Despite considerable success in treating newly diagnosed childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), relapsed disease remains a significant clinical challenge. Using a NOD/SCID mouse xenograft model, we report that immunostimulatory DNA oligonucleotides containing CpG motifs (CpG ODNs) stimulate significant immune activity against primary human ALL cells in vivo. The administration of CpG ODN...

Chronic inflammation of the prostate contributes to the increased risk of prostate cancer. Microbial pathogens in the prostate cause inflammation that leads to prostatitis and proliferative inflammatory atrophy frequently associated with the development of prostate cancer. Bacterial lipopolysaccharides and DNA mediate immune responses by engaging Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and 9, respectively. ...

TLRs are a family of molecules that function as sensors for the detection of pathogens. TLR-9, expressed on B cells and pDCs, recognizes CpG motifs of unmethylated bacterial DNA and plays a role in the development of autoimmunity. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of IFNin combination with CpG ODN on the activation of CD27 naı̈ve B cells and on Ig production. We provide e...

In addition to the degradation of homologous RNAs through the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) can in some systems induce cytosine methylation and transcriptional silencing of homologous promoters. Targeting of HIV-1 by RNAi results in transient suppression of the virus through degradation of viral transcripts. In an effort to prolong the suppressive effect of si...

MeCP2 is a chromatin-associated protein that is mutated in Rett syndrome. Its methyl-CpG-binding domain interacts with DNA containing methylated cytosine, but other modes of recruitment to the genome have also been proposed. Here, we use in vitro and in vivo assays to investigate the DNA binding specificity of two AT-hook motifs in MeCP2. One exhibits robust sequence-specific DNA binding, where...

Bacterial and synthetic DNAs containing CpG dinucleotides in specific sequence contexts activate the vertebrate immune system through Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9). In the present study, we used a synthetic nucleoside with a bicyclic heterobase [1-(2'-deoxy-beta-d-ribofuranosyl)-2-oxo-7-deaza-8-methyl-purine; R] to replace the C in CpG, resulting in an RpG dinucleotide. The RpG dinucleotide was i...

The groES gene of Mycobacterium avium strain 485 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli and the recombinant GroES protein was purified by affinity chromatography. The GroES preparation showed high purity by electrophoresis and immunoblotting. Immuno-electron microscopy showed that GroES was located both in the cytoplasm and on the surface of the mycobacterial cells and thus is readily ava...