In this study, we used an in vitro coculture system to determine which virulence factor from Pasteurella haemolytica Al was responsible for augmenting bovine polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN)-mediated killing of bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells (BPAEC). A 5"Cr release cytotoxicity assay was used as a measure of BPAEC killing. The mechanisms associated with this BPAEC killing were also...

Squamous metaplasia in airway epithelium is a pathological process arising from abnormal remodeling/repair responses to injury. Proteolytic maturation of many growth and differentiation factors involved in tissue remodeling is controlled by proprotein convertases (PCs). However, the role of these convertases in airway remodeling remains poorly understood. Using a retinoic acid deficiency-induce...

Mobilized peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) are widely used for transplantation, but mechanisms mediating their release from marrow are poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that the chemokines GRObeta/CXCL2 and GRObetaT/CXCL2Delta4 rapidly mobilize PBSC equivalent to granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and are synergistic with G-CSF. We now show that mobilization by GRObeta...

A human lung carcinoma cell line (A549) was compared with various other cell lines to determine susceptibility to viral growth. In the first phase of the study, A549 cells were compared with human embryonic kidney (HEK) and cynomolgus monkey kidney (CMK) cells for isolation of upper-respiratory disease viruses by using 1,248 throat swab specimens from basic-combat trainees. Of the 552 virus iso...

BACKGROUND Accumulation of macrophages and their in situ expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are important determinants of plaque stability. Activation of membrane-bound MT1-MMP, the major activator of pro-MMP-2, requires intracellular endoproteolytic cleavage of its precursor protein. This type of activation typically requires suitable furin-like proprotein convertases (PCs), specif...

The apicomplexan parasite Cryptosporidium causes diarrheal disease worldwide. Proteolytic processing of proteins plays a significant role in host cell invasion by apicomplexan parasites. In previous studies, we described gp40/15, a Cryptosporidium sp. glycoprotein that is proteolytically cleaved to yield two surface glycopeptides (gp40 and gp15), which are implicated in mediating infection of h...

The role of proteinase inhibitor (PI)-9 in hematopoietic cells remains unclear. To clarify the role of PI-9 in these cells, we compared the expressions of PI-9 mRNA and antigen with those of granzyme B (GrB). While the strongest expression of PI-9 mRNA was observed in a NK cell line YT-N10, it was also expressed in a B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line U-Tree02, an Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)...

Pemphigus foliaceus (PF) is an organ-specific autoimmune skin disease characterized by subcorneal epidermal cell detachment (acantholysis) and pathogenic autoantibodies against desmoglein 1. The mechanism responsible for pemphigus autoantibody-induced epidermal injury is not fully understood. In this study, we used the IgG passive transfer mouse model of PF to investigate the relevance of the a...