Characterisation of the biological activity of recombinant equine eotaxin in vitro.

The chemokine eotaxin (CCL11) is a key player in the trafficking of eosinophils to normal tissues and in the tissue eosinophilia associated with human allergic disease. We have recently cloned equine eotaxin and here we report the production of rEq eotaxin, with and without a C-terminal fusion peptide, in a novel expression system utilising stably transfected insect cells. rEq eotaxin induced equine eosinophil migration and superoxide production in vitro.

Autoreactivity in collagen-induced arthritis of rats: a potential role for T cell responses to self MHC peptides.

Collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) is a chronic inflammatory arthropathy of rats which follows immunization with bovine type II collagen (bCII). T cell lines generated from arthritic rats have been shown to be self-reactive and proliferate in an autologous MLR, which is MHC-dependent. However, the peptides which drive this autoreactive response remain to be elucidated.

Autologous mixed lymphocyte responses in experimentally-induced arthritis of the Lewis rat.

Lewis rats develop immune-mediated arthritis following injection with a variety of agents including bovine type II collagen (bCII), mycobacteria, muramyl dipeptide and CP20961. Since susceptibility to experimentally-induced arthritis has been linked to the genes encoding the major histocompatibility complex, it is hypothesized that antigen presentation to autoreactive T-cells is a critical event in the pathogenesis of disease. T-cells, isolated from Lewis rats immunized with bCII or mycobacteria, were co-cultured with splenic or thymic antigen presenting cells (APC) and proliferative responses to antigen were assessed by 3H-thymidine incorporation.