Publications by authors named "Sejiro Littleton"
Radiotherapy (RT) is commonly used to try to eliminate any remaining tumor cells following surgical resection of glioma. However, tumor recurrence is prevalent, highlighting the unmet medical need to develop therapeutic strategies to enhance the efficacy of RT in glioma. Focusing on the radiosensitizing potential of the currently approved drugs known to cross the blood-brain barrier can facilitate rapid clinical translation.
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- Outer retinal degenerations like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) involve damage to photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), with macrophages clustering at these damaged areas, but their roles are not fully understood, especially in humans.
- The study found that a specific group of microglia expressing galectin-3 is active in areas of retinal degeneration, and when galectin-3 was removed, it resulted in more photoreceptor loss and RPE damage, highlighting its protective function.
- Additionally, signals from Trem2 were shown to guide microglial movement to damaged sites and increase galectin-3 expression, suggesting that enhancing this pathway could offer new treatment strategies for retinal degeneration in AMD patients.
Degenerative diseases of the outer retina, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), are characterized by atrophy of photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). In these blinding diseases, macrophages are known to accumulate ectopically at sites of atrophy, but their ontogeny and functional specialization within this atrophic niche remain poorly understood, especially in the human context. Here, we uncovered a transcriptionally unique profile of microglia, marked by galectin-3 upregulation, at atrophic sites in mouse models of retinal degeneration and in human AMD.
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- The study investigates how immune responses differ between sexes in relation to COVID-19, focusing on immune cell variations and how they may affect disease outcomes.
- Researchers sampled blood from both infected and uninfected individuals, revealing a significant decrease in a type of immune cell called mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells in infected females.
- The findings suggest that females may have a protective advantage due to a unique MAIT cell profile that is actively responding to the infection, potentially explaining why they have lower COVID-19 susceptibility compared to males.
Why ocular mucosa is paucibacterial is unknown. Many different mechanisms have been suggested but the comprehensive experimental studies are sparse. We found that a deficiency in L-plastin (LCP1), an actin bundling protein, resulted in an ocular commensal overgrowth, characterized with increased presence of conjunctival spp.
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