Increased numbers of macrophages and neutrophils in the lung is a key feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The major neutrophil chemotactic agent in the airways of COPD patients is leukotriene (LT)B(4) and is released by macrophages. The present study examines the role and mechanism of Ca(2+) in platelet-activating factor (PAF)-stimulated LTB(4) release from human lung macro...

Human CMV is often associated with transplant rejection and opportunistic infections such as pneumonia in immunosuppressed patients. Current anti-CMV therapies, although effective, show relatively high toxicity, which seriously limits their long-term use. In this study, we provide evidence that leukotriene B(4) (LTB(4)) plays an important role in the fight against murine CMV (MCMV) infection in...

UNLABELLED Epsilon toxin secreted by Clostridium perfringens types B and D has been directly implicated as the causative agent of fatal enterotoxemia in domestic animals. The aim of the present study is to use in silico approach for identification of B-cell epitope(s) of epsilon toxin, and its expression in fusion with a carrier protein to analyze its potential as vaccine candidate(s). Using di...

PURPOSE Emerging data continue to link carcinogenesis to inflammatory events involving the eicosanoid metabolic pathways. We therefore evaluated the effects of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibition on leukotriene (LT) B(4) synthesis in the lungs of active smokers, as part of a pilot lung cancer chemoprevention study with celecoxib (Celebrex), an oral COX-2 inhibitor. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Bronchoal...

BACKGROUND Rotaviruses (RV) are important viral diarrheal agents in calves. Vaccination is an optimum measure to prevent bovine rotaviruses (BRV) infection. However, little research on BRV VP7 vaccine has been done and currently there is no BRV vaccine. OBJECTIVE To prepare a subunit vaccine of BRV and investigate its efficacy. METHODS Total RNA was extracted from MA104 cells infected with ...

We describe the hardware support in the DELFT-JAVA processor which enables efficient dynamic linking of JAVA programs. The proposed mechanism supports method invocation of dynamically linked classes through the use of a Link Translation Buffer (LTB). Since our Instruction Set Architecture directly supports dynamically linked method invocation, the Link Translation Buffer is architecturally tran...

UNLABELLED Several radiolabeled chemotactic peptides have been tested for their suitability to show infection and inflammation. Leukotriene B(4) (LTB(4)) receptor-binding ligands could be useful agents for revealing neutrophilic infiltrations because the LTB(4) receptor is abundantly expressed on neutrophils after an inflammatory stimulus. In this study, we investigated the in vivo and in vitro...