Alopecia areata (AA), an immune-mediated hair follicle (HF) disorder, leads to loss due collapse of the HF’s physiologic immune privilege (IP), induced by elevated IFNγ levels and a Tc1-driven inflammatory response dominated T NK cells. Given that IL-12 signaling is crucial for production cells, we explored first time role tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2)-mediated in induction prevention HF IP via sele...

Regulatory T cells (T(reg) cells) maintain immune homeostasis by limiting inflammatory responses. SOCS1 (suppressor of cytokine signaling 1), a negative regulator of cytokine signaling, is necessary for the suppressor functions of T(reg) cells in vivo, yet detailed mechanisms remain to be clarified. We found that Socs1(-/-) T(reg) cells produced high levels of IFN-γ and rapidly lost Foxp3 when ...

BACKGROUND The malaria-specific T-cell response is believed to be important for protective immunity. Antimalarial chemoprevention may affect this response by altering exposure to malaria antigens. METHODS We performed interferon γ (IFNγ) ELISpot assays to assess the cellular immune response to blood-stage and pre-erythrocytic antigens longitudinally from 1 to 3 years of age in 196 children en...

Interactions between immune effector cells of the central nervous system appear to directly or indirectly influence the progress/regression of multiple sclerosis (MS). Here, we report that glial STAT1 and -3 are distinctively phosphorylated following the interaction of activated lymphocytes and glia, and this effect is significantly inhibited by glatiramer acetate (GA), a disease-modifying drug...

Preferentially expressed antigen in melanoma (PRAME) has been described as a cancer-testis antigen and is associated with leukaemias and solid tumours. Here we show that PRAME gene transcription in leukaemic cell lines is rapidly induced by exposure of cells to bacterial PAMPs (pathogen associated molecular patterns) in combination with type 2 interferon (IFNγ). Treatment of HL60 cells with lip...

We analyzed cytokine responses against latent and lytic Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antigens in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and healthy controls (HCs) to obtain an overview of the distinctive immune regulatory response in SLE patients and to expand the previously determined impaired EBV-directed T-cell response. The concentrations of 14 cytokines (IL2, IL4, IL5, IL6, IL10, IL12, IL...

There is a wealth of evidence indicating that macrophages adopt distinct phenotypes when exposed to specific stimuli and, in the past few years, accumulating data suggest that microglia behave somewhat similarly. Therefore, microglia can adopt the so-called M1 or M2 phenotypes in response to interferon-γ (IFNγ) and interleukin-4, respectively. Although it has yet to be unequivocally proven in t...

Ocular immune privilege (IP) limits the immune surveillance of intraocular tumors as certain immunogenic tumor cell lines (P815, E.G7-OVA) that are rejected when transplanted in the skin grow progressively when placed in the anterior chamber of the eye. As splenectomy (SPLNX) is known to terminate ocular IP, we characterized the immune mechanisms responsible for rejection of intraocular tumors ...

African trypanosomes are the causative agents of Human African Trypanosomosis (HAT/Sleeping Sickness) and Animal African Trypanosomosis (AAT/Nagana). A common hallmark of African trypanosome infections is inflammation. In murine trypanosomosis, the onset of inflammation occurs rapidly after infection and is manifested by an influx of myeloid cells in both liver and spleen, accompanied by a burs...

High mortality in pregnant women (PR) is a characteristic of hepatitis E in developing countries. To understand the pathogenesis of HEV infection in self-limiting disease during pregnancy, we compared clinical (PR-patients) and subclinical-HEV-infections in pregnant women in the first (SC-PR-1) and later (2nd and 3rd, SC-PR-2+3) trimesters with the respective healthy controls and acute non-PR p...