Two different forms of clinical paratuberculosis in sheep are recognised, related to the level of bacterial colonization. Paucibacillary lesions are largely composed of lymphocytes with few bacteria, and multibacillary pathology is characterized by heavily-infected macrophages. Analysis of cytokine transcripts has shown that inflammatory Th1/Th17 T cells are associated with development of pauci...

Previously, we reported that the transcription factor T-bet (Tbx21) regulates Th17 responses to Trypanosoma cruzi infection in an IFN-γ-independent manner. In an effort to further understand this regulation, we examined the development and plasticity of Th17 cells during T. cruzi infection. Th17 cells recovered from infected Tbx21(-/-) mice were amenable to the inhibitory effects of T-bet, as e...

Interleukin (IL)-22-producing innate lymphoid cells (ILCs; ILC22) comprise a heterogeneous population of cells that are dependent on the transcription factor retinoid-related orphan γt (RORγt) and are critical for barrier function of the intestinal mucosa. A distinct ILC22 subset expresses the natural cytotoxicity receptor NKp46 (NKp46+ ILC22); however, the factors that contribute to the genera...

Natural killer (NK) cell maturation is a tightly controlled process that endows NK cells with functional competence and the capacity to recognize target cells. Here, we found that the transcription factor (TF) Zeb2 was the most highly induced TF during NK cell maturation. Zeb2 is known to control epithelial to mesenchymal transition, but its role in immune cells is mostly undefined. Targeted de...

BACKGROUND The ability to identify clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) patients at high risk of progression to clinically definite multiple sclerosis (CDMS) would be clinically beneficial. The initiation of T cell mediated autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) requires the initial inappropriate activation and differentiation of auto-reactive CD4(+) T cells. The quiescence of naive ...

T helper (Th) 2 cells selectively express IL-21 in addition to the classic Th2 cytokines IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13. In contrast to these clustered Th2 cell cytokine genes, the IL-21 gene resides on a different chromosome and is not coordinately regulated by the same locus control region that directs the expression of other Th2 cytokines. We demonstrate that the proximal promoter of IL-21 controls i...

Severe aplastic anemia is a rare bone marrow failure disease with the majority of cases caused by aberrant immune destruction of blood progenitors. Although the Th1-mediated pathology of aplastic anemia is well-described, the molecular mechanisms that drive disease progression remain ill-defined. The NOTCH signaling pathway mediates Th1 differentiation in the presence of polarizing cytokines, a...

This study aimed to investigate the role of genetic variants including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) of TBX21, GATA3, Rorc and Foxp3 genes in Behcet's disease (BD) and Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) syndrome in a Chinese Han population. Genotyping of 25 SNPs was performed by iPLEX system (Sequenom) or polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length pol...