The identification of the antitoxic property of serum in 1890 by Emil von Behring and the introduction of the term "Antikörper" by Paul Ehrlich in 1891 referring to one of the most relevant mechanisms of defense of the adaptive immune system, i.e., the humoral immune response mediators, mark the beginning of modern immunology. The "Y" structure was described 50 years ago by Gerald M. Edelman an...

Dynamic interactions between B and T cells underpin the development of adaptive humoral immune responses to infections and vaccines. Recent advances in the molecular and spatiotemporal control of these interactions during primary responses have contributed greatly to elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of numerous immunodeficiency and autoimmune diseases. The next challenge is to determine h...

Influenza usually spreads through the human population in multiple-wave outbreaks. Successive reinfection of individuals over a short time interval has been explicitly reported during past pandemics. However, the causes of rapid reinfection and the role of reinfection in driving multiple-wave outbreaks remain poorly understood. To investigate these issues, we focus on a two-wave influenza A/H3N...

Dendritic cells (DC) are important antigen-presenting cells (APC) that can prime naive T-cells and control lymphocyte-mediated adaptive immune responses with respect to magnitude, memory, and self-tolerance. Understanding the biology of these cells is central to the development of new generation immunotherapies for cancer and chronic infection. This chapter presents a brief overview of DC biolo...

C3Hf/HeN or BALB/c mice, exposed to acute ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and skin-sensitized through the irradiated skin site with soluble protein antigens, exhibit humoral tolerance to subsequent systemic challenge with antigen. We have termed this phenomenon "phototolerance" (PT). With the doses of UV radiation used, PT induction is restricted to the irradiated skin site and is observed only if...

This study presents the characterization of an experimental immunotherapeutic approach for schistosomiasis utilizing antiidiotypic antibodies. Antiidiotype (31-3B6) was generated in rabbits using a protective murine monoclonal antibody 31-3B6 which recognizes a 68,000-D molecular mass glycoprotein present in extracts of Schistosomiasis mansoni adult worm homogenetics. Immunization of mice with ...

After transfer into heavily-irradiated allogeneic mice, spleen cells were found to produce two types of effector cells directed against the recipient alloantigens, namely alloantibody plaque-forming cells (PFC) and cytotoxic lymphocytes (CL). Both types of effector cells were detectable in vitro by virtue of their lytic effect on target cells carrying the recipient alloantigens. Alloantibody PF...

The tetraspanins represent a large superfamily of four-transmembrane proteins that are expressed on all nucleated cells. Tetraspanins play a prominent role in the organization of the plasma membrane by co-ordinating the spatial localization of transmembrane proteins and signalling molecules into 'tetraspanin microdomains'. In immune cells, tetraspanins interact with key leucocyte receptors [inc...

Strain-specific circulating immunoglobulin G and/or M was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence test by using Formol-treated suspensions of Gardnerella vaginalis from 28 women with overt vaginitis but only three symptom-free subjects among 43 otherwise healthy women found to be colonized by G. vaginalis. Analogous but less stringent strain specificity patterns wer...

Innate immunity is constructed around genetically encoded receptors that survey the intracellular and extracellular environments for signs of invading microorganisms. These receptors recognise the invader and through complex intracellular networks of molecular signaling, they destroy the threat whilst instructing effective adaptive immune responses. Many of these receptors, like the Toll-like r...