Search results for "Fetal Blood"
showing 10 items of 65 documents
Foetal erythrocytes exhibit an increased ability to scavenge for nitric oxide
1998
The presence of adult human whole blood inhibited in vitro relaxations of rat aortic rings by the nitric oxide (NO) donor S-nitroso-N-acetyl-DL-penicillamine (SNAP). Incubation with foetal blood containing the same concentration of haemoglobin produced a shift to the right of the relaxation curve. SNAP-induced vasorelaxations were more inhibited by dialysed solutions of haemoglobin than by the presence of erythrocytes in the organ bath, but there were no differences between the effect of adult or foetal haemoglobins. The presence of plasma from adult or foetal blood did not modify the effects of SNAP. Relaxations induced by endogenous, endothelium-derived, NO were more inhibited by foetal t…
Synergism between exposure to mercury and use of iodine supplements on thyroid hormones in pregnant women
2015
Objective: To evaluate the association between mercury exposure and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), total triiodothyronine (TT3) and free thyroxine (FT4) levels during pregnancy as well as to explore if there is any synergic action between mercury and intake of iodine from different sources. Methods: The study population was 1407 pregnant women participating in the Spanish INMA birth cohort study. Total mercury concentrations were analyzed in cord blood. Thyroid hormones (THs) were measured in serum samples collected at 13.2 +/- 1.5 weeks of gestation. The association between mercury and TH levels was evaluated with multivariate linear regression models. Effect modification caused by iod…
In the presence of IL-21 human cord blood T cells differentiate to IL-10-producing Th1 but not Th17 or Th2 cells.
2012
Abstract IL-21, a member of the IL-2 cytokine family, is mainly produced by activated CD4+ T cells and controls the activity of immune and also non-immune cells. As a pleiotropic cytokine, IL-21 acts on both innate and adaptive immune responses, suggesting that IL-21 may be a master regulator of the T-cell-dependent adaptive immune response. Although IL-21 is described as mostly promoting inflammation, evidence also suggests inhibitory effects of IL-21. However, its role, particularly in the human neonatal immune system, has not been detailed so far. Here, we assessed the effect of IL-21 in the specific context of the neonatal immune response and delineated differences between the human new…
Heart valve tissue engineering: how far is the bedside from the bench?
2015
Heart disease, including valve pathologies, is the leading cause of death worldwide. Despite the progress made thanks to improving transplantation techniques, a perfect valve substitute has not yet been developed: once a diseased valve is replaced with current technologies, the newly implanted valve still needs to be changed some time in the future. This situation is particularly dramatic in the case of children and young adults, because of the necessity of valve growth during the patient's life. Our review focuses on the current status of heart valve (HV) therapy and the challenges that must be solved in the development of new approaches based on tissue engineering. Scientists and physicia…
IL-27 improves migrational and antiviral potential of CB dendritic cells.
2013
Abstract Interleukin (IL)-27 is known to be increased considerably in cord blood (CB) dendritic cells (DCs) after TLR ligation. Previously, we demonstrated that also basal IL-27 levels are higher in CB DCs. Here, we examined effects of IL-27 on monocyte derived dendritic cells (moDCs) to approach its particular role in the specialized immune system of the human neonate. Exogenous IL-27 promotes IL-27 transcription in CB and adult blood (AB) moDCs. IL-27 acts on CB moDCs primarily by significantly augmenting IL-27 protein, secondarily by increasing transcription of CXCL10 among other chemokines, chemokine receptor CCR1, interferon stimulated genes, transcription factor IRF8 and genes involve…
Human Haemato-Endothelial Precursors: Cord Blood CD34+ Cells Produce Haemogenic Endothelium
2012
Embryologic and genetic evidence suggest a common origin of haematopoietic and endothelial lineages. In the murine embryo, recent studies indicate the presence of haemogenic endothelium and of a common haemato-endothelial precursor, the haemangioblast. Conversely, so far, little evidence supports the presence of haemogenic endothelium and haemangioblasts in later stages of development. Our studies indicate that human cord blood haematopoietic progenitors (CD34+45+144-), triggered by murine hepatocyte conditioned medium, differentiate into adherent proliferating endothelial precursors (CD144+CD105+CD146+CD31+CD45-) capable of functioning as haemogenic endothelium. These cells, proven to give…
Dominant TCRB-V-J chain usage and clonal expansion of sarcoma-reactive CD4+ HLA-DR-restricted T cells suggest a limited set of immunodominant sarcoma…
1997
Tumor-reactive CD4+ T cells have been isolated from tumor patients, and their specifity but not T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire has been analyzed. Since we have described CD4+ sarcoma-reactive T-cell clones, we now sought to determine whether the TCR repertoire of these clones provides information on the spectrum of recognized sarcoma antigens. We analyzed the TCR beta (TCRB) chain repertoire of 19 CD4+ HLA-DR-restricted T-cell clones reactive with the autologous sarcoma cell line MZ-MES-1, with HLA-DR-matched tumor cell lines of different tissue origins and B-cell blasts. We identified 7 different clonotypes, which used a limited set of TCRBV and TCRBJ segments. Although the CDR3 of the d…
Evidence of alloreactive T lymphocytes in fetal liver: implications for fetal hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
2000
The use of hematopoietic stem cells for in utero transplantation to create permanent hematochimerism represents a new concept in fetal therapy, although this approach has provided heterogeneous results. In this paper we have undertaken molecular, phenotypic and functional studies aimed at identifying the presence of fully competent T lymphocytes in samples of fetal livers and cord blood. We found mature VDJ TCR beta chain transcripts in fetal liver cells taken from 7 to 16 weeks of gestation and a similar pattern was detected in cord blood cells sampled from 13.5 to 20.5 weeks of gestation. A Vbeta8 gene sequence comparable to that detected in adult PBMC was found in fetal liver samples at …
Crosstalk between leukemia-associated proteins MOZ and MLL regulates HOX gene expression in human cord blood CD34+ cells
2010
MOZ and MLL, encoding a histone acetyltransferase (HAT) and a histone methyltransferase, respectively, are targets for recurrent chromosomal translocations found in acute myeloblastic or lymphoblastic leukemia. In MOZ (MOnocytic leukemia Zinc-finger protein)/CBP- or mixed lineage leukemia (MLL)-rearranged leukemias, abnormal levels of HOX transcription factors have been found to be critical for leukemogenesis. We show that MOZ and MLL cooperate to regulate these key genes in human cord blood CD34+ cells. These chromatin-modifying enzymes interact, colocalize and functionally cooperate, and both are recruited to multiple HOX promoters. We also found that WDR5, an adaptor protein essential fo…
Optimization of retroviral-mediated gene transfer to human NOD/SCID mouse repopulating cord blood cells through a systematic analysis of protocol var…
1999
Abstract Retroviral transduction of human hematopoietic stem cells is still limited by lack of information about conditions that will maximize stem cell self-renewal divisions in vitro. To address this, we first compared the kinetics of entry into division of single human CD34 + CD38 − cord blood (CB) cells exposed in vitro to three different flt3-ligand (FL)-containing cytokine combinations. Of the three combinations tested, FL + hyperinterleukin 6 (HIL-6) yielded the least clones and these developed at a slow rate. With either FL + Steel factor (SF) + HIL-6 + thrombopoietin (TPO) or FL + SF + interleukin 3 (IL-3) + IL-6 + granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), >90% of the cells th…