HIV-1 infection increases the risk and severity of malaria by poorly defined mechanisms. We investigated the effect of HIV-1(Ba-L) infection of monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) on phagocytosis of opsonised P. falciparum infected erythrocytes (IE) and subsequent proinflammatory cytokine secretion. Compared to mock-infected MDM, HIV-1 infection significantly inhibited phagocytosis of IE (median...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate potential changes of infective endocarditis (IE) in patients treated in a Finnish teaching hospital during the past 25 years. PATIENTS 326 episodes of IE in 303 patients treated during 1980-2004 were evaluated for clinical characteristics and their changes over time. RESULTS The mean age of the patients increased with time (from 47.2 to 54.5 years, p = 0.003). Twenty-...

In this, paper we present a probabilistic approach to analysis and prediction of protein structure. We argue that this approach provides a flexible and convenient mechanism to perform general scientific data analysis in molecular biology. We apply our approach to an important problem in molecular biology-predicting the secondary structure of proteins-and obtain experimental results comparable t...

Major predisposing conditions for infective endocarditis (IE) are the presence of a cardiac platelet-fibrin vegetation and of circulating bacteria with relatively low susceptibility to microbicidal activity of blood platelets. The influence of proinflammatory conditions on development of IE is unknown. We studied the effects of the presence of a catheter, inserted to induce platelet-fibrin vege...

Abstract Celiac Disease (CeD) is an autoimmune-like inflammatory disorder triggered by exposure to dietary gluten in genetically predisposed individuals. Tissue destruction CeD driven tissue-resident, cytotoxic CD8+ intraepithelial lymphocytes (IE-CTLs). Upregulation of tissue alarmins and cytokines – including IL-15, IL-21, type I interferon evident biopsies from patients. It thought that thes...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To assess the consistency of caloric intake with American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) recommendations for critically ill patients and to evaluate the relationship of caloric intake with clinical outcomes. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Adult ICUs at two teaching hospitals. PARTICIPANTS Patients with an ICU length of stay of at least 96 h. MEASUREMENTS A...

Background. The pathogenesis of transplant vasculopathy (TV) is a multifactorial process. We hypothesized that ischemia-reperfusion injury and antibody-mediated damage contribute to the development of TV.Methods. Human vessels were procured from nine separate donors undergoing cardiac surgery and stored in saline solution on ice until transplantation. BALB/c Rag2-/-IL-2Rgamma-/- mice were trans...