c is a lifelong member of the mycobiome causing mucosal candidiasis and life-threatening, systemic, and intra-abdominal disease in immunocompromised and transplant patients. Despite the clinical importance of intra-abdominal candidiasis with mortality rates between 40% and 70%, the contribution of fungal virulence factors and host immune responses to disease has not been extensively studied. Secretion of the quorum-sensing molecule, farnesol, acts as a virulence factor for during systemic infection, while inducing local, protective innate immune responses in oral models of infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep's role in memory consolidation is widely acknowledged, but its role in weakening memories is still debated. Memory weakening is evolutionary beneficial and makes an integral contribution to cognition. We sought evidence on whether sleep-based memory reactivation can facilitate memory suppression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMemory consolidation involves the reactivation of memory traces during sleep. If different memories are reactivated each night, how much do they interfere with one another? We examined whether reactivating multiple memories incurs a cost to sleep-related benefits by contrasting reactivation of multiple memories versus single memories during sleep. First, participants learned the on-screen location of different objects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe investigation of new adjuvants is essential for the development of efficacious vaccines. Chitosan (CS), a derivative of chitin, has been shown to act as an adjuvant, improving vaccine-induced immune responses. However, the effect of CS molecular weight (MW) on this adjuvanticity has not been investigated, despite MW having been shown to impact CS biological properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToll-like receptor (TLR)4 and TLR9 agonists, MPL and CpG, are used as adjuvants in vaccines and have been investigated for their combined potential. However, how these two combined agonists regulate transcriptional changes in innate immune cells and cells at the site of vaccination has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we utilized transcriptomics to investigate how CpG, MPL, and CpG + MPL impact gene expression in dendritic cells (DC) in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough we experience thousands of distinct events on a daily basis, relatively few are committed to memory. The human capacity to intentionally control which events will be remembered has been demonstrated using learning procedures with instructions to purposely avoid committing specific items to memory. In this study, we used a variant of the item-based directed-forgetting procedure and instructed participants to memorize the location of some images but not others on a grid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Opin Biomed Eng
September 2018
Non-viral gene delivery via the oral route is a promising strategy for improving outcomes of DNA vaccination and gene therapy applications. Unlike traditional parenteral administration routes, the oral route is a non-invasive approach that lends itself to high patient compliance and ease of dosing. Moreover, oral administration allows for both local and systemic production of therapeutic genes or, in the case of DNA vaccination, mucosal and systemic immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to determine whether kinematic data collected by the Microsoft Kinect 2 (MK2) could be used to quantify postural stability in healthy subjects. Twelve subjects were recruited for the project, and were instructed to perform a sequence of simple postural stability tasks. The movement sequence was performed as subjects were seated on top of a force platform, and the MK2 was positioned in front of them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInterferon Regulatory Factor (IRF)3 is a crucial transcription factor during innate immune responses. Here we show IRF3 also has a role in adaptive T cell immune responses. Expression of IFN-γ, IL-17, and Granzyme B (GrB) during in vitro T cell responses was impaired when either dendritic cells (DCs) or T cells were derived from IRF3KO mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCD4 T cells that recognize peptide antigen in the context of class II MHC can differentiate into various subsets that are characterized by their helper functions. However, increasing evidence indicates that CD4 cells with direct cytolytic activity (CD4 CTL) play a role in chronic as well as acute infections, such as influenza A virus (IAV) infection. In the last couple of decades, techniques to measure the frequency and activity of these cytolytic cells has demonstrated their abundance in infections, such as human immunodeficiency virus, mouse pox, murine gamma herpes virus, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and influenza among others.
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