BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The efficacy of antithymocyte globulin (ATG) in the treatment of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is controversial. In the present study we report on the use of low dose ATG (thymoglobuline, Sangstat) and steroids in 28 patients with moderate to severe acute GvHD. DESIGN AND METHODS Fifteen patients received ATG as first-line treatment within 14 days of the diagnosis...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy and safety of daclizumab (DZM) versus anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) as a component of induction therapy in heart transplant recipients. METHODS Thirty heart transplant patients were randomized to receive either ATG or DZM during induction therapy. Patients in the DZM group received an initial dose of 2 mg/kg intravenous (IV) at the...

  Tuberculosis is a serious global public health problem and its high prevalence is stron gly associated with the enhancement of drug resistance. In this study we demonstrate a multiplex allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (MAS)-PCR assay to simultaneously detect mutations in the first and third bases of the embB gene codon 306 ATG in ethambutol (EMB) resistant isolates of Mycobacterium t...

The selection of possible candidate immunosuppressive antibodies to prevent graft rejection is performed in vitro. Additionally, due to the species specificity of these monoclonal antibodies (MABs), pre-clinical studies in non-human primates are necessary. If a positive correlation between the in vitro and in vivo findings would exist, these tests can act as a pre-screening before new reagents ...

CcaR is a positive-acting transcriptional regulator involved in cephamycin C and clavulanic acid biosynthesis in Streptomyces clavuligerus. Previous sequence analyses of the ccaR gene revealed two possible start codons, an ATG, and a GTG located in-frame 18 bp downstream of the ATG. To determine the true start codon, ccaR was expressed, either from the GTG or ATG codon, in Escherichia coli. A p...

T-lymphocyte activation may contribute to atherosclerosis, the prevalence of which is increased in transplant patients. However, the cardiovascular consequences of polyclonal antithymocyte globulin (ATG)-induced immune modifications, which include alterations in T-cell subsets, are unknown. We conducted a retrospective single-center study to assess whether ATG associates with an increased incid...

This study examined expression of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) component mRNAs in angiotensinogen gene knockout (Atg-/-) mice. Wild-type (Atg+/+) and Atg-/- mice were fed a normal-salt (0.3% NaCl) or high-salt (4% NaCl) diet for 2 weeks. Angiotensinogen, renin, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), angiotensin II type la receptor (AT1A), and angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2) mRNA levels wer...