Search results for "interactions."
showing 10 items of 1865 documents
How the knowledge of interactions between meningococcus and the human immune system has been used to prepare effective Neisseria meningitidis vaccines
2015
In the last decades, tremendous advancement in dissecting the mechanisms of pathogenicity ofNeisseria meningitidisat a molecular level has been achieved, exploiting converging approaches of different disciplines, ranging from pathology to microbiology, immunology, and omics sciences (such as genomics and proteomics). Here, we review the molecular biology of the infectious agent and, in particular, its interactions with the immune system, focusing on both the innate and the adaptive responses. Meningococci exploit different mechanisms and complex machineries in order to subvert the immune system and to avoid being killed. Capsular polysaccharide and lipooligosaccharide glycan composition, in…
Antigen-specific T cells and cytokines detection as useful tool for understanding immunity against zoonotic infections.
2012
Zoonoses include a broad range of diseases, that are becoming of great interest, due to the climate changing, that cause the adaptation of vectors to new niches and environments. Host immune responses play a crucial role in determining the outcome of infections, as documented by expansion of antigen-specific T cells during several zoonotic infections. Thus, understanding of the contribution of antigen-specific T-cell subsets in the host immune response is a powerful tool to evaluate the different immunological mechanisms involved in zoonotic infections and for the development of effective vaccines. In this paper we discuss the role of T cells in some eukaryotic and prokaryotic infectious mo…
New Insight into Immunity and Immunopathology of Rickettsial Diseases
2011
Human rickettsial diseases comprise a variety of clinical entities caused by microorganisms belonging to the generaRickettsia,Orientia,Ehrlichia, andAnaplasma. These microorganisms are characterized by a strictly intracellular location which has, for long, impaired their detailed study. In this paper, the critical steps taken by these microorganisms to play their pathogenic roles are discussed in detail on the basis of recent advances in our understanding of molecularRickettsia-host interactions, preferential target cells, virulence mechanisms, three-dimensional structures of bacteria effector proteins, upstream signalling pathways and signal transduction systems, and modulation of gene exp…
Parasite presence induces gene expression changes in an ant host related to immunity and longevity
2021
Most species are either parasites or exploited by parasites, making parasite&ndash
Genotype-specific vs. cross-reactive host immunity against a macroparasite
2013
Vertebrate hosts often defend themselves against several co-infecting parasite genotypes simultaneously. This has important implications for the ecological dynamics and the evolution of host defence systems and parasite strategies. For example, it can drive the specificity of the adaptive immune system towards high genotype-specificity or cross-reactivity against several parasite genotypes depending on the sequence and probability of re-infections. However, to date, there is very little evidence on these interactions outside mammalian disease literature. In this study we asked whether genotype-specific or cross-reactive responses dominate in the adaptive immune system of a fish host towards…
Structure and dynamics of the membrane attaching nitric oxide transporter nitrophorin 7 [v1; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/508]
2015
Nitrophorins represent a unique class of heme proteins that are able to perform the delicate transportation and release of the free-radical gaseous messenger nitric oxide (NO) in a pH-triggered manner. Besides its ability to bind to phospholipid membranes, the N-terminus contains an additional Leu-Pro-Gly stretch, which is a unique sequence trait, and the heme cavity is significantly altered with respect to other nitrophorins. These distinctive features encouraged us to solve the X-ray crystallographic structures of NP7 at low and high pH and bound with different heme ligands (nitric oxide, histamine, imidazole). The overall fold of the lipocalin motif is well preserved in the different X-r…
Structure and dynamics of the membrane attaching nitric oxide transporter nitrophorin 7 [v2; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/5p1]
2015
Nitrophorins represent a unique class of heme proteins that are able to perform the delicate transportation and release of the free-radical gaseous messenger nitric oxide (NO) in a pH-triggered manner. Besides its ability to bind to phospholipid membranes, the N-terminus of NP7, a member of the NO transporter nitrophorin family, contains an additional Leu-Pro-Gly stretch, which is a unique sequence trait, and the heme cavity is significantly altered with respect to other nitrophorins. These distinctive features encouraged us to solve the X-ray crystallographic structures of NP7 at low and high pH and bound with different heme ligands (nitric oxide, histamine, imidazole). The overall fold of…
Theoretical estimates of supernova-neutrino cross sections for the stable even-even lead isotopes: Charged-current reactions
2016
A detailed study of the charged-current supernova electron neutrino and electron antineutrino scattering off the stable even-mass lead isotopes A = 204, 206, and 208 is reported in this work. The proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) is adopted to construct the nuclear final and initial states. Three different Skyrme interactions are tested for their isospin and spin-isospin properties and then applied to produce (anti)neutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections for (anti)neutrino energies below 80 MeV. Realistic estimates of the nuclear responses to supernova (anti)neutrinos are computed by folding the computed cross sections with a two-parameter Fermi-Dirac distr…
Elucidating the ligand shell structure and dynamics of Au683MBA32 gold nanocluster using molecular dynamics simulations
2017
Synthesising novel gold nanoparticles and -clusters can be often easier than characterising them, and after experimental analysis many options for the possible molecular formula of the cluster may remain as equally valid options. These options may be investigated by quantum computational means, such as density functional theory, but since DFT includes the electronic interactions, this might take time and excessive effort if the amount of options is large. In this thesis a new way of easing the computational task is introduced by a novel method, that combines a guessing algorithm and molecular dynamics simulations. The algorithm produces possible structures by utilising existing structures o…
Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls. 2019, Nr. 2 (110)
2019
Žurnāls sagatavots LU Akadēmiskās attīstības projekta “Zinātniskā periodiskā izdevuma “Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls” sagatavošana un izdošana 2019. gadā” (vad. Dr. hist. Kristīne Ante) ietvaros