Search results for "SETS"
showing 10 items of 592 documents
The role of recent thymic emigrant-regulatory T-cell (RTE-Treg) differentiation during pregnancy.
2014
During pregnancy, regulatory T cells (Tregs) have a key role in maternal immune tolerance to the semi-allogeneic fetus. Our previous results showed that the naive CD45RA(+)-Treg pool is functionally improved in pregnant women compared with non-pregnant women. Therefore, we examined the thymic output and differentiation of CD45RA(+)CD31(+) recent thymic emigrant (RTE)-Tregs during normal pregnancy and in the presence of preeclampsia. With the onset of pregnancy, the composition of the total CD4(+)CD127(low+/-)FoxP3(+)-Treg pool changed in the way that its percentage of RTE- and CD45RA(-)CD31(+)-memory Tregs decreased strongly, whereas that of the CD45RA(+)CD31(-)-mature naive (MN)-Tregs did …
Rituximab in refractory pemphigus vulgaris
2008
Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a severe chronic autoimmune blistering disease of skin and mucous membranes. The use of systemic corticosteroids in pemphigus has dramatically reduced its mortality rate, but the long-term use of steroids leads to severe side effects, many of which are serious. For this reason it is often necessary to add immunosuppressive agents to the regimen. However, there are occasional refractory cases in which therapy with conventionally accepted modalities is either not efficacious or not possible on account of side effects. Rituximab is a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting CD20, an integral membrane protein highly expressed on the surface of pre-B lymphocytes and a…
Analysis of T-Lymphocyte Subsets After Phytohemagglutinin Stimulation in Normal and Type 1 Diabetic Mothers and Their Infants
1992
Our aim was to investigate the immunological status of diabetic pregnancy, which is an overlap of diabetic immunity abnormalities and the immunological modifications normally occurring during pregnancy. METHOD: We studied lymphocyte subpopulations and lymphokine production, after 96 h of phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation, from normal and Type I diabetic pregnant women at delivery time and from the respective cord blood. RESULTS: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from both normal and Type I diabetic mothers showed an increase in CD8+ and a decrease in CD4+ cells compared to the respective cord blood mononuclear cells (CBMC). Moreover, Type I PBMC showed a lower number of “activate…
The role of regulatory T cell (Treg) subsets in gestational diabetes mellitus.
2014
Physiological changes during normal pregnancy are characterized by an inflammatory immune response and insulin resistance. Therefore, we hypothesize that gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) may be caused by an inappropriate adaption of the maternal immune system to pregnancy. In this study we examined the role of regulatory T cell (Treg) differentiation for the development of GDM during pregnancy. We used six-colour flow cytometric analysis to demonstrate that the total CD4(+) CD127(low+/-) CD25(+) forkhead box protein 3 (FoxP3(+)) T(reg) pool consists of four different T(reg) subsets: naive CD45RA(+) T(regs), HLA-DR(-) CD45RA(-) memory T(regs) (DR(-) T(regs)) and the highly differentiated …
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…
B Cells Compartment in Centenarian Offspring and Old People
2010
Immunosenescence is considered a major contributory factor to the increased frequency of morbidity and mortality among elderly. On the other hand centenarians are considered the best example of successful ageing. To gain insight into mechanisms of immunosenescence and its clinical relevance, a possible model is represented by centenarians and/or their offspring. Nowadays centenarians are not more a curiosity, but in Europe are 1/8000 inhabitants and it has been demonstrated that the centenarian offspring, who are typically in their 70s and 80s, have a survival advantage when compared with age-matched controls whose parents died at an average life expectancy. Then again, studies on immunosen…
B cells and immunosenescence: a focus on IgG+IgD-CD27- (DN) B cells in aged humans.
2010
Immunosenescence contributes to the decreased ability of the elderly to control infectious diseases, which is also reflected in their generally poor response to new antigens and vaccination. It is known that the T cell branch of the immune system is impaired in the elderly mainly due to expansion of memory/effector cells that renders the immune system less able to respond to new antigens. B lymphocytes are also impaired in the elderly in terms of their response to new antigens. In this paper we review recent work on B cell immunosenescence focusing our attention on memory B cells and a subset of memory B cells (namely IgG(+)IgD(-)CD27(-)) that we have demonstrated is increased in healthy el…
Benchmarking of airports service quality by a new fuzzy MCDM approach
2015
Recent approaches to the service quality evaluation problem are focused on the employment of multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) procedures, since processes related to service quality evaluation presentmeaningful communality elements to MCDM ones. Based on such assumption, in the present paper a new fuzzy MCDMapproach is developed tocomparatively evaluate passenger service quality of the international airports inSicily (Italy). In particular, by incorporating the respondents confidence level and degree of optimism on fuzzy assessments, quality scores of main airport service criteria are estimated, whereas ELECTRE multi criteria decision support methodis proposed to point out theservices qu…
Stubborn sets, frozen actions, and fair testing
2021
Many partial order methods use some special condition for ensuring that the analysis is not terminated prematurely. In the case of stubborn set methods for safety properties, implementation of the condition is usually based on recognizing the terminal strong components of the reduced state space and, if necessary, expanding the stubborn sets used in their roots. In an earlier study it was pointed out that if the system may execute a cycle consisting of only invisible actions and that cycle is concurrent with the rest of the system in a non-obvious way, then the method may be fooled to construct all states of the full parallel composition. This problem is solved in this study by a method tha…
Regulation of IgE production and airway reactivity by CD4(-)CD8(-) regulatory T cells
2015
The mechanisms of tolerance induction occurring in the course of allergen-specific immunotherapy have not been elucidated in full detail. Our study aimed to characterize high zone tolerance in mouse models of type I allergy and of allergic airway inflammation induced by subcutaneous sensitization of mice with high doses of the model allergen ovalbumin (OVA) without the use of adjuvant. Mice were immunized by subcutaneous injection of high doses (HD) of OVA or, for comparison, low doses (LD) of OVA in saline. HD-mice showed lower specific IgE, but augmented IgG in sera than LD-mice. Pre-treatment of mice with HD-OVA antigen-specifically inhibited IgE production subsequently induced by LD-OVA…