Search results for "Virology"
showing 10 items of 2354 documents
Hematopoietic Growth Factors Are Differentially Regulated in Monocytes and CD4+T Lymphocytes: Influence of IFN-α and Interleukin-4
1998
We investigated the influence of interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) on the synthesis of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin-3 (IL-3) by monocytes and activated T helper cells. IFN-alpha inhibited the production of GM-CSF in unstimulated and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated monocytes to the same extent as was observed in the presence of IL-4. In highly purified CD4+ T cells, which were activated by incubation with immobilized anti-CD3 antibody and anti-CD28, IFN-alpha reduced production of GM-CSF to 47%. In contrast, GM-CSF production in activated T cells was unaffected by exogenously added IL-4. The production of IL-3 by T helper cells was significantly inh…
Identification of NY-ESO-1 epitopes presented by human histocompatibility antigen (HLA)-DRB4*0101-0103 and recognized by CD4(+) T lymphocytes of pati…
2000
NY-ESO-1 is a member of the cancer-testis family of tumor antigens that elicits strong humoral and cellular immune responses in patients with NY-ESO-1–expressing cancers. Since CD4+ T lymphocytes play a critical role in generating antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte and antibody responses, we searched for NY-ESO-1 epitopes presented by histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II molecules. Autologous monocyte-derived dendritic cells of cancer patients were incubated with recombinant NY-ESO-1 protein and used in enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assays to detect NY-ESO-1–specific CD4+ T lymphocyte responses. To identify possible epitopes presented by distinct HLA class II allele…
MHC class II tetramer guided detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CD4+ T cells in peripheral blood from patients with pulmonary tuberculo…
2007
Novel diagnostic tools are needed to diagnose latent infection and to provide biologically meaningful surrogate markers to define cellular immune responses against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Interferon gamma-based assays have recently been developed in addition to the more than 100-year-old tuberculin skin test (TST) for the immune diagnosis of MTB in blood. The advent of soluble MHC/peptide tetramer molecules allows to objectively enumerate antigen-specific T cells. We identified novel MHC class II-restricted MTB epitopes and used HLA-DR4 tetrameric complexes to visualize ex vivo CD4(+) T cells directed against the antigens Ag85B and the 19-kDa lipoprotein, shared between MTB and ot…
Molecular Basis for the Interaction of the Hepatitis B Virus Core Antigen with the Surface Immunoglobulin Receptor on Naive B Cells
2001
ABSTRACTThe nucleocapsid of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is composed of 180 to 240 copies of the HBV core (HBc) protein. HBc antigen (HBcAg) capsids are extremely immunogenic and can activate naive B cells by cross-linking their surface receptors. The molecular basis for the interaction between HBcAg and naive B cells is not known. The functionality of this activation was evidenced in that low concentrations of HBcAg, but not the nonparticulate homologue HBV envelope antigen (HBeAg), could prime naive B cells to produce anti-HBc in vitro with splenocytes from HBcAg- and HBeAg-specific T-cell receptor transgenic mice. The frequency of these HBcAg-binding B cells was estimated by both hybridom…
Tcgfiii/p40 is produced by naive murine cd4+ t cells but is not a general t cell growth factor*
1989
Several antigen-specific T cell lines were found to secrete a lymphokine upon activation by antigen or lectin that was provisionally termed T cell growth factor III (TCGF III) because it induced the proliferation of a CD4+ T cell clone independently from IL2 and IL4. Amino acid sequence analysis (and the functional properties of TCGF III) revealed that TCGF III was identical with a recently identified lymphokine termed P40. TCGF III/P40 was not only produced by long-term cultured T cell lines but also upon stimulation of freshly isolated Mlsa-reactive T cells. In addition, naive CD4+ T cells secreted TCGF III/P40 upon activation by lectin or allo-major histocompatibility complex structures.…
Highly focused T cell responses in latent human pulmonary Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.
2005
Abstract The elucidation of the molecular and immunological mechanisms mediating maintenance of latency in human tuberculosis aids to develop more effective vaccines and to define biologically meaningful markers for immune protection. We analyzed granuloma-associated lymphocytes (GALs) from human lung biopsies of five patients with latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection. MTB CD4+ and CD8+ T cell response was highly focused in the lung, distinct from PBL, as assessed by TCR-CDR3 spectratyping coupled with a quantitative analysis of TCR VB frequencies. GALs produced IFN-γ in response to autologous macrophages infected with MTB and to defined MTB-derived HLA-A2-presented peptides Ag…
Human Papillomavirus Type 33 E7 Peptides Presented by HLA-DR*0402 to Tumor-Infiltrating T Cells in Cervical Cancer
2000
ABSTRACTSeveral characteristics make human papillomavirus (HPV) amenable to vaccination. Anti-HPV-directed vaccines are based on the observation that HPV E6 and E7 oncoproteins are constitutively expressed in HPV-positive cervical cancer and may serve as tumor rejection antigens. Five HPV types (16, 18, 31, 33, and 45) account for 80% of cervical cancer. Until now, the type of immune response capable of mediating an effective antitumor response has not been defined. In order to define the anticancer-directed immune response in situ, we characterized CD4+and CD8+sorted T cells from peripheral blood lymphocytes, freshly harvested tumor tissue, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) from a p…
Broad clonal heterogeneity of antigen-specific CD4+ T-cells localizing at the site of disease during tuberculosis
1999
The repertoire of CD4+ T-lymphocytes was investigated in six patients affected by tuberculosis, who had a negative PPD skin test at diagnosis. Polyclonal CD4+ T-cell lines from the peripheral blood failed to proliferate to PPD and to the 16- or 38-kDa proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, while CD4+ T-cell lines from the site of disease responded to PPD, and to the 16- and 38-kDa proteins, and derived epitopes in vitro. The repertoire of CD4+ T-cells accumulating at the site of disease was found to be widely heterogeneous as demonstrated by the finding that at least seven different peptides from the 16- and 38-kDa proteins were recognized by every patient. These results indicate that CD4+…
The immunodominant CD8 T cell response to the human cytomegalovirus tegument phosphoprotein pp65(495-503) epitope critically depends on CD4 T cell he…
2011
Abstract Immunodominance hierarchies operating in immune responses to viral Ags limit the diversity of the elicited CD8 T cell responses. We evaluated in I-Ab+/A2-HHD-II and HLA-DR1+/A2-DR1 mice the HLA-A*0201–restricted, multispecific CD8 T cell responses to the human CMV tegument phosphoprotein pp65 (pp65) Ag. Vaccination of mice with pp65-encoding DNA elicited high IFN-γ+ CD8 T cell frequencies to the pp65495–503/(e6) epitope and low responses to the pp65320–328/(e3) and pp65522–530/(e8) epitopes. Abrogation of the e6-specific immunity efficiently enhanced e3- and e8-specific T cell responses by a pp65Δ501–503 DNA vaccine. The immunodominant e6-specific (but not the e3- and e8-specific) …
TyG index, HOMA score and viral load in patients with chronic hepatitis C due to genotype 1.
2011
Summary. The triglycerides × glucose (TyG) index is a recently proposed surrogate marker of insulin resistance (IR), calculated from fasting plasma triglyceride and glucose concentrations. We tested the host and viral factors associated with Tyg and homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) scores, comparing their associations with histological features and with sustained virological response (SVR) in patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C(G1CHC). Three hundred and forty consecutive patients with G1CHC were considered. All had a liver biopsy scored by one pathologist for staging and grading (Scheuer), and graded for steatosis, which was considered moderate–severe if ≥30%. Anthropometric an…