A reproducible immunopotency assay to measure mesenchymal stromal cell-mediated T-cell suppression.

Background Aims: The T-cell suppressive property of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) has been considered a major mode of action and basis for their utilization in a number of human clinical trials. However, there is no well-established reproducible assay to measure MSC-mediated T-cell suppression.

Methods: At the University of Wisconsin-Madison Production Assistance for Cellular Therapy (PACT) Center, we developed an in vitro quality control T-cell suppression immunopotency assay (IPA) that uses anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies to stimulate T-cell proliferation.

Pressure indices in peripheral arterial disease assessed by infrared photosensors.

Ankle-brachial index (ABI) assessment by Doppler is operator dependent and limited in calcified arteries. For the detection of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), we evaluated ABI and toe-finger (ToFi) pressures by infrared (IR) sensors at the digits and compared with standard Doppler (Doppler-ABI) in 100 patients with PAD and in 15 controls. Pressure indices were obtained in 86% for Doppler-ABI, 82% for IR-ABI, and 94% for IR-ToFi (P < .

Antigenicity of human melanoma cells transfected to express the B7-1 co-stimulatory molecule (CD80) varies with the level of B7-1 expression.

The aim of this study was to compare the antigenicity of human melanoma cells molecularly modified by particle-mediated gene transfer to have transient or stable expression of the B7-1 co-stimulatory molecule (CD80). The unmodified melanoma cells (mel5, m21) had no constitutive expression of B7-1, but 22%-28% of cells had transient B7-1 expression 24 h following transfection with cDNA for B7-1 (mel5-B7, m21-B7). In addition, 85%-90% of cells had stable B7-1 expression following transfection with cDNA for B7-1 and in vitro culture under selection conditions (mel5-B7neo, m21-B7neo).

Dual expression of human leukocyte antigen molecules and the B7-1 costimulatory molecule (CD80) on human melanoma cells after particle-mediated gene transfer.

The aim of this study was to determine if human melanoma cells could be molecularly modified by particle-mediated gene transfer with a "gene gun", using genes for interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), the B7-1 costimulatory molecule (CD80), and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2, to augment expression of both HLA molecules and B7-1. Established and early passage melanoma cells transfected with human IFN-gamma complementary DNA (cDNA) produced IFN-gamma (50-5,000 pg/mL). The biological effect of this IFN-gamma transgene included an upregulation, or de novo appearance, of HLA expression.

Human genes for the immunoglobulin gamma-chain (Gm) allotypes and for the T cell receptor alpha-chain are distantly linked or unlinked.

Since the genes for two of the T cell receptor (TCR) chains (alpha and delta) and for the immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chains (alpha, gamma, delta, epsilon and mu) are all on the long arm of human chromosome 14, it is of interest to determine if they are genetically linked and, if so, how strongly. We tested genetic polymorphisms of the TCR alpha-locus and Ig gamma-locus in 19 families comprising 107 members, and asssessed the frequency of recombination between the two loci. The results rule out strong linkage: all recombination fractions below 0.