background: pulmonary tuberculosis (ptb) has recently become a major problem in developed countries especially in immune compromised hiv infected individuals. cytokines, their genes and receptors have been implicated in the protective immunity, pathophysiology and development of tuberculosis.   material & methods: in the present study the genotype frequencies of a number of polymorphic genes co...

Immune adaptation is a critical component of successful pregnancy. Of primary importance is the modification of cytokine production upon immune activation. With the discovery that normal pregnancy itself is a pro-inflammatory state, it was recognised that the classical Th1/Th2 cytokine paradigm, with a shift towards 'type 2' cytokine production (important for antibody production), and away from...

Cerebral malaria is associated with cerebrovascular damage and neurological sequelae. However, the neurological consequences of uncomplicated malaria, the most prevalent form of the disease, remain uninvestigated. Here, using a mild malaria model, we show that a single Plasmodium chabaudi adami infection in adult mice induces neuroinflammation, neurogenic, and behavioral changes in the absence ...

To further understand the role of neuro-immunological interactions in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), we studied the influence of sympathetic neurotransmitters on cytokine production of T cells in patients with RA. T cells were isolated from peripheral blood of RA patients or healthy donors (HDs), and stimulated via CD3 and CD28. Co-incubation was carried out with epinephrine or ...

Mouse models show that experimental stress mimicking prolonged life-stress exposure enhances neurogenic inflammation, induces adaptive immunity cytokine-imbalance characterized by a shift to Type 1 T-helper cell cytokines and increases apoptosis of epithelial cells. This affects hair growth in otherwise healthy animals. In this study, we investigate whether a prolonged naturalistic life-stress ...

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) cause death due to complications related to expansion and rupture. The underlying mechanisms that drive AAA development remain largely unknown. We recently described evidence for a shift toward T helper type 2 (Th2) cell responses in human AAAs compared with stenotic atheromas. To evaluate putative pathways in AAA formation, we induced Th1- or Th2-predominant c...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES We investigated the effect of Pycnogenol (Pyc) on survival and immune dysfunction of C57BL/6 mice induced by low micronutrient supplementation. MATERIALS/METHODS Female C57/BL/6 mice were fed a diet containing 7.5% of the recommended amount of micronutrients for a period of 12 wks (immunological assay) and 18 wks (survival test). For immunological assay, lymphocyte proli...

objective(s): the effect of prolonged overtraining on cytokine kinetics was compared with moderate exercise in the present study.   materials and methods: male wistar rats were randomly divided into control sedentary (c), moderate trained (mt), (v=20 m/min, 30 min/day for 6 days a week, 8 weeks), overtrained (ot) (v=25 m/min, 60min/day for 6 days a week, 11 weeks) and recovered overtrained (or)...