Revised diagnostic criteria for vogt-koyanagi-harada disease: considerations on the different disease categories.

Purpose: To evalulate the applicability of the Revised Diagnostic Criteria for Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease to Brazilian patients and to verify the association between different disease categories, clinical parameters, and the presence of HLA-DRB1*0405.

Design: A retrospective observational case series.

Methods: Medical charts of 67 patients (10 to 64 years in age; 12 men and 55 women), from the Uveitis Service, Hospital das Clínicas, University of São Paulo School of Medicine (HCFMUSP), São Paulo, Brazil were reviewed.

T-cell recognition of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis gp43-derived peptides in patients with paracoccidioidomycosis and healthy individuals.

Vaccines with synthetic peptides induce the immune response to epitopes that bind to several HLA alleles. By using a TEPITOPE algorithm, we selected and analyzed the T-cell responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 29 paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) patients to peptides of the immunodominant gp43 antigen of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis, the causative agent of PCM.

T-cell recognition and cytokine profile induced by melanocyte epitopes in patients with HLA-DRB1*0405-positive and -negative Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada uveitis.

Purpose: Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (VKH), an autoimmune disease targeted against melanocytes, is associated with HLA-DRB1*0405. This study was undertaken to analyze T-cell recognition and the cytokine expression profile induced by melanocyte epitopes in HLA-DRB1*0405-positive and -negative patients with VKH uveitis.

Methods: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) proliferation and Th1 (IFN-gamma) and Th2 (IL-4 and IL-5) cytokine production were analyzed in HLA-DRB1*0405-positive (n = 12) and -negative (n = 22) patients with VKH and HLA-DRB1*0405-positive (n = 9) and -negative (n = 8) control subjects in response to human melanoma cell line lysate (HMCLL) and 28 synthetic peptides derived from the human melanocyte differentiation proteins TYR, TRP1, TRP2, and Pmel17.