Background: Early, accurate determination of disease severity in an emergency setting is paramount for improving patient outcomes and healthcare costs. Monocyte anisocytosis, quantified as monocyte distribution width (MDW), has been shown to correspond with immune dysregulation. We hypothesize that MDW is broadly associated with illness severity related to sepsis and serious infection in children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The optimal treatment for chronic active antibody-mediated rejection (ca-AMR) remains unclear. Tocilizumab (TCZ), a monoclonal antibody against IL-6, has been proposed as a therapeutic option. We reported our experience treating ca-AMR with TCZ either as the first line option or as a rescue therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCrit Care
June 2021
Background: Early sepsis diagnosis has emerged as one of the main challenges in the emergency room. Measurement of sepsis biomarkers is largely used in current practice to improve the diagnosis accuracy. Monocyte distribution width (MDW) is a recent new sepsis biomarker, available as part of the complete blood count with differential.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale & Objective: Kidney biopsy data inform us about pathologic processes associated with infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We conducted a multicenter evaluation of kidney biopsy findings in living patients to identify various kidney disease pathology findings in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their association with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Study Design: Case series.
Background: Kidney transplants from donors after circulatory death (DCD) make up an increasing proportion of all deceased donor kidney transplants in the United States (US). However, DCD grafts are considered to be of lower quality than kidneys from donors after brain death (DBD). It is unclear whether graft survival is different for these two types of donor kidneys.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is a strong correlation between obesity and cancer. Here, we investigated the influence of IL-6 and gut microbiota of obese mice in melanoma development. We first evaluated B16F10 melanoma growth in preclinical models for obesity: mice deficient for leptin ) or adiponectin (AdpKO) and in wild-type mice (WT, C57BL/6J) fed a high-fat diet (HFD; 60% kcal from fat) for 12 weeks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHyperammonemia syndrome, with high levels of ammonia and neurologic dysfunction, is a syndrome with historically high mortality that may occur after solid organ transplantation. Recently, this has been associated with infection due to Ureaplasma, mostly following lung transplantation. We describe the first case of hyperammonemia syndrome due to Ureaplasma infection after liver-kidney transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLeptospirosis is considered a neglected disease with an estimated more than one million cases every year. Since rodents are at the same time the main reservoir and generally asymptomatic to infection, understanding why some animal species are resistant and others are susceptible to this infection would shed some light in how to control this important zoonosis. The innate immune response against is mainly dependent on phagocytosis and activation of the Complement System.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUptake of tumor antigens by tumor-infiltrating dendritic cells is limiting step in the induction of tumor immunity, which can be mediated through Fc receptor (FcR) triggering by antibody-coated tumor cells. Here we describe an approach to potentiate tumor immunity whereby hapten-specific polyclonal antibodies are recruited to tumors by coating tumor cells with the hapten. Vaccination of mice against dinitrophenol (DNP) followed by systemic administration of DNP targeted to tumors by conjugation to a VEGF or osteopontin aptamer elicits potent FcR dependent, T cell mediated, antitumor immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Immunotherapies are ineffective against pancreatic cancer. We investigated whether the activity of nuclear factor (NF)κB in pancreatic stromal cells contributes to an environment that suppresses antitumor immune response.
Methods: Pancreata of C57BL/6 or Rag1 mice were given pancreatic injections of a combination of Kras; Trp53 ; Pdx-1cre (KPC) pancreatic cancer cells and pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) extracted from C57BL/6 (control) or mice with disruption of the gene encoding the NFκB p50 subunit (Nfkb1 or p50 mice).
The antitumor effect of metformin has been demonstrated in several types of cancer; however, the mechanisms involved are incompletely understood. In this study, we showed that metformin acts directly on melanoma cells as well as on the tumor microenvironment, particularly in the context of the immune response. , metformin induces a complex interplay between apoptosis and autophagy in melanoma cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
March 2019
Leptospirosis is considered one of the most important zoonosis worldwide. The activation of the Complement System is important to control dissemination of several pathogens in the host. Only a few studies have employed murine models to investigate leptospiral infection and our aim in this work was to investigate the role of murine C5 during infection, comparing wild type C57BL/6 (B6 C5) and congenic C57BL/6 (B6 C5, C5 deficient) mice during the first days of infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFT cell immunoglobulin-3 (TIM-3) is a negative regulator of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) secreting CD4 T cells and CD8 T cytotoxic cells. Recent studies have highlighted the role of TIM-3 as an important mediator of CD8 T cell exhaustion in the setting of chronic viral infections and cancer. In murine tumor models, antibody blockade of TIM-3 with anti-TIM-3 antibodies as monotherapy has no or minimal antitumor activity, suggesting that TIM-3 signaling exerts an accessory or amplifying effect in keeping immune responses in check.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to control lentivirus replication may be determined, in part, by the extent to which individual viral proteins are targeted by the immune system. Consequently, defining the antigens that elicit the most protective immune responses may facilitate the design of effective HIV-1 vaccines. Here we vaccinated four groups of rhesus macaques with a heterologous vector prime/boost/boost/boost (PBBB) regimen expressing the following simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) genes: env, gag, vif, rev, tat, and nef (Group 1); env, vif, rev, tat, and nef (Group 2); gag, vif, rev, tat, and nef (Group 3); or vif, rev, tat, and nef (Group 4).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBaboons naturally infected with simian T lymphotropic virus (STLV) are a potentially useful model system for the study of vaccination against human T lymphotropic virus (HTLV). Here we expanded the number of available full-length baboon STLV-1 sequences from one to three and related the T cell responses that recognize the immunodominant Tax protein to the sequences present in two individual baboons. Continuously growing T cell lines were established from two baboons, animals 12141 and 12752.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the absence of uncontrolled hypertension or renal insufficiency, many consider the perinatal outcomes in pregnant women with nephrotic syndrome to be good. To further investigate this we performed a retrospective chart review of women with biopsy-proven nephrotic syndrome due to primary glomerular disease during pregnancy at a single tertiary center. Our review determined characteristics, presentation, management, pathologic diagnoses, and associated renal and maternal-fetal outcomes of 19 individuals with 26 pregnancies and 26 offspring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiotherapy can elicit systemic immune control of local tumors and distant nonirradiated tumor lesions, known as the abscopal effect. Although this effect is enhanced using checkpoint blockade or costimulatory antibodies, objective responses remain suboptimal. As radiotherapy can induce secretion of VEGF and other stress products in the tumor microenvironment, we hypothesized that targeting immunomodulatory drugs to such products will not only reduce toxicity but also broaden the scope of tumor-targeted immunotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: There are currently 5 million to 10 million human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1)-infected people, and many of them will develop severe complications resulting from this infection. A vaccine is urgently needed in areas where HTLV-1 is endemic. Many vaccines are best tested in nonhuman primate animal models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInnate immunity contributes effectively to the development of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). In special, the activation of the complement system is involved in the pathogenesis of this disease. Here we investigated the contribution of complement C5 protein to the establishment and maintenance of ALD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlcoholic liver disease (ALD) is an important worldwide public health issue characterized by liver steatosis, inflammation, necrosis, and apoptosis of hepatocytes with eventual development of fibrosis and cirrhosis. Comparison of murine models with different inflammatory responses for ALD is important for an evaluation of the importance of genetic background in the interpretation of ethanol-induced phenotypes. Here, we investigated the role of inflammation and genetic background for the establishment of ALD using two different mouse strains: C57BL/6 (B6) and A/J.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSplenic transitional B-cells (T1 and T2) are selected to avoid self-reactivity and to safeguard against autoimmunity, then differentiate into mature follicular (FO-I and FO-II) and marginal zone (MZ) subsets. Transcriptomic analysis by RNA-seq of the five B-cell subsets revealed T1 cell signature genes included RAG suggesting a potential for receptor revision. T1 to T2 B-cell differentiation was marked by a switch from Myb to Myc, increased expression of the PI3K adapter DAP10 and MHC class II.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate the in vivo role of complement component C5 it is common to compare the inflammatory response between C5-normal and C5-deficient inbred mice strains. Nevertheless, it should be expected that differences in the genetic backgrounds between those strains may affect several physiological parameters, complicating the correct interpretation of results. The use of congenic mice, developed by backcrossing, is therefore preferred.
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