Identification of the factors that regulate the immune tolerance and control the appearance of exacerbated inflammatory conditions is crucial for the development of new therapies of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Although much is known about the molecular basis of initiating signals and pro-inflammatory chemical mediators in inflammation, it has only recently become apparent that endogen...

Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the periodontium involving interactions between bacterial products, numerous cell populations and inflammatory mediators. It is generally accepted that periodontitis is initiated by complex and diverse microbial biofilms which form on the teeth, i.e. dental plaque. Substances released from this biofilm such as lipopolysaccharides, antigens an...

BACKGROUND Cytokines regulate many processes in the immune system and have recently been implicated in normal organogenesis. We previously demonstrated that the archetypal inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is expressed in the murine metanephros, and exogenous TNF-alpha inhibits nephrogenesis and increases macrophage numbers in vitro (Cale et al., Int J Dev Biol 1998...