Microbial molecular patterns engage TLRs and activate dendritic cells and other accessory cells. Follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) exist in resting and activated states, but are activated in germinal centers, where they provide accessory function. We reasoned that FDCs might express TLRs and that engagement might activate FDCs by up-regulating molecules important for accessory activity. To test...

Follicular dendritic cells (FDC) play a pivotal role in the initiation and maintenance of the secondary humoral immune response. FDC located in the follicles of secondary lymphoid tissues are part of a special mechanism that handles antigen in a specific antibody-rich environment and are integral members of the antigen transport cell-FDC-iccosome-B-cell axis that leads to the formation of germi...

This paper revisits past works on fitness distance correlation (FDC) in relation to genetic algorithms (GA) performance, and puts forth evidence that this statistical measure is relevant to predict the performance of a GA. We propose an interpretation of Hamming-distance based FDC, which takes into account the GA dynamics and the effects of crossover operator. We base this proposition on the no...

Despite the success of antiretroviral therapy (ART), it does not cure Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and discontinuation results in viral rebound. Follicular dendritic cells (FDC) are in direct contact with CD4+ T cells and they retain intact antigen for prolonged periods. We found that human FDC isolated from patients on ART retain infectious HIV within a non-degradative cycling compartmen...

The impact of fixed-dose combination (FDC) products on adherence to other, non-fixed regimen components has not been examined. We compared adherence to a third antiretroviral (ART) component among patients receiving a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) backbone consisting of the FDC Epzicom(®), GlaxoSmithKline Inc, Research Triangle Park, NC (abacavir sulfate 600 mg + lamivudine ...

Follicular dendritic cells (FDC) are important stromal cells within the B-cell follicles and germinal centres (GC) of secondary lymphoid tissues. FDC trap and retain native antigens on their surfaces in the form of immune complexes that they display to B cells, in order to select those cells with the highest antigen affinity. MicroRNAs are short, non-coding RNAs that are approximately 18-25 nuc...

Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders caused by accumulation of abnormal prion protein (protease-resistant prion, PrPres). PrPres accumulation is also detected in lymphoid organs after peripheral infection. Several studies suggest that follicular dendritic cells (FDC) could be the site of PrPres retention and amplification. Here we show that human follicular dendritic cells can e...

Inflammatory pseudotumor (IPT)-like follicular dendritic cell (FDC) tumor is a rare disease with distinct clinicopathological features. We report a case of so-called Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)associated IPT-like FDC tumor of the spleen. We found a splenic mass lesion during his annual checkup. After recognizing the growing mass, splenectomy was performed. Histopathological and immunohistological ...

The lymphoid follicle is a specialized microenvironment for the differentiation of antigen (Ag)-activated B cells; the major stromal cell components in lymphoid follicle are the follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). At the same time, most of the B-cell lymphomas originate from the germinal center, and the generation and blast transformation of B-cell lymphoma occurs in close association with FDCs ...

Germinal center (GC) B cells undergo complex interactions with follicular dendritic cells (FDC) and T cells in the course of differentiation into memory B and plasma cells. To delineate the individual roles of FDC and T cells at each stage of GC B cell differentiation at the clonal level and to analyze the signals involved, we adopted a unique experimental model using an FDC line, HK, and a lym...