Levels of corticosterone (CORT), the primary avian stress hormone, tend to vary over space and time in passerines, but why this is so remains unclear. One reason may be differential need for immune defense. Typically, sustained high levels of CORT suppress immune activity in vertebrates. Thus, animals living where parasite threats are high might maintain low levels of CORT and mount weak CORT s...

In recent years, the ubiquitin-editing enzyme A20 has been shown to control a large set of molecular pathways involved in the regulation of protective as well as self-directed immune responses. Here, we assess the current and putative roles of A20 in inflammatory, vascular and degenerative diseases of the central nervous system and explore future directions of research.

Polyvalent interactions, where multiple ligands and receptors interact simultaneously, are ubiquitous in nature. Synthetic polyvalent molecules, therefore, have the ability to affect biological processes ranging from protein-ligand binding to cellular signaling. In this review, we discuss recent advances in polyvalent scaffold design and applications. First, we will describe recent developments...

The efficacy of a tissue-derived vaccine, which is currently used in Indonesia to control the spread of Jembrana disease in Bali cattle, was determined by quantifying the viral load in plasma following experimental infection with Jembrana disease virus. Virus transmission is most likely to occur during the acute phase of infection when viral titers are greater than 10(6) genomes/ml. Vaccinated ...

artificial immune systems (ais) can be defined as soft computing systems inspired by immune system of vertebrates. immune system is an adaptive pattern recognition system. ais have been used in pattern recognition, machine learning, optimization and clustering. feature reduction refers to the problem of selecting those input features that are most predictive of a given outcome; a problem encoun...

Acquired energetic resources allocated to a particular trait cannot then be re-allocated to a different trait. This often results in a trade-off between survival and reproduction for the adults of many species, but such a trade-off may be manifested differently in juveniles not yet capable of reproduction. Whereas adults may allocate resources to current and/or future reproduction, juveniles ca...

Throughout the annual cycle, demands on competing physiological systems change, and animals must allocate resources to maximize fitness. Immune function is one such system and is important for survival. Yet detailed empirical data tracking immune function over the entire annual cycle are lacking for most wild animals. We measured constitutive immune indices once a month for a year on captive re...

In several prior articles I have attempted to analyze and simplify the subject of immunological functions induced by vaccination that correlate with protection against later exposure to pathogens. Other authors have also written on the subject, and recently we jointly proposed terminology to bring some semantic clarity to the field. The generalization that vaccine-induced antibodies prevent acq...

Many vertically-transmitted microbial symbionts protect their insect hosts from natural enemies, including host-targeted pathogens and parasites, and those vectored by insects to other hosts. Protection is often achieved through production of inhibiting toxins, which is not surprising given that toxin production mediates competition in many environments. Classical models of macroecological inte...

B and T lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA), identified as an immune inhibitory receptor recently, plays widespread roles on T and B cells. Emerging evidence has generated plentiful information on the mechanisms which BTLA mediates negative regulation in immune responses and involves in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. The exploration of the biological mechanisms and regulation o...