Why leucocytes gene expression

BACKGROUND: Cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome highly associated with specific tumour types, but the causes of variation in cachexia prevalence and severity are unknown. While circulating plasma mediators (soluble cachectic factors) derived from tumours have been implicated with the pathogenesis of the syndrome, these associations were generally based on plasma concentration rather than tissue-specific gene expression levels. Here, we hypothesized that tumour gene expression profiling of cachexia-inducing factors (CIFs) in human cancers with different prevalence of cachexia could reveal potential cancer-specific cachexia mediators and biomarkers of clinical outcome...

A number of studies have demonstrated induction of the unfolded protein response (UPR) in patients with severe congenital neutropenia (CN) harbouring mutations of ELANE, encoding neutrophil elastase. Why UPR is not activated in patients with cyclic neutropenia (CyN) carrying the same ELANE mutations is unclear. We evaluated the effects of ELANE mutants on UPR induction in myeloid cells from CN and CyN patients, and analysed whether additional CN-specific defects contribute to the differences in UPR induction between CN and CyN patients harbouring identical ELANE mutations...

Doberman hepatitis (DH) is associated with homozygous DLA-DRB1*00601/DQA1*00401/DQB1*01303 indicating a role for the immune system in the development of the disease. The dog leucocyte antigen (DLA) class II expression is controlled at the transcriptional level with proximal promoters. Differential expression of DLA class II molecules of antigen-presenting cells is reported to affect susceptibility to or protection from different immune-mediated diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate, whether the variation in promoter areas of homozygous DLA-DRB1*00601/DQA1*00401/DQB1*01303 Dobermans could explain why some dogs become afflicted with DH and others do not...

Salmon AlphaVirus (SAV) is the aetiological agent of Salmon Pancreas Disease (SPD), a serious disease in farmed Atlantic salmon. Currently there is no available information on the ability of this virus to stimulate or suppress aspects of innate immunity in host cells. Two different Atlantic salmon cell lines (SHK-1 and TO), both derived from head kidney leucocytes, were infected with SAV and the kinetics and magnitude of gene expression were studied by real-time quantitative PCR. SAV nsP1 gene transcripts for strain P42P increased rapidly in TO cells with subsequent development of a cytopathic effect (CPE) while this virus strain hardly replicated at all SHK-1 cells causing no CPE...

BACKGROUND: The hepatitis C virus (HCV) mutates within human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I restricted immunodominant epitopes of the non-structural (NS) 3/4A protease to escape cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) recognition and promote viral persistence. However, variability is not unlimited, and sometimes almost absent, and factors that restrict viral variability have not been defined experimentally. AIMS: We wished to explore whether the variability of the immunodominant CTL epitope at residues 1073-1081 of the NS3 protease was limited by viral fitness...

Chemokines are the chemoattractant cytokines which function briefly in inflammatory processes and also act as regulatory bridge molecules between innate and acquired immunity. Chemokines mediate their effects by binding to cell surface receptors that belong to the seven transmembrane domain superfamily of proteins, which are found mainly on the surface of leucocytes, macrophages and lymphocytes. Besides the functions in the immune system, certain chemokine receptors also function as co-receptors, in addition to CD4 molecule, for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) entry into the target cells...

The MHC class II invariant chain (Ii or CD74) in higher vertebrates is necessary for normal MHC class II loading in endosomal compartments. Detection of an Ii chain in fish would greatly support the idea that MHC class II function in fish and higher vertebrates is similar. Before this study only Ii homologues had been reported in fish that are unlikely to perform true Ii function. In the present study two Ii-like genes, Onmy-Iclp-1 and Onmy-Iclp-2, were detected in rainbow trout. Conservation of elements, particularly in Onmy-Iclp-1, suggests that the encoded proteins may be involved in MHC class II transport and peptide loading as is the Ii protein...

Exposure to grass pollens during the pollen season, reveals in sensitive patients symptoms of allergic rhinitis, conjunctivitis and/or bronchial asthma. It is not well understood why, in some patients, only symptoms of rhinitis occur while in others similar exposure causes symptoms of asthma and rhinitis. An association study is reported here, where the possible contribution of human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DR gene polymorphisms to differential phenotypic expression of symptoms in patients with grass-pollen allergy was determined...

Overexpression of beta-actin is known to alter cell morphology, though its effect on cell motility has not been documented previously. Here we show that overexpressing beta-actin in myoblasts has striking effects on motility, increasing cell speed to almost double that of control cells. This occurs by increasing the areas of protrusion and retraction and is accompanied by raised levels of beta-actin in the newly protruded regions. These regions of the cell margin, however, show decreased levels of polymerised actin, indicating that protrusion can outpace the rate of actin polymerisation in these cells...