Both load and duration of small intestinal lipid infusion affect antropyloroduodenal motility and CCK and peptide YY (PYY) release at loads comparable to and higher than the normal gastric emptying rate. We determined 1) the effects of intraduodenal lipid loads well below the mean rate of gastric emptying on, and 2) the relationships between antropyloroduodenal motility, CCK, PYY, appetite, and...

BACKGROUND STR/ort mice spontaneously develop degenerative changes of the knee joints resembling human osteoarthritis (OA), with the males being more severely affected than the females. OBJECTIVE To analyse the early changes leading to OA by examining the articular cytokine expression and degenerative changes in STR/ort mice. METHODS 122 STR/ort mice of both sexes aged between 2 and 15.5 mo...

BACKGROUND Candidate gene case-control studies have identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with asthma susceptibility. Most of these studies have been restricted to evaluations of specific SNPs within a single gene and within populations from European ancestry. Recently, there is increasing interest in understanding racial differences in genetic risk assoc...

Literature suggests that the effect of winter birth on vulnerability to schizophrenia might be mediated by increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines due to prenatal infection and its inadequate regulation by anti-inflammatory factors. As the response of the immune system depends on genotype, this study assessed the interaction effects of cytokine genes and season of birth (SOB) on schiz...

BACKGROUND Interleukin (IL) 4 plays a critical role in immune responses by acting as a growth factor for type 2 helper T cells and inducing immunoglobulin (Ig) class switching to IgE. Epidemiological evidence of the relationship between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in IL4 and asthma is inconsistent. OBJECTIVES We examined the association between the IL4 SNPs rs2243250, rs2070874, rs...

In previous studies, ILA has been reported to interfere with IL-2-driven generation of lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) activity. In this investigation, we have demonstrated that IL4 inhibited the IL-2-induced differentiation of large granular lymphocytes (LGL) into LAK effectors by a mechanism involving, at least in part, an increase in LGL intracellular cAMP levels. In contrast, with its cap...

Recent studies show that most patients with X-linked hyper IgM syndrome have defects in the gene for CD40 ligand. We evaluated 17 unrelated males suspected of having X-linked hyper IgM syndrome. Activated T cells from 13 of the 17 patients failed to bind a soluble CD40 construct. In these patients, the sequence of CD40 ligand demonstrated mutations. By contrast, T cells from the remaining four ...

In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC), lymphoid infiltrates, comprised mainly of Th2 cells, predict a poor survival outcome in patients. IL4 signaling has been suggested to stabilize the Th2 phenotype in this setting, but the cellular source of IL4 in PDAC is unclear. Here, we show that basophils expressing IL4 are enriched in tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLN) of PDAC patients. Basophils ...

We studied the effects ofIL4 on the spontaneous proliferation of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMMoL) cells in vitro. ILA (100 U/ml) suppressed the spontaneous DNA synthesis by 50% in 5 of 8 cases examined. 1L4 (100 U/ml) also inhibited the spontaneous colony formation by CMMoL cells in a methylceliulose culture by 50-97% in all of the 10 cases in which spontaneous colonies were formed. This...

Studies have demonstrated that common polymorphisms in Th1 and Th2 cytokine genes can alter gene expression, modulate the balance between Th1/Th2 responsiveness, and influence susceptibility for autoimmune disorders, infectious diseases, and cancer. We analyzed one or more single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 20 candidate Th1/Th2 genes in a population-based case-control study of non-Hodgki...