Development of a dual permeability model within a hydrological catchment modeling framework: 1D application.

Preferential flow contributes significantly to pesticide fast transfer from surface to groundwater. Modeling this process at several scales is an important challenge for improving the representation of this process which is often neglected. In this study, we developed a dual permeability approach in a hydrological modeling framework, CMF, which is a collaborative environment for developing spatially-integrated models of water fluxes. In the development we propose here, infiltration in macropores which are connected to the surface is activated when the first matrix layer reaches saturation. A transfer function is used to represent water fluxes from macropores to matrix. This approach is tested in 1D by comparison with the dual permeability approach included in Hydrus1D, on 4 typical soil-types (sandy-loam, silty-loam, clay-loam and sandy-clay-loam). The results showed an underestimation of the flux infiltrated in the matrix surface and important infiltration in macropores with the new model, for most of soil-types, comparing to Hydrus1D. Similarities are observed for fluxes transferred from macropores to matrix. Solute transport is then coupled to CMF-DP model considering a convection transport and a linear adsorption to represent pesticides behavior in macroporous soils. The approach we developed is similar to Hydrus though having the advantage to need less input parameters, especially for the exchange between the two porous media. In the future, it could be applied for predicting pesticides transfer in macroporous soils at different scales for operational applications.

An anti-GD2 single chain Fv selected by phage display and fused to Pseudomonas exotoxin A develops specific cytotoxic activity against neuroblastoma derived cell lines.

Since the disialoganglioside GD2 is abundantly present on the surface of neuroblastoma cells, we constructed a new recombinant immunotoxin for possible clinical use in patients with neuroblastoma. A functional 14.18 scFv-phage was obtained by selection of an anti-GD2 hybridoma derived phage antibody mini-library on the neuroblastoma-derived, GD2-expressing cell line IMR5. By insertion into the bacterial expression vector pBM1.1 the selected scFv was fused to a deletion mutant of Pseudomonas exotoxin A (ETA'). Periplasmically expressed 14.18(scFv)-ETA' bound to the GD2 expressing cell line IMR5, but not to the GD2 negative Hodgkin-derived cell line L540Cy as documented by ELISA and flow cytometry. The recombinant immunotoxin (rIT) inhibited cell viability of IMR5 cells by 50% at concentrations (IC(50)) of 0.326 microg/ml. This recombinant immunotoxin will be further investigated in vivo for its value as a new immunotherapeutic agent for the treatment of patients with neuroblastoma.