MicroRNAs miR-4535 and miR-1915-5p in amniotic fluid as predictive biomarkers for chorioamnionitis.

Background: This study was performed to investigate the clinical significance of miR-4535 and miR-1915-5p in severe chorioamnionitis.

Materials & Methods: Amniotic fluid samples from 37 patients with severe chorioamnionitis were subjected to miRNA array analysis and ddPCR™. Diagnostic values were assessed using the receiver operating characteristic curve.

HLA-DQ and RBFOX1 as susceptibility genes for an outbreak of hydrolyzed wheat allergy.

Background: Food allergy is a growing health problem worldwide because of its increasing prevalence, life-threatening potential, and shortage of effective preventive treatments. In an outbreak of wheat allergy in Japan, thousands of patients had allergic reactions to wheat after using soap containing hydrolyzed wheat protein (HWP).

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate genetic variation that can contribute to susceptibility to HWP allergy.

Characterization of parent-of-origin methylation using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC array platform.

Aim: This study aimed to establish a catalog of probes corresponding to imprinted differentially methylated regions (DMRs) on the Infinium HumanMethylationEPIC BeadChip.

Materials & Methods: Reciprocal uniparental diploidies with low normal biparental mosaic contribution, together with normal diploid controls, were subjected to EPIC BeadChip hybridization. The methylation profiles were assessed for imprinted differential methylation.

Mast cells as sources of cytokines, chemokines, and growth factors.

Mast cells are hematopoietic cells that reside in virtually all vascularized tissues and that represent potential sources of a wide variety of biologically active secreted products, including diverse cytokines and growth factors. There is strong evidence for important non-redundant roles of mast cells in many types of innate or adaptive immune responses, including making important contributions to immediate and chronic IgE-associated allergic disorders and enhancing host resistance to certain venoms and parasites. However, mast cells have been proposed to influence many other biological processes, including responses to bacteria and virus, angiogenesis, wound healing, fibrosis, autoimmune and metabolic disorders, and cancer.

Advances in mechanisms of allergic disease in 2016.

This review highlights advances in mechanisms of allergic disease, particularly type 2 innate lymphoid cells; T2 lymphocytes; eicosanoid regulation of inflammation; extracellular vesicles in allergic responses; IL-33; microbiome properties, especially as they relate to mucosal barrier function; and a series of findings concerning the allergic inflammatory cells eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells. During the last year, mechanistic advances occurred in understanding type 2 innate lymphoid cells, particularly related to their response to ozone, involvement with experimental food allergy responses, and regulation by IL-33. Novel ways of regulating T2 cells through epigenetic regulation of GATA-3 through sirtuin-1, a class III histone deacetylase, were published.

Restoration of Tear Secretion in a Murine Dry Eye Model by Oral Administration of Palmitoleic Acid.

Sea buckthorn (-derived products have traditionally been used as food and medicinal ingredients in Eastern countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of oral intake of sea buckthorn oil products on tear secretion using a murine dry eye model. Orally administered sea buckthorn pulp oil (not seed oil) restored aqueous tear secretion to its normal value under a dry eye condition.

Cellular immunotherapy with ex vivo expanded cord blood T cells in a humanized mouse model of EBV-associated lymphoproliferative disease.

Background: Donor lymphocyte infusion is not feasible in recipients of cord blood transplantation.

Aim: We investigated whether infusion of T cells expanded from cord blood is effective in the treatment of model mice of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphoproliferative disease (LPD).

Materials & Methods: Humanized mice with reconstituted human immune system were prepared and LPD was induced by inoculating EBV intravenously.

TKI dasatinib monotherapy for a patient with Ph-like ALL bearing ATF7IP/PDGFRB translocation.

We report a 10-year-old male with relapsing Ph-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) bearing ATF7IP/PDGFRB translocation. He was refractory to conventional therapy, and was finally treated with single-agent second-generation TKI dasatinib. The therapeutic response was prompt, with the disappearance of minimum residual disease (MRD) based on genomic PCR analysis within 3 months, and he has maintained complete molecular remission for 12 months.

Mast cells and IgE: from history to today.

Role of mast cells in allergy had remained undetermined until the discovery of IgE in 1966. Then, IgE purified from many Liters of plasma, which had been donated from a patient with fatal myeloma, was distributed to researchers all over the world, and thus accelerated exploring the mechanisms involved in allergic reactions, particularly about the role of mast cells and basophils in the IgE-mediated reactions. Identification of mast cells as a progeny of a bone marrow hematopoietic stem cell in 1977 led us to successful in vitro culture of human mast cells.

Hev B 6.02 is the most important allergen in health care workers sensitized occupationally by natural rubber latex gloves.

Background: Natural rubber latex (NRL) allergy is a common occupational disease in health care workers (HCW). However, few reports have compared the major allergen of HCWs to those in gloves that are routinely used in the hospital. The aim of this study was to evaluate the major NRL allergens in gloves used by HCWs.

Progress in allergy signal research on mast cells: systemic approach to mast cell biology in allergic diseases.

At the end of the last century, microarray technology that examines the total genes and transcripts present in a cell became available as a laboratory tool. Mast cells are known to play a pivotal role in initiating allergic inflammation by releasing various mediators and cytokines. According to the recent microarray-based studies, mast cells have been found to be much more versatile functional molecules than we ever thought.

Gene expression profiling of human mast cell subtypes: an in silico study.

Background: Human mast cells (MCs) were classified into at least two subtypes, i.e., tryptase- and chymase-positive MCs (MC(TC)) and tryptase-only-positive MCs (MC(T)).

[Microarray as a standard laboratory technique and as an unprecedented tool for understanding systems biology].

It is now possible to examine all the expressed genes present in a cell (transcriptome) simultaneously using microarray. Thus, microarrays have attracted tremendous interest among biologists. We have applied microarray technology to various studies regarding allergic diseases.