Immunology
Chapters
« previous | page 2 of 4 pages | next »Experimental Evidence for Immunomodulatory Effects of Opioids
Paola Sacerdote, Elena Limiroli and Leda Gaspani
In recent years the experimental and clinical research has made it clear that the immune system does not stand alone, but it is profoundly affected by other organ systems, especially the central nervous and neuroendocrine systems. It is also increasingly clear that the immune system c...
Fc Receptor Phagocytosis
Randall G. Worth and Alan D. Schreiber
Antigen recognition by cells of the immune system occurs via many mechanisms. One important family of receptors involved in the recognition of immunoglobulin (Ig) coated particles and complexes are Fc receptors. Fc receptors recognize the Fc portion of Ig and are accordingly grouped into subfa...
Fc Receptors
Maree S. Powell and P. Mark Hogarth
The aggregation of cell surface Fc receptors by immune complexes induces a number of important antibody‑dependent effector functions. It is becoming increasingly evident that the organization of key immune proteins has a significant impact on the function of these proteins. Comparatively littl...
Functional Evidence of Pain Control by the Immune System
Halina Machelska
Pain can be effectively controlled by various endogenous mechanisms. Recent research has shown that these mechanisms are not restricted to the central nervous system. Intrinsic pain inhibition can occur also in the periphery, mediated by an interaction between immune cells and sensory ne...
Glial Proinflammatory Cytokines Mediate Exaggerated Pain States: Implications for Clinical Pain
Linda R. Watkins, Erin D. Milligan and Steven F. Maier
When you hurt yourself, you become consciously aware of the pain because a chain of neurons carries the pain message from the injury to the spinal cord, and then from the spinal cord up to consciousness in the brain. However, it has been known for more than two decades that ne...
Humoral Pattern Recognition Molecules: Mannan-Binding Lectin and Ficolins
Steffen Thiel and Mihaela Gadjeva
Complement activation is induced by a variety of pathogens and their ligands and proceeds through a series of enzymatic reactions that lead to the formation of lytic membrane attack complex (MAC) formation. There are three defined pathways of activation: the classical, the alternative and the lectin...
IgA and Mucosal Homeostasis
Jesper Reinholdt and Steffen Husby
Mucosal surfaces represent the major interface between host and environment. They constitute the point of entry of most infectious pathogens, and are in contact with potentially injurious antigens present in the normal mucosal microflora and in ingested or inhaled substances. To deal appropriatel...
Immune Recognition of Plasmodium-Infected Erythrocytes
Damien V. Cordery and Britta C. Urban
Over 40% of the world’s population is currently at risk of exposure to malaria with children being at greatest risk of developing severe disease1 and it is estimated that between 1.5 and 3 millions deaths per year are due to malaria.2 Infection can result in asymptomatic parasitemia or clinica...
Immune Risk Phenotypes and Associated Parameters in Very Old Humans: A Review of Findings in the Swedish NONA Immune Longitudinal Study
Anders Wikby, Frederick Ferguson, Jan Strindhall, Rosalyn J. Forsey, Tamas Fulop, Sine Reker Hadrup, Per thor Straten, Graham Pawelec and Boo Johansson
In the previous OCTO immune longitudinal study of free‑living subjects >85 yr. selected for good health, we identified an Immune Risk Phenotype (IRP) associated with increased mortality. The IRP was characterised by high CD8+, low CD4+ T‑cell counts and a poor T‑cell proliferative ...
Immunogenetics of Aging
Elissaveta J. Naumova and Milena I. Ivanova
Deterioration of the immune system with aging is associated with an increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, cancer and autoimmune disorders. It has been demonstrated that immunosenescence is associated with chronic, low‑grade inflammatory activity. The aging process is very complex an...
Immunogenicity in Peptide-Immunotherapy: From Self/Nonself to Similar/Dissimilar Sequences
Darja Kanduc
The nature of the relationship between an antigenic amino acid sequence and its capability to evoke an immune response is still an unsolved problem. Although experiments indicate that specific (dis)continuous amino acid sequences may determine specific immune responses, how immunogenic properties an...
Immunosenescence, Thymic Involution and Autoimmunity
Wayne A. Mitchell and Richard Aspinall
In recent years life expectancy in Western Societies has dramatically increased with greater numbers of individuals living longer; consequently the prevalence of age‑associated diseases such as infections, cancers and autoimmune disease increases. A striking feature of the ageing process is th...
Induction of Tolerogenic versus Pathogenic Mucosal Immune Responses by Commensal Enteric Bacteria
Dirk Haller and R. Balfour Sartor
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) are spontaneously relapsing, immunologically-mediated disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Microbial agents are intimately involved in each of the four major current etiologic theories of these idiopa...
Invertebrate Opiate Immune and Neural Signaling
George B. Stefano, Patrick Cadet, Christos M. Rialas, Kirk Mantione, Federico Casares, Yannick Goumon and Wei Zhu
It is increasingly becoming evident that specific chemical signal molecules within a cell and between cells can be the same regardless of whether an organism is an invertebrate or vertebrate. This is true for monoaminergic, opioid, opiate and endocannabinoid signal molecules, just to ...
Kinetic Proofreading Model
Byron Goldstein, Daniel Coombs, James R. Faeder and William S. Hlavacek
Kinetic proofreading is an intrinsic property of the cell signaling process. It arises as a consequence of the multiple interactions that occur after a ligand triggers a receptor to initiate a signaling cascade and it ensures that false signals do not propagate to completion. In order for an active ...
Langerhans Cell Migration and the Induction Phase of Skin Sensitization
Marie Cumberbatch, Rebecca J. Dearman, Christopher E.M. Griffiths, Richard W. Groves and Ian Kimber
Langerhans cells (LC) are members of a wide family of bone marrow derived, immunoactive dendritic cells (DC). LC reside in the epidermis where they are regarded as sentinels of the adaptive immune system with responsibility for surveying changes in the microenvi-ronment and forming a trap for extern...
Large‑Scale Chromatin Remodeling at the Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Locus—A Paradigm for Multigene Regulation
Daniel J. Bolland, Andrew L. Wood and Anne E. Corcoran
V(D)J recombination in lymphocytes is the cutting and pasting together of antigen receptor genes in cis to generate the enormous variety of coding sequences required to produce diverse antigen receptor proteins. It is the key role of the adaptive immune response, which must potentially combat millio...
Lessons from the Fly: Pattern Recognition in Drosophila melanogaster
Subhamoy Pal and Louisa P. Wu
Drosophila have a variety of innate immune strategies for defending itself from infection, including humoral and cell mediated responses to invading micro- organisms. At the front lines of these responses, are a diverse group of pattern recognition receptors that recognize pathogen associated m...
Macrophage Pattern Recognition Receptors in Immunity, Homeostasis and Self Tolerance
Subhankar Mukhopadhyay, Annette Plüddemann and Siamon Gordon
Macrophages, a major component of innate immune defence, express a large reper- toire of different classes of pattern recognition receptors and other surface antigens which determine the immunologic and homeostatic potential of these versatile cells. In the light of present knowledge of macroph...
Molecular Genetics at the T‑Cell Receptor β Locus:
Insights into the Regulation of V(D)J Recombination
Marie Bonnet, Pierre Ferrier and Salvatore Spicuglia
The V(D)J recombination machinery assembles antigen receptor genes from germline V, D and J segments during lymphocyte development. In αβT cells, this leads to the production of the T‑cell receptor (TCR) α and β chains. Notably, V(D)J recombination at the Tcrb locus is tigh...
Molecular Pathways and Mechanisms Regulating the Recombination of Immunoglobulin Genes During B-Lymphocyte Development
Kristen Johnson, Karen L. Reddy and Harinder Singh
The hallmark of B‑cell development is the ordered recombination of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes. Recently, considerable progress has been achieved in assembling gene regulatory networks comprised of signaling components and transcription factors that regulate B‑cell development. In this cha...
Molecular Recognition of Haptens by T Cells: More Than One Way to Tickle the Receptor
Hans Ulrich Weltzien, Andrea D?tze, Katharina Gamerdinger, Sven Hellwig, and Hermann-Josef Thierse
Haptens as low molecular chemicals compose a major percentage of the universe of allergens, particularly with respect to allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). They are usually defined as compounds which only upon covalent interaction with proteins acquire the potential to induce hapten-specific B ce...
Molecular Recognition of Haptens by T Cells: More Than One Way to Tickle the Receptor
Hans Ulrich Weltzien, Andrea Detze, Katharina Gamerdinger, Sven Hellwig, and Hermann-Josef Thierse
Haptens as low molecular chemicals compose a major percentage of the universe of allergens, particularly with respect to allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). They are usually defined as compounds which only upon covalent interaction with proteins acquire the potential to induce hapten-specific B ce...
Morphological Correlates of Immune-Mediated Peripheral Opioid Analgesia
Shaaban A. Mousa
Secent research has shown that effective inhibition of pain by endogenous mechanisms can be generated within peripheral tissue, outside the central nervous system. Studies using sensitive and specific techniques of immunohistochemistry have demonstrated that opioid receptors are present ...
Multiple Roles of Keratinocytes in Allergic Contact Dermatitis
Cristina Albanesi, Andrea Cavani, Claudia Scarponi and Giampiero Girolomoni
Cellular and molecular mechanisms underling allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) have been, and still are, under intense investigation, not only for the relevance of ACD in clinical medicine, but also because ACD is a paradigm of T cell-mediated immune reactions of the skin. Epidermal cells are far ...
« previous | page 2 of 4 pages | next »
