Primary T-cell activation at mucosal sites is of utmost importance for the development of vaccination strategies. T-cell priming after vaginal immunization, with ovalbumin and CpG oligodeoxynucleotide adjuvant as model vaccine formulation, was studied in vivo in hormone-synchronized mice and compared to the one induced by the nasal route. Twenty-four hours after both vaginal or nasal immunizati...

Introduction: The term Leishmaniasis applies to a group of parasitic diseases caused by the genus Leishmania. Route of infection is one of the variables that have been reported to influence the immune responses as well as the disease outcome in experimental models of leishmaniasis. This research aims to study the effect of route of infection on the pathogenicity of Leishmania major in BALB/c mi...

After an inflammatory stimulus, lymphocyte migration into draining lymph nodes increases dramatically to facilitate the encounter of naive T cells with Ag-loaded dendritic cells. In this study, we show that CD73 (ecto-5'-nucleotidase) plays an important role in regulating this process. CD73 produces adenosine from AMP and is expressed on high endothelial venules (HEV) and subsets of lymphocytes...

CCL21, a lymphatic endothelial cell (LEC)-derived chemokine, and its receptor CCR7 regulate dendritic cell (DC) trafficking to lymph nodes (LN), but it is unclear how CCL21 expression is regulated. Oncostatin M (OSM) is an IL-6-like cytokine synthesized by activated DC and other leukocytes. In vitro, OSM (but not TNF-alpha) stimulated CCL21 mRNA and protein expression by human dermal microvascu...

The UV radiation in sunlight is the primary cause of skin cancer. UV is also immunosuppressive and numerous studies have shown that UV-induced immune suppression is a major risk factor for skin cancer induction. Previous studies demonstrated that dermal mast cells play a critical role in the induction of immune suppression. Mast cell-deficient mice are resistant to the immunosuppressive effects...

granulomatous response in association with breast cancer and within the cancer draining lymph nodes is an extremely rare phenomenon. granulomatous inflammation is an immune response commonly seen against infectious agents and certain non-neoplastic conditions. the etiopathogenesis of granulomas associated with malignancies is not clear but it may be because of an immunologic reaction to tumour ...

Host dendritic cells (DCs) play a critical role in initiating graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and graft-versus-leukemia (GVL), and separation of GVL from GVHD remains a major challenge in the treatment of hematologic malignancies by allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Here, we show that preconditioning with anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody before conditioning with total body irrad...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of (99m)Technetium-trimethylbromo-iminodiacetic acid hepatobiliary scintigraphy (HS) for the diagnosis of biliary atresia (BA). METHODS From January 2005 to December 2009, a total of 47 infants with conjugated hyperbilirubinaemia (> 20 micromol/l total bilirubin of which 20% is conjugated) underwent HS. BA was suspected if no tra...

BACKGROUND It is difficult to intraoperatively confirm the total disappearance of arteriovenous (AV) shunts during surgery for microarteriovenous malformations (micro-AVMs), especially when the nidus is extremely small or diffuse on preoperative angiography. Although intraoperative angiography is effective for evaluating residual shunts, procedure-related risks raise important concerns. The pur...

Visna/Maedi virus (VMV), a small ruminant lentivirus responsible for lymphoproliferative pneumonia, encephalitis, arthritis and/or mastitis in sheep, has been detected in different non-lymphoid organs. However, only a few investigations have been carried out in lymphoid tissues. In this study, some lymphoid tissues and lymph node draining or non-draining VMV target organs from five sheep infect...