Rayleigh limit.