Regular Industrial Processing of Bovine Milk Impacts the Integrity and Molecular Composition of Extracellular Vesicles.

Background: Bovine milk contains extracellular vesicles (EVs), which act as mediators of intercellular communication by regulating the recipients' cellular processes via their selectively incorporated bioactive molecules. Because some of these EV components are evolutionarily conserved, EVs present in commercial milk might have the potential to regulate cellular processes in human consumers.

Objectives: Because commercial milk is subjected to industrial processing, we investigated its effect on the number and integrity of isolated milk EVs and their bioactive components.

Plasmacytoid dendritic cell and myeloid dendritic cell function in ageing: A comparison between elderly and young adult women.

Ageing is associated with a changing immune system, leading to inflammageing (increased levels of inflammation markers in serum) and immunosenescence (reduced immune cells and reduced responses towards pathogens). This results in reduced vaccination responses and increased infections in elderly. Much is known about the adaptive immune system upon ageing, but less is known about the innate immune system.

Mucolytic activity of bacterial and human chitinases.

Several pulmonary pathologies, like cystic fibrosis (CF), are characterized by hypersecretion and stasis of tenacious mucus. Bacterial glycosidases are known to degrade mucins but their use as mucolytic agents is questionable. The observation that bacterial chitinases degrade mucins and the recent discovery of human chitinases, which have been proposed to be involved in the genesis of asthma, prompted us to evaluate the mucolytic properties of human derived chitinases.

Identification of a highly promiscuous and an HLA allele-specific T-cell epitope in the birch major allergen Bet v 1: HLA restriction, epitope mapping and TCR sequence comparisons.

Background: Allergen-specific CD4+ T cells play an important regulatory role in atopic allergy.

Objective: To investigate the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) restriction and T-cell receptor (TCR) usage of allergen-specific T-cell clones (TCCs) that react with defined epitopes of Bet v 1, the major birch pollen allergen.

Methods: Five Bet v 1-specific TCCs derived from two birch pollen-allergic individuals and specific for Bet v 1, were epitope-mapped with overlapping synthetic peptides.

B7-CD28 interaction is a late acting co-stimulatory signal for human T cell responses.

The interaction of CD28 with one of the B7 molecules (CD80 and CD86) on professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) is generally considered as the most important co-stimulatory signal for T cell activation. APC in a resting condition express either no or only low levels of B7 molecules. These are up-regulated as a result of interactions with activated T cells, thus suggesting that B7-CD28 interaction is not required at initiation of T cell activation.

X-ray and NMR structure of Bet v 1, the origin of birch pollen allergy.

The three-dimensional structure of the major birch pollen allergen, the 17,500 M(r) acidic protein Bet v 1 (from the birch, Betula verrucosa), is presented as determined both in the crystalline state by X-ray diffraction and in solution by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This is the first experimentally determined structure of a clinically important inhalant major allergen, estimated to cause allergy in 5-10 million individuals worldwide. The structure shows three regions on the molecular surface predicted to harbour cross-reactive B-cell epitopes which provide a structural basis for the allergic symptoms that birch pollen allergic patients show when they encounter pollens from related trees such as hazel, alder and hornbeam.

Differential requirements for co-stimulatory signals from B7 family members by resting versus recently activated memory T cells towards soluble recall antigens.

The interaction between CD28 on T cells with CD80 (B7-1) and CD86 (B7-2) on APCs is considered to be of critical importance for primary T cell activation both in vivo and in vitro. The relative importance of this co-stimulatory signal in memory T cell activation is, however, less clear, and was therefore studied by in vitro experiments on T cell responses to soluble recall antigens using peripheral blood mononuclear cells or T cell clones. Our data demonstrate that B7-2 represents the major co-stimulatory signal for the activation of resting peripheral blood memory T cells with recall antigens, as evidenced by the effects of anti-B7-1 and anti-B7-2 on T cell proliferation as well as on IL-2 and INF-gamma production.

Serum-IgE-facilitated allergen presentation in atopic disease.

The occurrence of facilitated Ag presentation (FAP) was investigated in atopic disease using an in vitro model in which the ability of CD23-expressing EBV-B cells was tested to present Der p II, a major allergen of housedust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, to cells of autologous Der p II-specific CD4+ T lymphocyte clones. Purified Der p II protein was immune complexed with Ig by preincubation in sera from atopic patients containing Der p II-specific IgE. Incubation of EBV-B cells with these complexes before using the cells as APC results in proliferation of the Der p II-specific T cells at a 1000-fold lower Der p II concentration than required for T cell activation by presentation of uncomplexed Der p II.