IFN Receptor 2 Regulates TNF-α-Mediated Damaging Inflammation during Aspergillus Pulmonary Infection.

The increased incidence of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, occurring in patients infected with severe influenza or SARS-CoV-2, suggests that antiviral immune responses create an environment permissive to fungal infection. Our recent evidence suggests that absence of the type I IFN receptor 2 subunit (IFNAR2) of the heterodimeric IFNAR1/2 receptor is allowing for this permissive immune environment of the lung through regulation of damage responses. Because damage is associated with poor outcome to invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, this suggested that IFNAR2 may be involved in A.

Diet-induced changes in metabolism influence immune response and viral shedding dynamics in Jamaican fruit bats.

Land-use change may drive viral spillover from bats into humans, partly through dietary shifts caused by decreased availability of native foods and increased availability of cultivated foods. We manipulated diets of Jamaican fruit bats to investigate whether diet influences shedding of a virus they naturally host. To reflect dietary changes experienced by wild bats during periods of nutritional stress, bats were fed either standard or putative suboptimal diets which were deprived of protein (suboptimal-sugar) and/or supplemented with fat (suboptimal-fat).

In Depth Breadth Analyses of Human Blockade Responses to Norovirus and Response to Vaccination.

To evaluate and understand the efficacy of vaccine candidates, supportive immunological measures are needed. Critical attributes for a norovirus vaccine are the strength and breadth of antibody responses against the many different genotypes. In the absence of suitable neutralization assays to test samples from vaccine clinical trials, blockade assays offer a method that can measure functional antibodies specific for many of the different norovirus strains.

Alpha(4)beta(7)/alpha(4)beta(1) dual integrin antagonists block alpha(4)beta(7)-dependent adhesion under shear flow.

The alpha(4) integrin, alpha(4)beta(7), plays an important role in recruiting circulating lymphocytes to the gastrointestinal tract, where its ligand mucosal addressin cell adhesion molecule-1 (MAdCAM-1) is preferentially expressed on high endothelial venules (HEVs). Dual antagonists of alpha(4)beta(1) and alpha(4)beta(7), N-(2,6-dichlorobenzoyl)-(L)-4-(2',6'-bis-methoxyphenyl)phenylalanine (TR14035) and N-(N-[(3,5-dichlorobenzene)sulfonyl]-2-(R)-methylpropyl)-(D)-phenylalanine (compound 1), were tested for their ability to block the binding of alpha(4)beta(7)-expressing cells to soluble ligand in suspension and under in vitro and in vivo shear flow. Compound 1 and TR14035 blocked the binding of human alpha(4)beta(7) to an (125)I-MAdCAM-Ig fusion protein with IC(50) values of 2.