Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients receive therapeutic immunosuppression that compromises their immune response to infections and vaccines. For this reason, SOT patients have a high risk of developing severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and an increased risk of death from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Moreover, the efficiency of immunotherapies and vaccines is reduced due to the constant immunosuppression in this patient group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemotherapy has direct toxic effects on cancer cells; however, long-term cancer control and complete remission are likely to involve CD8 T cell immune responses. To study the role of CD8 T cell infiltration in the success of chemotherapy, we examined patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) who were categorized on the basis of the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). We identified the intratumoral CXCR3 chemokine system (ligands and receptor splice variants) as a critical component for tumor eradication upon NAC in MIBC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe incidence of allergic diseases has increased over the past 50 years, likely due to environmental factors. However, the nature of these factors and the mode of action by which they induce the type 2 immune deviation characteristic of atopic diseases remain unclear. It has previously been reported that dietary sodium chloride promotes the polarization of T helper 17 (T17) cells with implications for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: T17 cells have so far been considered to be crucial mediators of autoimmune inflammation. Two distinct types of T17 cells have been described recently, which differed in their polarization requirement for IL-1β and in their cytokine repertoire. Whether these distinct T17 phenotypes translate into distinct T17 cell functions with implications for human health or disease has not been addressed yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough T helper 17 (TH17) cells have been acknowledged as crucial mediators of autoimmune tissue damage, the effector cytokines responsible for their pathogenicity still remain poorly defined, particularly in humans. In mouse models of autoimmunity, the pathogenicity of TH17 cells has recently been associated with their production of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). We analyzed the regulation of GM-CSF expression by human TH cell subsets.
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