A Development and Implementation of a Preconception Counseling Program for Black Women and Men in the Southeastern United States: A Pilot Protocol.

Introduction: Racial/ethnic disparities in maternal mortality rates represent one of the most significant areas of disparities amongst all conventional population perinatal health measures in the U.S. The alarming trends and persistent disparities of outcomes by race/ethnicity and geographic location reinforce the need to focus on ensuring quality and safety of maternity care for all women.

Downmodulation of antigen presentation by H2-O in B cell lines and primary B lymphocytes.

Peptide loading onto MHC class II molecules takes place in endosomal compartments along the endocytic pathway. There, loading is facilitated by the catalytic function of the accessory molecule H2-M, which helps to exchange the invariant chain-derived CLIP peptide in the groove of class II molecules for antigenic peptide. H2-O is another accessory molecule specific to the class II pathway, which is found tightly associated with H2-M and selectively expressed in B cells.

HLA-DM, HLA-DO and tapasin: functional similarities and differences.

In both the MHC class II and class I pathways of antigen presentation, accessory molecules influence formation of MHC-peptide complexes. In the MHC class II pathway, DM functions in the loading and editing of peptides; recent work demonstrated that it is acting not only in late endosomal compartments but also in recycling compartments and on the surface of B cells and immature dendritic cells. DM activity is modulated by another accessory molecule, DO, but this modulation is mainly operative in B cells, where it may lead to preferential activation of B cells producing high-affinity antibodies.

Characterization of the human elk-1 promoter. Potential role of a downstream intronic sequence for elk-1 gene expression in monocytes.

To characterize the human elk-1 promoter, we mapped the transcriptional start site and isolated elk-1-specific genomic phage clones that contained extensive upstream and downstream sequences. A TATA-like motif was identified immediately upstream of the transcriptional start site. Functional analyses of DNA fragments containing the TATA element and the identification of a DNase I-hypersensitive chromatin site (HS 1) in close proximity to the TATA box suggest that the identified TATA motif is important for elk-1 transcription in vivo.