N-Acetylmuramyi-L-alanyl-D-isoglutamine (muramyl dipeptide, MDP) 1 was shown (1) to be the minimal and essential s t ructure requi red for adjuvant activity o f bacterial cell wall peptidoglycans. Fur ther , MDP has been found to possess various biological activities, o ther than adjuvant activity, that are exer ted by bacterial cell wall peptidoglycans. Since MDP is such a potent immunomodula ...

The crystal delta-endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis is less toxic to larvae of Anopheles freeborni than to larvae of Aedes aegypti. However, when solubilized crystal was used, larvae from both species showed similar sensitivities. This effect presumably was due to the differences in feeding behavior between the two mosquito larvae when crystal preparations are used. A proce...

Introduction: The systemic and local content of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines play substantial roles in pathophysiology of arthritis. This study was purposed to verify the roles of synovial TNF-α, IL-6 and fractalkine (Fkn) in edema changes during different stages of Complete Freund’s Adjuvant (CFA)-induced knee arthritis in rats. Methods: 168 male Wistar rats were divided i...

Vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) is strongly upregulated in hearts of mice with coxsackie virus-induced as well as in patients with viral infection-triggered dilated cardiomyopathy. Nevertheless, the role of its soluble form as a biomarker in inflammatory heart diseases remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated whether plasma levels of soluble VCAM-1 (sVCAM-1) directly correlated wi...

PURPOSE In experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU), recent work has demonstrated that retinal damage involves oxidative stress early in uveitis, before macrophage cellular infiltration. The purpose of this study was to determine whether oxidative mitochondrial DNA damage occurs early in EAU, before leukocyte infiltration. METHODS Lewis rats were immunized with S-antigen mixed with complete Freu...

BACKGROUND The role of adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) for patients with stage III thymoma after complete resection is not definite. Some authors have advocated postoperative RT after complete tumor resection, but some others suggested observation. In this study, we retrospectively evaluated the effect of postoperative RT on survival as well as tumor control in patients with Masaoka stage III thymom...

Adjuvants are considered to play an important role in directing the isotype and amount of antibodies produced upon immunization by conducting the development of either Th-1 or Th-2 cells upon T-cell stimulation. This is based on the different cytokine production patterns that were observed after in vitro resttmulation of T cells isolated from mice immunized with antigen either adsorbed on alum ...

Specific serum and mucosal antitoxin levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in rats immunized with Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LT). Immunization by means of a parenteral prime followed by peroral boosts was the only approach that aroused titers of both serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) antitoxin and mucosal secretory IgA antitoxin that were increased fourfold or m...