Type I Interferons Keep Activated T Cells Alive

Type I Interferons Keep Activated T Cells Alive

Antigen injection into animals causes antigen-specific T cells to become activated and, rapidly thereafter, die. This antigen-induced death is inhibited by inflammation. To find out how inflammation has this effect, various cytokines were tested for their ability to interfere with the rapid death of activated T cells. T cells were activated in vivo, isolated, and cultured with the test reagents...

'....officiously to keep alive'.

Modern medical technology has provided powerful tools with which to initiate and sustain life and understandable concern is being expressed about scientists and doctors 'playing God.' The view that 'the clinician's freedom to stop intensive treatment when the probable outcome is severe handicap is part of the package of neonatology" is far from unanimous. The hard facts are, however, that today...

Why Keep Them Alive

How to keep photoreceptors alive.

O ver the last 40 years, there has been increasing success in the surgical treatment of retinal detachment in that the retinal reattachment could be achieved in a high proportion of cases but visual recovery was frequently poor. An explanation for this poor visual outcome was derived from work on experimental retinal detachment in which it was shown that photoreceptor cell death occurred becaus...

Production of type I interferons

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are specialized producers of type I interferons (IFNs) that respond to most viruses. Because of their antiviral activity and regulatory functions in innate and adaptive immunity, type I IFNs are important not only for antiviral resistance but also in other types of infections and in immune pathology. Here we discuss recent data that begin to reveal the unique...