Covalent linkage of immunostimulatory CpG DNA to OVA results in CpG DNA-aided cross-presentation of OVA by dendritic cells (DCs). In vivo, cross-presentation is conditional for cross-priming of OVA-specific CD8 T cells. In this study, we investigated the involvement of the CpG DNA receptor Toll-like receptor (TLR)9 in CpG DNA-aided cross-presentation and cross-priming. Although CpG DNA-aided cr...

Decision support systems based on computerized Clinical Protocols (CP) and Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) fall short when dealing with patient co-morbidites, as this demands the concurrent merging of multiple CP/CPG. We present an ontology-based approach for the merging of CPG and CP at two levels–i.e. knowledge modeling level and knowledge execution level. We have developed specialized ont...

ARHI is a maternally imprinted tumor suppressor gene that maps to a site on chromosome 1p31 where loss of heterozygosity has been observed in 40% of human breast and ovarian cancers. ARHI is expressed in normal ovarian and breast epithelial cells, but ARHI expression is lost in a majority of ovarian and breast cancers. Expression of ARHI from the paternal allele can be down-regulated by multipl...

Synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides containing CpG motifs trigger an innate immune response that typically increases host resistance to infection. Yet CpG treatment reduces the resistance of normal mice to Candida albicans infection. This effect is mediated by CpG-induced interleukin-12, indicating that CpG-dependent cytokine production may have adverse consequences for the host.

We proposed the use of a Toda-Rayleigh ring as a central pattern generator (CPG) for controlling hexapodal robots. We show that the ring composed of six Toda-Rayleigh units coupled to the limb actuators reproduces the most common hexapodal gaits. We provide an electrical circuit implementation of the CPG and test our theoretical results obtaining fixed gaits. Then we propose a method of incorpo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Systemic administration of cytosine-guanine (CpG) oligodeoxynucleotides provides neuroprotection against subsequent cerebral ischemic injury. We examined the genomic response of leukocytes and brain cells after ischemia in the context of CpG preconditioning. METHODS RNA was isolated from circulating leukocytes and ischemic cortex 3 and 24 hours after middle cerebral art...

Central pattern generator (CPG) is defined here as a neural network responsible for the production of the timing cues of a rhythmic motor output pattern. In biological system, the CPG is a network of neurons that generate the rhythmic movements such as locomotion of animals. This rhythmic movement will induced a coordination of physical parts that necessary for stable locomotion. To implement t...

In the present study we determined whether CpG motifs could be used as an immune adjuvant for the Omp-1 DNA vaccine against Chlamydophila psittaci, based on the major outer membrane protein (MOMP), to induce the protection in specific pathogen free chickens against an intranasal challenge. Six sequences of phosphorothioate-CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODNs) with strong immunostimulatory activ...

Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling plays a critical role in innate and adaptive immune responses and must be tightly controlled. TLR4 uses LPS binding protein, MD-2, and CD14 as accessories to respond to LPS. We therefore investigated the presence of an analagous soluble cofactor that might assist in the recruitment of CpG oligonucleotides (CpG-ODNs) to TLR9. We report the identification of gra...

New blood vessel formation in the cornea is an essential step in the pathogenesis of a blinding immunoinflammatory reaction caused by ocular infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV). By using a murine corneal micropocket assay, we found that HSV DNA (which contains a significant excess of potentially bioactive "CpG" motifs when compared with mammalian DNA) induces angiogenesis. Moreover, synth...