Inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α regulate lymphocyte trafficking through the local lymph node.

Lymphocyte trafficking from blood to lymph and back is a tightly regulated process. Given appropriate stimuli, trafficking of cells through the lymph node changes from a 'steady-state' to a bimodal flow. Initially, a 'shutdown' phase occurs, leading to a dramatic reduction in efferent cell output.

Virus-sized vaccine delivery systems.

In a return to the early days of vaccine development during which effective vaccines were produced against viruses, virus-sized vaccine delivery systems have made a comeback. Using modern production technologies these nanoparticles have proved to be very effective at inducing cellular and humoral immune responses. Here, we review a number of vaccine delivery systems based on nanoparticles in the size range of typical viruses.

Enrichment of prion protein in exosomes derived from ovine cerebral spinal fluid.

Prion diseases are transmissible neurodegenerative disorders affecting humans and a wide variety of animal species including sheep and cattle. The transmissible agent, the prion, is an abnormally folded form (PrP(Sc)) of the host encoded cellular prion protein (PrP(C)). Distribution of the prion protein in the fluids of species susceptible to these diseases is of importance to human health and the iatrogenic spread of prion disease.

Vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease virus using peptides conjugated to nano-beads.

Vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is a major problem as current vaccines do not allow easy differentiation between infected and vaccinated animals. Furthermore, large scale production of inactivated virus poses significant risks. To address this we investigated the feasibility of using inert nano-beads that target antigen to dendritic cells (DCs) to induce immune responses against FMDV-specific synthetic peptides in sheep.

Autoimmune gastritis and parietal cell reactivity in two children with abnormal intestinal permeability.

Autoimmune gastritis is characterised by lymphocytic infiltration of the gastric submucosa, with loss of parietal and chief cells and achlorhydria. Often, gastritis is expressed clinically as cobalamin deficiency with megaloblastic anaemia, which is generally described as a disease of the elderly. Here, we report on two prepubertal children who developed autoimmune gastritis.

Murine experimental autoimmune gastritis models refractive to development of intrinsic factor autoantibodies, cobalamin deficiency and pernicious anemia.

Researchers have developed murine lymphopenic, non-lymphopenic, transgenic, spontaneous and infectious agent based models to induce an experimental autoimmune gastritis (EAG) for the study of human organ-specific autoimmune disease. These models result in a chronic inflammatory mononuclear cell infiltrate in the gastric mucosa, destruction of parietal and zymogenic cells with autoantibodies reactive to the gastric parietal cells and the gastric H+/K+ ATPase (ATP4), arguably hallmarks of a human autoimmune gastritis (AIG). In the case of AIG, it is well documented that, in addition to parietal cell antibodies being detected in up to 90% of patients, up to 70% have intrinsic factor antibodies with the later antibodies considered highly specific to patients with pernicious anemia.

Particulate delivery systems for animal vaccines.

The requirements for veterinary vaccines are different to those of human vaccines. Indeed, while more side effects can be tolerated in animals than in humans; there are stricter requirements in terms of cost, ease of delivery (including to wildlife), and a need to develop vaccines in species for which relatively little is known in terms of molecular immunology. By their nature particulate vaccine delivery systems are well suited to address these challenges.

Autoantibodies in neuropsychiatric lupus.

The American College of Rheumatology presented a consensus document in 1999 proposing the classification of 19 different syndromes defined by neurological and psychiatric manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The detection of autoantibodies in patient's serum or cerebrospinal fluid has not been used as diagnostic markers for the proposed neuropsychiatric lupus classifications as their disease associations remain highly contentious. Autoantibodies detected in the serum and/or cerebrospinal fluid, that have been reported to segregate with patients presenting with neuropsychiatric lupus include: (1) anti-neuronal antibodies, (2) brain-lymphocyte cross-reactive antibodies, (3) anti-ribosomal P antibodies, (4) anti-phospholipid antibodies and (5) anti-ganglioside antibodies.