Regulatory B cells (Bregs) are a subset of B cells, which reportedly exert significant immunomodulatory effects through the production of interleukin (IL)‑10, IL‑35 and transforming growth factor‑β. Over the last decade, studies have indicated that Bregs function in autoimmune and allergic diseases through antigen‑specific and non‑specific immunoregulatory mechanisms. However, only a limited nu...

Even after the improvements made in recent years in early diagnosis and treatments, breast cancer is still the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in women around the world. Several attempts to design new alternative therapies like immunotherapy have been evaluated in clinical trials, but they have shown limited efficacy. The failure of immunotherapy may be related to suppr...

A central objective in organ transplantation and the treatment or prevention of autoimmune disease is the achievement of antigen-specific immune tolerance. An additional challenge in bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of hematological malignancies is the prevention of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) while maintaining graft-vs-tumor activity. Interestingly, CD4(-)CD8(-) (double negative,...

In infectious diseases, interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) is generally accepted as one of the most important inducers of antimicrobial and immunoregulatory effects, and both seemingly contradictory effects, can be mediated by the same effector molecules. In detail, several IFN-gamma induced enzymes such as the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) as well as the indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) al...

Despite the impressive increase in the cloning and expression of genes encoding fish immunoregulatory molecules, the knowledge on "in vivo" and "in vitro" functional immunology of the corresponding peptide products is still at an initial stage. This is partly due to the lacking of specific markers for immunoregulatory peptides, that represent an indispensible tool to dissect immune reactions an...