Folate is found naturally in foods or as synthetic folic acid in dietary supplements and fortified foods. Adequate periconceptional folic acid intake can prevent neural tube defects. Folate intake impacts blood folate concentration; however, the dose-response between natural food folate and blood folate concentrations has not been well described. We estimated this association among healthy fema...

BACKGROUND After the 1998 mandatory folic acid fortification of enriched cereal-grain products in the U.S., safety concerns were raised that excess consumption of folic acid and high blood folate biomarkers detected in adults may increase the risk of certain types of cancer. METHODS Baseline data from about 1400 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 199...

0308-8146/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.04.087 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Bi Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA. Tel.: + 231 9070. E-mail address: [email protected] (K.M. Phillips). White button, crimini, shiitake, maitake, enoki, oyster, chanterelle, morel, portabella, and uv-treated portabella mushrooms were sampled from U.S. r...

The peripheral Foxp3(+) Treg pool consists of naturally arising Treg (nTreg) and adaptive Treg cells (iTreg). It is well known that naive CD4(+) T cells can be readily converted to Foxp3(+) iTreg in vitro, and memory CD4(+) T cells are resistant to conversion. In this study, we investigated the induction of Foxp3(+) T cells from various CD4(+) T-cell subsets in human peripheral blood. Though na...

The memory T cell immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection was examined in strains of mice which vary in their natural susceptibility to Mycobacterium bovis BCG infection. Naturally susceptible (NS) C57BL/6 and naturally resistant (NR) B6D2 F1 hybrid mice were infected with a sublethal dose of M. tuberculosis and then given antibiotic therapy beginning 2 weeks postinfection. T ce...

Ig-like transcript 3 (ILT3) is an inhibitory receptor expressed by tolerogenic dendritic cells. When human CD8(+) T cells are allostimulated in the presence of recombinant ILT3-Fc protein, they differentiate into antigenic specific T suppressor (Ts) cells that inhibit CD4 and CD8 T cell effector function both in vitro and in vivo. ILT3-Fc-induced CD8(+) Ts cells express high amounts of BCL6 tha...

Naturally occurring CD4(+)CD25(hi)Foxp3(+) Tregs (nTregs) are highly proliferative in blood. However, the kinetics of their accumulation and proliferation during a localized antigen-specific T cell response is currently unknown. To explore this, we used a human experimental system whereby tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) was injected into the skin and the local T cell response analy...

The appearance of naturally occurring thymocytotoxic autoantibodies (NTA) and spontaneously produced antibodies to single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) was studied in NZB, and DBA/2 mice and their F1 and backcross progeny. NTA production was markedly decreased in males; however, castrated males produced quantities of NTA similar to those of females. Because the amount of NTA was influenced by sex hormon...

Generating bioavailability data from in vivo studies is time-consuming and expensive. In vitro simulation can help to investigate factors influencing bioavailability or facilitate quantifying the impact of such factors. For folates, an efficient deconjugation of polyglutamates to the corresponding monoglutamates is crucial for bioavailability and highly dependent on the food matrix. Therefore, ...