allergic rhinitis (ar) is one of the most common chronic diseases in the developed countries. this study was performed to investigate the effect of cpg-odn in alteration of t-helper (th)1/th2 balance of patients with ar treated with intranasal corticosteroids (incs) and antihistamines. peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmcs) of 20 patients with ar were isolated before and after 45 days thera...

Newborn piglets maintained germfree (GF) cannot respond to either thymus-dependent (TD) or type 2 thymus-independent Ags (TI-2) unless colonized with bacteria. We show here that pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), including muramyl dipeptide (MDP), LPS, and a B-class CpG oligonucleotide (CpG-B), can substitute for gut flora in the induction of neonatal immunoresponsiveness. These PA...

Nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice develop insulitis and diabetes through a process involving autoimmunity to the 60-kDa heat shock protein (HSP60). Treatment of NOD mice with HSP60 or with peptides derived from HSP60 inhibits this diabetogenic process. We now report that NOD diabetes can be inhibited by vaccination with a DNA construct encoding human HSP60, with the pcDNA3 empty vector, or with an o...

Recognition of pathogen-derived nucleic acids by immune cells is critical for the activation of protective innate immune responses. Bacterial cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) are small nucleic acids that are directly recognized by the cytosolic DNA sensor STING (stimulator of IFN genes), initiating a response characterized by proinflammatory cytokine and type I IFN production. Strategies to improve ...

The present study investigated an immunotherapeutic strategy for rearranged during transfection proto-oncogene (ret)-associated carcinomas in a transgenic MT/ret 304/B6 mouse model in which spontaneous tumors develop due to overexpression of the ret gene. A Ret peptide vaccine comprising an extracellular fragment of Ret protein and Th1-polarized immunoregulator CpG oligonucleotide (1826) induce...

The purpose of our study was to understand if Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) activation could contribute to the control of inflammation in Sjogren's syndrome. To this end, we manipulated TLR9 signaling in non-obese diabetic (NOD) and TLR9(-/-) mice using agonistic CpG oligonucleotide aptamers, TLR9 inhibitors, and the in-house oligonucleotide BL-7040. We then measured salivation, inflammatory resp...

Polycomb group (PcG) complexes 2 and 3 are involved in transcriptional silencing. These complexes contain a histone lysine methyltransferase (HKMT) activity that targets different lysine residues on histones H1 or H3 in vitro. However, it is not known if these histones are methylation targets in vivo because the human PRC2/3 complexes have not been studied in the context of a natural promoter b...

An inoculation of virulent Leishmania major is known as leishmanization (LZ) which is proven to be the most effective control measure against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL). However, using LZ is restricted due to various side effects such as uncontrolled lesion development. In the present research, the efficacy of cationic nanoliposomes containing CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODN) as an improve...

INTRODUCTION Progranulin (PGRN) is the precursor of granulin (GRN), a soluble cofactor for toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) signaling evoked by oligonucleotide (CpG)-DNA. Because TLR9 signaling plays an important role in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we investigated whether PGRN is involved in the pathogenesis of SLE. METHODS We measured concentrations of serum PGRN and interleukin-6 (IL-6) ...