Chlamydia-infected macrophages are resistant to azithromycin treatment and are associated with chronic oviduct inflammation and hydrosalpinx development.

Chlamydia infection remains the leading sexually-transmitted bacterial infection worldwide, causing damaging sequelae such as tubal scarring, infertility and ectopic pregnancy. As infection is often asymptomatic, prevention via vaccination is the optimal strategy for disease control. Vaccination strategies aimed at preventing bacterial infection have shown some promise, although these strategies often fail to prevent damaging inflammatory pathology when Chlamydia is encountered.

Differential outcome of IL-2/anti-IL-2 complex therapy on effector and memory CD8+ T cells following vaccination with an adenoviral vector encoding EBV epitopes.

IL-2/anti-IL-2 complex-based therapy has been proposed as a potential adjunct therapeutic tool to enhance in vivo efficacy of T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies for chronic viral infections and human cancers. In this study, we demonstrate that IL-2 complex therapy can have discerning effects on CD8(+) T cells depending on their stage of differentiation. To delineate the underlying mechanism for these opposing effects on CD8(+) T cells, we examined the effects of IL-2 therapy during early priming, effector, and memory phases of T cell responses generated following immunization with an adenoviral vector encoding multiple EBV CD8(+) epitopes.

Discerning regulation of cis- and trans-presentation of CD8+ T-cell epitopes by EBV-encoded oncogene LMP-1 through self-aggregation.

Activation of the nuclear factor-kappaB pathway by Epstein-Barr virus-encoded latent membrane protein-1 (LMP-1) leads to an up-regulation of the major histocompatibility complex class I antigen-processing pathway. Paradoxically, LMP-1 itself induces a subdominant CD8+ T-cell response and appears to have evolved to avoid immune recognition. Here we show that, although expression of LMP-1 in human cells dramatically enhanced the trans-presentation of CD8+ T-cell epitopes, cis-presentation of LMP-1-derived epitopes was severely impaired.