Publications by authors named "A A M Coelho-Castelo"
Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health concern worldwide; however the factors that account for resistance or susceptibility to disease are not completely understood. Although some studies suggest that the differential expression of miRNAs in peripheral blood of TB patients could be useful as biomarkers of active disease, their involvement during the inflammatory process in lungs of infected individuals is unknown. Here, we evaluated the global expression of miRNAs in the lungs of mice experimentally infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis on 30 and 60 days post-infection.
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- The genus Paracoccidioides includes dimorphic fungi responsible for paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM), a systemic disease common in Latin America.
- In a study, mice were injected with native (nPbHsp60) or recombinant (rPbHsp60) heat shock proteins after being infected with P. brasiliensis, and both treatments led to increased fungal load and inflammation.
- Results suggested that PbHsp60 worsened the immune response, leading to more inflammation and fungal spread, indicating its role in enhancing fungal pathogenesis.
In DNA vaccines, the gene of interest is cloned into a bacterial plasmid that is engineered to induce protein production for long periods in eukaryotic cells. Previous research has shown that the intramuscular immunization of BALB/c mice with a naked plasmid DNA fragment encoding the Mycobacterium leprae 65-kDa heat-shock protein (pcDNA3-Hsp65) induces protection against M. tuberculosis challenge.
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- Researchers investigated the use of plasmid DNA without an antigen insert as a potential anti-inflammatory therapeutic agent, focusing on its effects on macrophages and a rat model of endotoxemia.
- In lab tests, low doses of plasmid DNA (pcDNA3) significantly reduced the production of inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α in macrophage cells and improved blood pressure stability in rats treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS).
- The study concluded that low doses of plasmid DNA exhibit anti-inflammatory properties, suggesting it could be a novel treatment approach for inflammatory diseases.
In the last several years, the use of dendritic cells has been studied as a therapeutic strategy against tumors. Dendritic cells can be pulsed with peptides or full-length protein, or they can be transfected with DNA or RNA. However, comparative studies suggest that transfecting dendritic cells with messenger RNA (mRNA) is superior to other antigen-loading techniques in generating immunocompetent dendritic cells.
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