Peptide: MHC-based DNA vaccination strategy to activate natural killer cells by targeting killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors.

Background: Natural killer (NK) cells are increasingly being recognized as agents for cancer immunotherapy. The killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) are expressed by NK cells and are immunogenetic determinants of the outcome of cancer. In particular, KIR2DS2 is associated with protective responses to several cancers and also direct recognition of cancer targets in vitro.

Dengue Virus Infection of Blood-Brain Barrier Cells: Consequences of Severe Disease.

More than 500 million people worldwide are infected each year by any of the four-dengue virus (DENV) serotypes. The clinical spectrum caused during these infections is wide and some patients may develop neurological alterations during or after the infection, which could be explained by the cryptic neurotropic and neurovirulent features of flaviviruses like DENV. Using and models, researchers have demonstrated that DENV can affect the cells from the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in several ways, which could result in brain tissue damage, neuronal loss, glial activation, tissue inflammation and hemorrhages.

Conserved and variable natural killer cell receptors: diverse approaches to viral infections.

Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes of the innate immune system with essential roles during viral infections. NK cell functions are mediated through a repertoire of non-rearranging inhibitory and activating receptors that interact with major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-peptide complexes on the surface of infected cells. Recent work studying the conserved CD94-NKG2A and variable killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor-MHC systems suggest that these two receptor families may have subtly different properties in terms of interactions with MHC class I bound peptides, and in recognition of down-regulation of MHC class I.

A novel antibody combination to identify KIR2DS2 natural killer cells in KIR2DL3/L2/S2 heterozygous donors.

The killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) KIR2DS2 induces natural killer (NK) cell activation upon ligation and in genetic studies is associated with protection against certain cancers and viral infections. One of the difficulties in understanding KIR2DS2 has been that ligands have been hard to define. In part, this is because the high sequence homology between KIR2DS2 and KIR2DL3/KIR2DL2 has made it difficult to make antibodies that specifically detect NK cells expressing KIR2DS2.

Description of an in vivo oral mucosa HSV-1 infection model in mice.

In this work, we established an in vivo murine model of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection involving inoculation by scarification of the oral mucosain order to study its dissemination towards the trigeminal ganglion (TG). Both viral DNA and infectious virions were detected on the third day postinfection (p.i.

Viral Inhibition of Bacterial Phagocytosis by Human Macrophages: Redundant Role of CD36.

Macrophages are essential to maintaining lung homoeostasis and recent work has demonstrated that influenza-infected lung macrophages downregulate their expression of the scavenger receptor CD36. This receptor has also been shown to be involved in phagocytosis of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a primary agent associated with pneumonia secondary to viral infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of CD36 in the effects of viral infection on macrophage phagocytic function.