The adaptive immune response relies on the ability of lymphocytes to undergo periodic massive expansion. It is an enigma how lymphocytes are able to undergo this seemingly unlimited number of cell divisions. Telomeres and telomerase play a critical role in regulation of the replicative lifespan of cells, providing a potential mechanism which lymphocytes may employ. Here I will review the recent...

Inflammation is part of a complex biological response to injury as a result of different stimuli such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Local signals at the sites of inflammation mediate rapid cells mobilization and recruitment and dictate differentiation programs whereby these cells drive clearance of “inflammatory inducers” and promote resolution and restoration of tissue homeostasis...

Generation of a diverse repertoire of antigen receptor specificities via DNA recombination underpins adaptive immunity. In this issue ofGenes&Development, Carmona and colleagues (pp. 909-917) provide novel insights into the origin and function of recombination-activating gene 1 (RAG1) and RAG2, the lymphocyte-specific components of the recombinase involved in the process.

This study examines the role of complement components C3 and C5 in innate and adaptive protective immunity to larval Strongyloides stercoralis in mice. Larval survival in naive C3(-/-) mice was increased as compared with survival in wild-type mice, whereas C3aR(-/-) and wild-type mice had equivalent levels of larval killing. Larval killing in naive mice was shown to be a coordinated effort betw...

Adjuvant effects on innate as well as adaptive immunity may be critical for inducing protection against mucosal HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) exposure. We therefore studied effects of Toll-like receptor agonists and IL-15 as mucosal adjuvants on both innate and adaptive immunity in a peptide/poxvirus HIV/SIV mucosal vaccine in macaques, and made three critical observations regardi...

atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall characterized by innate and adaptive immune responses to a variety of microbial and self-antigens. given the crucial role of adaptive immunity in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, this study was performed to investigate the proliferative response of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmc) and interleukin (il)-2 producti...

Levels of parasitism and the dynamics of helminth systems is subject to the impact of environmental conditions such that we may expect long term increases in temperature will increase the force of infection and the parasite's basic reproduction number, R0. We postulate that an increase in the force of infection will only lead to an increase in mean intensity of adults when adult parasite mortal...

with Acridine Orange By DAvID M. JOHNSON, PEYTON T. PIiArr AND PEnnY G. RuGBY I HE IMPORTANCE OF lymphocytic RNA in immune function has received widespread attention in recent years.’ A case in point is the work of Mannick and Egdahl showing that adoptive immunity can be transferred from one animal to another by means of lymphocytic RNA.2 The RNA of the lymphocyte can be evaluated and compared ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the basic reproductive rate of a chickenpox outbreak, to apply the stochastic threshold theorem to estimate the probability of an outbreak occurrence and to identify preventive measures. METHODS The study was carried out in a daycare center comprising 16 children, 13 susceptible, one infected and two children with acquired immunity by previous disease. A stochastic susce...

We investigate the dynamics of a simple epidemiological model for the invasion by a pathogen strain of a population where another strain circulates. We assume that reinfection by the same strain is possible but occurs at a reduced rate due to acquired immunity. The rate of reinfection by a distinct strain is also reduced due to cross-immunity. Individual based simulations of this model on a ‘sm...