The main clinical forms of Chagas disease (acute, indeterminate and chronic cardiac) present strong evidences for the participation of the immune system on pathogenesis. Although parasite multiplication is evident during acute infection, the intense acute myocarditis of this phase exhibits clear ultrastructural signs of cell-mediated immune damage, inflicted to parasitized and non-parasitized m...

INTRODUCTION ENL (4–6). However, there was no explanation for the mode of action of thalidomide in lepra reactions. In the early 1980s, with the increasing understandSince the synthesis of thalidomide (a-N-phthalimiing of the roles of particular cells in the developing doglutarimide) by Kunz and others in 1956 (1) for use immune response, it became clear that some diseases as a sedative, no dru...

*College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60612; †Center for Comparative Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030-3498; ‡Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4799; §University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213; and University o...

Escherichia coli was described in 1885 by a German pediatrician, Theodor Escherich, in the faeces of a child suffering diarrhoea. In 1893, a Danish veterinarian postulated that the E. coli species comprises different strains, some being pathogens, others not. Today the E. coli species is subdivided into several pathogenic strains causing different intestinal, urinary tract or internal infection...

Host responses play crucial roles in defense against influenza but sometimes these may contribute to immunopathology. Potentially, this may be more important in disease caused by viruses such as avian influenza A H5N1 or the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus rather than with seasonal influenza or pandemic H1N1 2009 (pdmH1N1). Understanding pathogenesis will help develop novel therapeutic options that m...

The pathology of many of the world's most important infectious diseases is caused by the immune response. Additionally age-related disease is often attributed to inflammatory responses. Consequently a reduction in infections and hence inflammation early in life has been hypothesized to explain the rise in lifespan in industrialized societies. Here we demonstrate experimentally for the first tim...

Kupffer cells (KCs) are widely considered important contributors to liver injury during viral hepatitis due to their pro-inflammatory activity. Herein we utilized hepatitis B virus (HBV)-replication competent transgenic mice and wild-type mice infected with a hepatotropic adenovirus to demonstrate that KCs do not directly induce hepatocellular injury nor do they affect the pathogenic potential ...

Background: Anti-Ro60 IgG is one of the most commonly detected and important autoantibodies in immunopathology laboratory. We characterised clinical, laboratory molecular attributes patients who have had samples tested for anti-Ro60 at Immunopathology Laboratory Flinders Medical Centre (SA Pathology) over a 24-month period. Methods: Sera were using counterimmunoelectrophoresis line immunoassay ...

Transmembrane signaling adaptor DAP12 has increasingly been recognized for its important role in innate responses. However, its role in the regulation of antimicrobial T cell responses has remained unknown. In our current study, we have examined host defense, T cell responses, and tissue immunopathology in models of intracellular infection established in wild-type and DAP12-deficient mice. Duri...

Infection with influenza virus can result in massive pulmonary infiltration and potentially fatal immunopathology. Understanding the endogenous mechanisms that control immunopathology could provide a key to novel adjunct therapies for this disease. Here we show that the cytokine IL-27 plays a crucial role in protection from exaggerated inflammation during influenza virus infection. Using Il-27r...