Publications by authors named "Katie Birch"
Article Synopsis
- Infection from a specific pathogen is the primary cause of infective endocarditis (IE) by promoting platelet aggregation and thrombus formation.
- A secreted cysteine protease called staphopain A plays a crucial role in activating human platelets, with its presence being necessary for effective platelet aggregation.
- Protease-activated receptors 1 and 4 are implicated in the mechanism of platelet activation linked to staphopain A, as evidenced by the ability of specific antagonists to inhibit this activation.
Repeated antigenic encounter drives proliferation and differentiation of memory T cell pools. An important question is whether certain specific T cells may be driven eventually to exhaustion in elderly individuals since the human life expectancy is increasing. We found that CMV-specific CD4+ T cells were significantly expanded in healthy young and old carriers compared with purified protein derivative-, varicella zoster virus-, EBV-, and HSV-specific populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe extent of human memory T cell proliferation, differentiation, and telomere erosion that occurs after a single episode of immune challenge in vivo is unclear. To investigate this, we injected tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) into the skin of immune individuals and isolated responsive T cells from the site of antigenic challenge at different times. PPD-specific CD4+ T cells proliferated and differentiated extensively in the skin during this secondary response.
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