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Recombinant Cytokines (recombinant + cytokine)
Selected AbstractsAntifungal immunity and adjuvant cytokine immune enhancement in cancer patients with invasive fungal infectionsCLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTION, Issue 1 2007A. Safdar Abstract Invasive fungal infections are common in severely immunosuppressed patients with cancer and in recipients of haematopoietic transplants. Response to antifungal therapy alone is often inadequate. Pro-inflammatory cytokines are critical for promoting innate and adaptive cellular antifungal immune responses. Recombinant cytokines, including granulocyte,macrophage-colony stimulating factor and interferon-,, have been studied as adjuvant therapies for severely immunosuppressed cancer patients with difficult-to-treat invasive mycoses. The limited clinical experience to date shows a possible benefit of these cytokines, and further controlled clinical trials are needed to validate their routine use in cancer patients and stem-cell transplant recipients with invasive fungal infections who are likely to have a poor response to antifungal drug therapy. [source] Transmembrane BAFF from rheumatoid synoviocytes requires interleukin-6 to induce the expression of recombination-activating gene in B lymphocytesARTHRITIS & RHEUMATISM, Issue 5 2009Caroline Rochas Objective B cells that accumulate in the synovial tissue of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients revise their receptors due to coordinate expression of recombination-activating gene 1 (RAG-1) and RAG-2 genes. The aim of this study was to determine the mechanisms that control this re-expression. Methods B cells from healthy control subjects were cocultured with fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) from patients with RA and osteoarthritis (OA). Re-expression of RAG messenger RNA (mRNA) and proteins was analyzed by reverse transcription,polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and indirect immunofluorescence. Activity of RAG enzymes was evaluated by flow cytometry to measure variations in immunoglobulin , and , light chain expression and by ligation-mediated,PCR to assess specific DNA breaks. Blocking antibodies, short hairpin RNA, and recombinant cytokine were used to identify the molecules involved in RAG re-expression. Results RA FLS, but not OA FLS, induced B cells to re-express RAG mRNA and proteins. Enzymes were functional, since the ,-to-, ratios decreased and specific DNA breaks were detectable after coculture with RA FLS. Transmembrane BAFF provided the first signal of RAG re-expression, since its down-regulation in RA FLS prevented RAG gene transcription in B cells. The failure of transmembrane BAFF from OA FLS to induce RAG suggests that a second signal was provided by RA FLS. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a candidate, since blockade of its receptors precluded transcription of RAG genes by RA FLS. Unless supplemented with IL-6, OA FLS were unable to induce RAG gene expression in normal B cells. Conclusion Two independent signals are required for the induction of RAG gene expression in B cells that infiltrate the synovium of patients with RA. [source] Biologic agents in psoriasisAUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY, Issue 4 2006Michael R Lee SUMMARY This paper reviews the new biologic agents that selectively block the immunologic steps implicated in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Four strategies have been targeted: reduction of the number of pathogenic T cells; inhibition of T-cell activation and migration; modulation of the immune system; and blockage of the activity of inflammatory cytokines. There are three classes: monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins and recombinant cytokines or growth factors. The actions, efficacy and side-effect profile of the biologic agents, alefacept, efalizumab, etanercept and infliximab, are reviewed. [source] Generation of mature dendritic cells fully capable of T helper type 1 polarization using OK-432 combined with prostaglandin E2CANCER SCIENCE, Issue 12 2003Marimo Sato Dendritic cell (DC) administration appears to be a very promising approach for the immunotherapy of cancer. The results of clinical studies have suggested that the nature and the magnitude of antitumor immune responses are critically affected by DC functions, including production of T helper type 1 (Th1)-inducing cytokines, activation of T cell subsets and natural killer (NK) cells, and migration from peripheral tissues to the T cell area of the draining lymph nodes. Administration of immature DCs could fail to fully stimulate antigen-specific immune responses and might induce tolerance under some conditions. In this study, we developed a method to obtain fully mature DCs, and we compared in detail the DCs thus obtained with those obtained using a maturation stimulus termed monocyte-derived medium (MCM)-mimic, which is a mixture of recombinant cytokines and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) mimicking the components of monocyte-conditioned medium. Using DCs derived from monocytes of advanced cancer patients in this study, we found that DCs stimulated with OK-432 alone showed phenotypes similar to those of mature DCs induced using MCM-mimic, though with better secretion of IL-6 and IL-12. However, these DCs were found to have poor migratory capacity associated with the marginal expression of CCR7. When OK-432 was combined with PGE2, the CCR7 expression and migratory capacity of DCs were significantly improved without impairing other immuno-stimulatory functions. These results suggest that stimulation with the combination of OK-432 and PGE2 could be applicable as an alternative to MCM-mimic in clinical trials which require fully matured DCs to induce Th1-type immune responses against tumor cells even in patients with advanced cancer. [source] | ||||||||||