Search results for "Immune system"
showing 10 items of 2885 documents
The Interplay between Nutrition, Innate Immunity, and the Commensal Microbiota in Adaptive Intestinal Morphogenesis
2021
The gastrointestinal tract is a functionally and anatomically segmented organ that is colonized by microbial communities from birth. While the genetics of mouse gut development is increasingly understood, how nutritional factors and the commensal gut microbiota act in concert to shape tissue organization and morphology of this rapidly renewing organ remains enigmatic. Here, we provide an overview of embryonic mouse gut development, with a focus on the intestinal vasculature and the enteric nervous system. We review how nutrition and the gut microbiota affect the adaptation of cellular and morphologic properties of the intestine, and how these processes are interconnected with innate immunit…
Transplantation of ACE2- Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improves the Outcome of Patients with COVID-19 Pneumonia
2020
A coronavirus (HCoV-19) has caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, China. Preventing and reversing the cytokine storm may be the key to save the patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to possess a comprehensive powerful immunomodulatory function. This study aims to investigate whether MSC transplantation improves the outcome of 7 enrolled patients with COVID-19 pneumonia in Beijing YouAn Hospital, China, from Jan 23, 2020 to Feb 16, 2020. The clinical outcomes, as well as changes of inflammatory and immune function levels and adverse effects of 7 enrolled patients were assessed for 14 days after MSC injection. MSCs …
Modulation of the Immune System for the Treatment of Glaucoma
2017
Background At present intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering therapies are the only approach to treat glaucoma. Neuroprotective strategies to protect the retinal ganglion cells (RGC) from apoptosis are lacking to date. Substantial amount of research concerning the role of the immune system in glaucoma has been performed in the recent years. This review aims to analyse changes found in the peripheral immune system, as well as selected local changes of retina immune cells in the glaucomatous retina. Methods By dividing the immune system into the innate and the adaptive immune system, a systematic literature research was performed to find recent approaches concerning the modulation of the immune …
The janus face of NKT cell function in autoimmunity and infectious diseases
2018
Natural killer T cells (NKT) are a subset of T lymphocytes bridging innate and adaptive immunity. These cells recognize self and microbial glycolipids bound to non-polymorphic and highly conserved CD1d molecules. Three NKT cell subsets, type I, II and NKT-like expressing different antigen receptors (TCR) were described and TCR activation promotes intracellular events leading to specific functional activities. NKT can exhibit different functions depending on the secretion of soluble molecules and the interaction with other cell types. NKT cells act as regulatory cells in the defence against infections but, on the other hand, their effector functions can be involved in the pathogenesis of sev…
Heat-Treated Bifidobacterium longum CECT-7347: A Whole-Cell Postbiotic with Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, and Gut-Barrier Protection Properties
2021
Non-viable preparations of probiotics, as whole-cell postbiotics, attract increasing interest because of their intrinsic technological stability, and their functional properties, such as immune system modulation, gut barrier maintenance, and protection against pathogens. However, reports on Bifidobacteria-derived postbiotics remain scarce. This study aims to demonstrate the functional properties of a heat-treated (HT), non-viable, Bifidobacterium longum strain, CECT-7347, a strain previously selected for its anti-inflammatory phenotype and ability to improve biomarkers of intestinal integrity in clinical trials. The study used the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and HT-29 cell cultures as e…
Monitoring Skin Dendritic Cells in Steady State and Inflammation by Immunofluorescence Microscopy and Flow Cytometry
2017
Skin dendritic cells (DC) are strategically positioned at the body's second largest epithelial border to the environment. Hence they are the first antigen presenting cells that encounter invading pathogens and environmental antigens, including contact sensitizers and carcinogens penetrating the skin. Moreover, DC have the unique ability to induce immunity or tolerance and thus take center stage in regulating innate and adaptive immune responses. Skin DC can be divided into several phenotypically and functionally distinct subtypes. The three main subsets are Langerin+ epidermal Langerhans cells (LC) and Langerin+ as well as Langerinneg dermal DC. In the steady state skin DC form a dense netw…
Bioinformatic methods for cancer neoantigen prediction
2019
Tumor cells accumulate aberrations not present in normal cells, leading to presentation of neoantigens on MHC molecules on their surface. These non-self neoantigens distinguish tumor cells from normal cells to the immune system and are thus targets for cancer immunotherapy. The rapid development of molecular profiling platforms, such as next-generation sequencing, has enabled the generation of large datasets characterizing tumor cells. The simultaneous development of algorithms has enabled rapid and accurate processing of these data. Bioinformatic software tools encoding the algorithms can be strung together in a workflow to identify neoantigens. Here, with a focus on high-throughput sequen…
Phosphorylated immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs and integrin cytoplasmic domains activate spleen tyrosine kinase via distinct mechanis…
2018
Spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk) is involved in cellular adhesion and also in the activation and development of hematopoietic cells. Syk activation induced by genomic rearrangement has been linked to certain T-cell lymphomas, and Syk inhibitors have been shown to prolong survival of patients with B-cell lineage malignancies. Syk is activated either by its interaction with a double-phosphorylated immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (pITAM), which induces rearrangements in the Syk structure, or by the phosphorylation of specific tyrosine residues. In addition to its immunoreceptor function, Syk is activated downstream of integrin pathways, and integrins bind to the same region in Syk a…
Human CD4 T-Cells With a Naive Phenotype Produce Multiple Cytokines During Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection and Correlate With Active Disease
2018
T-cell-mediated immune responses play a fundamental role in controlling Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) infection, and traditionally, this response is thought to be mediated by Th1-type CD4+ T-cells secreting IFN-γ. While studying the function and specificity of M. tuberculosis-reactive CD4+ T-cells in more detail at the single cell level; however, we found a human CD4+ T-cell population with a naive phenotype that interestingly was capable of producing multiple cytokines (TCNP cells). CD4+ TCNP cells phenotyped as CD95lo CD28int CD49dhi CXCR3hi and showed a broad distribution of T cell receptor Vβ segments. They rapidly secreted multiple cytokines in response to different M. t…
Antigen specificity and clinical significance of IgG and IgA autoantibodies produced in situby tumor-infiltrating b cells in breast cancer
2018
An important role for tumor infiltrating B lymphocytes (TIL-B) in the immune response to cancer is emerging; however, very little is known about the antigen specificity of antibodies produced in situ. The presence of IgA antibodies in the tumor microenvironment has been noted although their biological functions and clinical significance are unknown. This study used a 91-antigen microarray to examine the IgG and IgA autoantibody repertoires in breast cancer (BC). Tumor and adjacent breast tissue supernatants and plasma from BC patients together with normal breast tissue supernatants and plasma from healthy controls (patients undergoing mammary reduction and healthy blood donors) were analyze…