Intravenous ascorbic acid as an adjuvant to interleukin-2 immunotherapy.

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) therapy has been demonstrated to induce responses in 10-20% of advanced melanoma and renal cell carcinoma patients, which translates into durable remissions in up to half of the responsers. Unfortunately the use of IL-2 has been associated with severe toxicity and death. It has been previously observed and reported that IL-2 therapy causes a major drop in circulating levels of ascorbic acid (AA).

Mast cells are required for full expression of allergen/SEB-induced skin inflammation.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic pruritic inflammatory skin disease. We recently described an animal model in which repeated epicutaneous applications of a house dust mite extract and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B induced eczematous skin lesions. In this study we showed that global gene expression patterns are very similar between human AD skin and allergen/staphylococcal enterotoxin B-induced mouse skin lesions, particularly in the expression of genes related to epidermal growth/differentiation, skin barrier, lipid/energy metabolism, immune response, or extracellular matrix.