IL-21 is a type-I cytokine that has pleiotropic immuno-modulatory effects. Primarily produced by activated T cells including NKT and TFH cells, IL-21 plays a pivotal role in promoting TFH differentiation through poorly understood cellular and molecular mechanisms. Here, employing a mouse model of influenza A virus (IAV) infection, we demonstrate that IL-21, initially produced by NKT cells, prom...

Rickettsiae cause systemic infections such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever and boutonneuse fever. The main cellular target of these obligately intracellular bacteria is the endothelium. T lymphocytes are the most important effectors of immunity, and the CXCR3 ligands CXCL9 and CXCL10 may play an important role in the T cell-mediated clearance of rickettsiae from the infected vasculature as sugg...

In this study, the early pulmonary cytokine and chemokine responses in mice immunized with either BCG vaccine, a DeltasecA2 mutant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, or a DNA vaccine expressing an ESAT6-antigen 85B fusion protein and then aerogenically challenged with a low dose of M. tuberculosis were evaluated by PCR array. The cellular immune responses at day 10 postchallenge were essentially eq...

The high prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis makes it imperative that immune responses to evaluate could be predictive of infection. We investigated live Mycobacterium- and recombinant antigen-induced cytokine and chemokine responses in patients with active tuberculosis (TB) compared with those of healthy controls from an area where TB is endemic (ECs). M. tuberculosis-, M. bovis BCG-, ESA...

Chemokines presented on endothelial tissues instantaneously trigger LFA-1-mediated arrest on ICAM-1 via rapid inside-out and outside-in (ligand-driven) LFA-1 activation. The GTPase RhoA was previously implicated in CCL21-triggered LFA-1 affinity triggering in murine T lymphocytes and in LFA-1-dependent adhesion strengthening to ICAM-1 on Peyer's patch high endothelial venules stabilized over pe...

OBJECTIVE Inflammation plays a significant role in the development of ischemic stroke. CXC chemokines play pleiotropic roles in prolonged leukocyte locomotion, astrocyte migration/activation, and neural attachment/sprouting in response to focal stroke. In this study, we aimed to explore the changes in serum levels of three chemokines, C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 1 (CXCL1), C-X-C motif chemokin...