A Preclinical Safety Study of Thyroid Hormone Instilled into the Lungs of Healthy Rats-an Investigational Therapy for ARDS.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe, life-threatening form of respiratory failure characterized by pulmonary edema, inflammation, and hypoxemia due to reduced alveolar fluid clearance (AFC). Alveolar fluid clearance is required for recovery and effective gas exchange, and higher rates of AFC are associated with reduced mortality. Thyroid hormones play multiple roles in lung function, and L-3,5,3'-triiodothyronine (T3) has multiple effects on lung alveolar type II cells.

A prospective analysis of dietary fiber intake and mental health quality of life in the Iowa Women's Health Study.

Objective: Recent studies have reported associations between dietary intake and mental health. Dietary fiber is one nutrient that may modulate mental health, specifically depression risk, through the gut microbiome. We prospectively examined the association between dietary fiber intake and mental health-related quality of life (QOL) scores, a proxy for depressive symptoms, in a cohort of 14,129 post-menopausal women in the Iowa Women's Health Study.

Selective culling of high avidity antigen-specific CD4+ T cells after virulent Salmonella infection.

Typhoid fever is a persistent infection caused by host-adapted Salmonella strains adept at circumventing immune-mediated host defences. Given the importance of T cells in protection, the culling of activated CD4+ T cells after primary infection has been proposed as a potential immune evasion strategy used by this pathogen. We demonstrate that the purging of activated antigen-specific CD4+ T cells after virulent Salmonella infection requires SPI-2 encoded virulence determinants, and is not restricted only to cells with specificity to Salmonella-expressed antigens, but extends to CD4+ T cells primed to expand by co-infection with recombinant Listeria monocytogenes.

Foxp3+ regulatory T cells impede the priming of protective CD8+ T cells.

T cell activation is controlled by incompletely defined opposing stimulation and suppression signals that together sustain the balance between optimal host defense against infection and peripheral tolerance. In this article, we explore the impacts of Foxp3(+) regulatory T cell (Treg) suppression in priming Ag-specific T cell activation under conditions of noninfection and infection. We find the transient ablation of Foxp3(+) Tregs unleashes the robust expansion and activation of peptide-stimulated CD8(+) T cells that provide protection against Listeria monocytogenes infection in an Ag-specific fashion.