OBJECTIVES : PPAR-γ is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily. PPAR-γ activation is associated with glucose metabolism regulation, adipocyte diff erentiation, inhibition of macrophage and monocyte activation and anti-angiogenesis. PPAR-γ ligands thiazolidinediones (TZDs) have been shown to inhibit the growth and secretory activity of several rat and murine pituitary tumors in vivo as well...

Oral administration of antigen is a long recognized method of inducing systemic immune tolerance. In animals with experimental autoimmune disease, a major mechanism of oral tolerance triggered by oral administration of antigen involves the induction of regulatory T cells that mediate active suppression by secreting the cytokine TGF-beta 1. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a presumed T cell-mediated T...

Truncation of the cytoplasmic tail of membrane-bound IgE in vivo results in lower serum IgE levels, decreased numbers of IgE-secreting plasma cells and the abrogation of specific secondary immune responses. Here we present mouse strain KN1 that expresses a chimeric epsilon-gamma1 BCR, consisting of the extracellular domains of the epsilon gene and the transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains of th...

The flow-cytofluorometric technique for nuclear DNA analysis was used in the study of 47 consecutive cases with pituitary tumors. The material consisted of 18 tumors secreting growth hormone (GH), 10 secreting GH and prolactin (PRL), 10 prolactinomas, 2 secreting thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), 2 secreting ACTH, and 5 were nonsecreting. An aneuploid DNA pattern occurred in 23 of 47 (49%) cas...

During secondary immune response, memory B lymphocytes proliferate and differentiate into Ig-secreting cells. In mice, the binding of CD40 by CD154 clearly enhances the activation and differentiation of memory B lymphocytes. In humans, the role of CD40-CD154 in the stimulation of memory B lymphocytes is not as obvious since in vitro studies reported positive and negative effects on their prolif...

IL-23 plays a critical role establishing inflammatory immunity and enhancing IL-17 production in vivo. However, an understanding of how it performs those functions has been elusive. In this report, using an IL-17-capture technique, we demonstrate that IL-23 maintains the IL-17-secreting phenotype of purified IL-17(+) cells without affecting cell expansion or survival. IL-23 maintains the Th17 p...

A variable degree of humoral immunodeficiency is a common feature in patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL). The aim of this study was to explore the possibility that B-CLL cells play a direct role in this phenomenon. To this end, patients' bone marrow (BM) immunoglobulin (Ig)-secreting cells were cocultured with autologous purified B-CLL cells. The results show that tumoral ...

We have evaluated a novel B-cell FluoroSpot assay for the analysis of antibody responses in healthy individuals vaccinated intramuscularly with Influenza A (H1N1) antigen (Pandemrix®, GlaxoSmithKline). Using the FluoroSpot assay and an ELISpot assay run in parallel for comparison, we measured the frequency of cells secreting antigen-specific as well as total IgG or IgA antibodies seven days pos...