Immune Deficiency

Immune deficiency diseases.

Paediatricians have long been deeply concerned with problems of infection. The sharp decrease in childhood mortality in recent decades in highly developed countries is mainly due to progress in preventing and treating infection: for example, in Switzerland in 1973 there were about 88 000 births and only 16 deaths due to infection in children aged between 2 and 4 years in contrast to 76 killed b...

Host Immune Deficiency in Immune Complex Nephritis1

Evidence is reviewed that indicates that an immune deficiency state may underlie patients with immune complex nephritis. Studies in several laboratories provide data that show defective immune function in patients with nephritis at the following loci: defective immunoglobulin production, impaired monocyte Fc and C3b receptor function, diminished complement biosynthesis, and decreased mesangial ...

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The first Australian case of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which occurred in a 27-year-old homosexual man, is reported. The patient, an American citizen now resident in Sydney, presented with life-threatening pulmonary consolidation. AIDS is characterized by severe defects in cell-mediated immunity associated with infections and neoplasms (most commonly Pneumocystis carinii pneumo...

Mitochondrial Basis for Immune Deficiency

We generated purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP)-deficient mice to gain insight into the mechanism of immune deficiency disease associated with PNP deficiency in humans. Similar to the human disease, PNP deficiency in mice causes an immunodeficiency that affects T lymphocytes more severely than B lymphocytes. PNP knockout mice exhibit impaired thymocyte differentiation, reduced mitogenic and ...