İnfection immunology

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The article describes recent advances in understanding the causes and consequences of microbial translocation in HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus infections. RECENT FINDINGS: Persistent microbial translocation contributes to aberrant immune activation in immunodeficiency lentiviral infections and thereby, pathogenesis and mortality. Efforts to delineate the circumstances surrounding translocation have benefited from use of simian immunodeficiency virus-infected nonhuman primates and highlight the overwhelming immunologic diversion caused by translocating microbes...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the association between age at antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation and immunologic response over time by stratum of baseline CD4 cell counts. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort analysis of data pooled from four PEPFAR funded countries in sub-Saharan Africa METHODS:: General linear models were used to estimate the mean CD4 cell count by age group within groups defined by baseline CD4 cell count. Kaplan-Meier methods were used to estimate time to achieving a CD4 cell count of at least 500 cells/mm3 by age group and stratified by baseline CD4 cell count...

Vaccination is an effective approach to prevent the consequences of infectious diseases. Vaccines strengthen immunity and make individuals resistant to infections with pathogens. Although conventional vaccines are highly immunogenic, they are associated with some safety issues. Subunit vaccines are safe, but they require adjuvants to stimulate the immune system because of their weaker immunogenicity. Adjuvants are entities incorporated into vaccines to increase the immunogenic responses of antigens. They play a crucial role in increasing the potency and efficacy of vaccines...

The current cytomegalovirus (CMV) prevention strategies in solid organ transplantation (SOT) recipients have contributed towards overcoming the detrimental effects caused by CMV lytic infection, and improving the long-term success rate of graft survival. Although the quantification of CMV in peripheral blood is the standard method, and an excellent end-point for diagnosing CMV replication and modulating the anti-CMV prevention strategies in SOT recipients, a novel biomarker mimicking the CMV control mechanism is required...

The intestinal tract is a site of intense immune cell activity that is poised to mount an effective response against a pathogen and yet maintain tolerance toward commensal bacteria and innocuous dietary antigens. The role of cell death in gut pathologies is particularly important as the intestinal epithelium undergoes self-renewal every 4-7 days through a continuous process of cell death and cell division. Cell death is also required for removal of infected, damaged, and cancerous cells. Certain forms of cell death trigger inflammation through release of damage-associated molecular patterns...

Eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorder (EGID) is a rare disease in children that affects the bowel wall, with eosinophilic infiltration in the absence of any other causes for eosinophilia. The etiology remains unknown, but allergies and immunological imbalance are suspected triggers. We encountered a case of serosal EGID presenting as intractable vomiting and ascites in a 9-year-old girl, after influenza virus infection. Peripheral eosinophilia was not present. The diagnosis was confirmed by biopsy of the bowel wall through laparotomy and endoscopy, and controlled by 2 courses of steroid therapy due to recurring symptoms...

INTRODUCTION: We summarise an ethically approved protocol for the development of an experimental human challenge colonisation model. Globally Bordetella pertussis is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable death. Many countries have replaced whole cell vaccines with acellular vaccines over the last 20 years during which pertussis appears to be resurgent in a number of countries in the developed world that boast high immunisation coverage. The acellular vaccine provides relatively short-lived immunity and, in contrast to whole cell vaccines, may be less effective against colonisation and subsequent transmission...

1.Supplemental food provided to wildlife by human activities can be more abundant and predictable than natural resources, and subsequent changes to wildlife ecology can have profound impacts on host-parasite interactions. Identifying traits of species associated with increases or decreases in infection outcomes with resource provisioning could improve assessments of wildlife most prone to disease risks in changing environments. 2.We conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis of 342 host-parasite interactions across 56 wildlife species and three broad taxonomic groups of parasites to identify host-level traits that influence whether provisioning is associated with increases or decreases in infection...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Intestinal bacteria plays an important role in the physiological and immunological status of birds. The present study investigated the diversity of intestinal bacterial of broilers that were fed corn-soy diet and supplements of antibiotics and probiotics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The supplemented treatments were water, water with antibiotics, water with probiotic and water with antibiotics and probiotic. Eight randomly sampled broilers were slaughtered and their ileum digesta taken...

A central problem in infection biology is understanding why two individuals exposed to identical infections have different outcomes. We have developed an experimental model where genetically identical, co-housed Drosophila given identical systemic infections experience different outcomes, with some individuals succumbing to acute infection while others control the pathogen as an asymptomatic persistent infection. We found that differences in bacterial burden at the time of death did not explain the two outcomes of infection...

Biliary atresia (BA) is a unique cholestatic disease of newborns with a background of exaggerated immune response in the liver of unknown mechanism. Three hypotheses have been proposed; autoimmune type of cholangiopathy triggered by virus infection, graft-versus-host disease type of immune-mediated disease associated with maternal microchimerism and ductal plate malformation theory. Researchers on virus infection theory have experimentally explored immune process causing cholangiopathy on murine models of this disease, while in maternal microchimerism hypothesis were detected maternal cells in the BA patients' liver, of which roles are yet to be determined...

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to asses if there are differences in the clinical presentation and immune response of repeat as compared with initial syphilis. METHODS: Prospective study: we prospectively recruited all patients with a new diagnosis of syphilis and tested their plasma for a range of cytochemokines and rapid plasma reagin (RPR) at baseline pretreatment and 6 months following therapy. Retrospective study: we compared RPR assay response kinetics between initial and repeat syphilis in persons attending our HIV/STI clinic from 1993 to 2016...

The Primary Immune Deficiency Treatment Consortium (PIDTC) is enrolling children with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) to a prospective natural history study. We analyzed patients treated with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) from 2010-2014, including 68 with typical SCID and 32 with leaky SCID, Omenn Syndrome or Reticular Dysgenesis. Most (59%) were diagnosed by newborn screening or family history. The 2-year overall survival (OS) was 90%but was 95% for those infection-free at HCT vs...

OBJECTIVE: To summarize available data concerning the role of maternal imunity and woman´s microbiome in the pathogenesis of preterm labor and their use in clinical practice. SETTING: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology od the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, and General Teaching Hospital. DESIGN: Review article. METHODS: Compilation od published data from scientific literature. CONCLUSION: Preterm labor complicates approximately 10% of all pregnancies and represents a serious medical, social and economic problem...

Background: Translocation of microbial products from the damaged gut causes increased immune activation in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) predispose to bacterial overgrowth in the gut. We hypothesized that long-term use of PPIs is associated with greater microbial translocation and immune activation in HIV. Methods: HIV-infected persons on suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART), including those receiving long-term PPIs (PPI+ group) or not (PPI- group), were enrolled...

The present study investigated the effects of dietary supplementation of stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on growth performance, skin mucus, immune response and disease resistance of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fed with diets supplemented with U. dioica at 0, 1, 2 and 3%. After 8 weeks of feeding, the addition of U. dioica at 3% level resulted in improved weight gain, specific growth rate and feed conversion ratio significantly when compared to the other groups (P < 0.05). Hematological responses including: hematocrit (Htc), hemoglobin (Hb), lymphocyte and neutrophil populations enhanced significantly in fish fed 3% of stinging nettle when measured after 4 weeks; while, total red blood cells, white blood, Htc, Hb, lymphocyte and neutrophil populations significantly increased after 8 weeks in the same group (P < 0...

BACKGROUND: Schistosoma mansoni and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) are co-existence in sub-Saharan Africa and co-infection is common among humans population. The immunological responses characterized with Th2-immune responses for S. mansoni and Th1-immune responses for HCV are responsible for development hepatic morbidities in infected individuals. However, the co-occurrences of S. mansoni and HCV infection, their related ultrasound detectable morbidities and associated risk factors at community levels have not been examined in fishing communities, north-western Tanzania...

T cells are critical to many immunological processes, including detecting and eliminating virus-infected cells, preventing autoimmunity, assisting in B-cell and plasma-cell production of antibodies, and detecting and eliminating cancer cells. The development of MHC-tetramer staining of antigen-specific T cells analyzed by flow cytometry has revolutionized our ability to study and understand the immunobiology of T cells. While extremely useful for determining the quantity and phenotype of antigen-specific T cells, flow cytometry cannot determine the spatial localization of antigen-specific T cells to other cells and structures in tissues, and current disaggregation techniques to extract the T cells needed for flow cytometry have limited effectiveness in non-lymphoid tissues...

BACKGROUND: Patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) often report opportunistic infections such as herpes and urinary tract infections. AIM: To compare opportunistic infections in patients with HS against a group of healthy controls (HCs). METHODS: In total, 99 patients with HS and 109 HCs were recruited at random to this retrospective case-control study. We devised a questionnaire to explore the frequency of minor infections, general practitioner (GP) visits and sick days experienced during the past 6 months...

Following infection with almost any given microorganism other than an emerging pathogen, only a minority of individuals develop life-threatening clinical disease, implying that these individuals have some form of immunodeficiency. A growing number of inherited and acquired immunodeficiencies have been deciphered over the last 50 years. HIV infection is probably the best-known acquired immunodeficiency. It emerged about 40 years ago and precipitates various severe infections, the occurrence of which is associated with a fall in circulating CD4(+) T cells...