The proportion of elderly people rises in the developed countries. The increased susceptibility of the elderly to infectious diseases is caused by immune dysfunction, especially T cell functional decline. Age-related hematopoietic stem cells deviate from lymphoid lineage to myeloid lineage. Thymus shrinks early in life, which is followed by the decline of naïve T cells. T-cell receptor repertoi...

A defining feature of the eukaryotic genome is the presence of linear chromosomes. This arrangement, however, poses several challenges with regard to chromosomal replication and maintenance. To prevent the loss of coding sequences and to suppress gross chromosomal rearrangements, linear chromosomes are capped by repetitive nucleoprotein structures, called telomeres. Each cell division results i...

About half of skin diseases are immune-related. Immunological skin diseases are crudely divided into infectious, allergic, autoimmune and other types based on the etiology, pathogenesis and immune responses. While their distinction is not absolute, cause-effect and inter-relationship exist among them. This review focuses on the intrinsic associations among different categories of skin immune di...