Toll-like receptors (TLRs) act as receptors for numerous stimuli of immune cells, including bacterial cell wall constituents (lipopolysaccharide [LPS] from Gram-negative bacteria and lipopeptides from Gram-positive species), plasma proteins and extracellular matrix breakdown products. TLR2 and TLR4 bind lipopeptide and LPS respectively, mediating responses of alveolar macrophages and other immune cells to bacterial infection in the lungs. Exposure of lungs to LPS leads to pro-inflammatory responses of a number of cell types, including airway smooth muscle, which secretes a number of cytokines involved in leucocyte recruitment and the Th2 polarization of immune responses. Human airway smooth muscle cells were cultured with LPS in the absence and presence of peripheral blood mononuclear cells to determine direct and leucocyte-dependent TLR-mediated responses. (more…)
One especially favored target for immune recognition is bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This macromolecule is found only in ...
Airway hyper-responsiveness in asthma may involve smooth muscle growth, a manifestation of airway remodelling. The involvement ...
Innate immunity depends on both resident and recruited leukocytes. The macrophage without doubt plays an import- ant role in the de ...
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter of the nerve vagus, the functional effects mediated by binding to muscarinic receptors. Results ...
Eosinophil infiltration of the mucosa is a feature of asthmatic airways. Their adhesion to bronchial epithelial cells has been ...
Eosinophil infiltration of the mucosa is a feature of asthmatic airways. Their adhesion to bronchial epithelial cells has been proposed to lead to the generation of inflammation mediators which may contribute to asthma pathology. Bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B cell line) and peripheral blood eosinophils were cultured alone or in combination and the production of an inflammatory cytokine, IL-6, was measured. IL-6 was produced principally by epithelial cells and the production was enhanced more than 10-fold in the presence of eosinophils. Significant augmentation of epithelial IL-6 production persisted even when eosinophils were fixed with paraformaldehyde. The eosinophil-induced IL-6 production was extensively inhibited by inhibitors of p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase or nuclear factor ??B (NF??B). (more…)
Exacerbations of asthma are frequently associated with rhinoviral infection. Rhinoviruses infect respiratory epithelial cells, ...
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) act as receptors for numerous stimuli of immune cells, including bacterial cell wall constituents (l ...
Airway hyper-responsiveness in asthma may involve smooth muscle growth, a manifestation of airway remodelling. The involvement ...
Contact of pathogens with the innate immune system will most frequently occur at epithelia, and the biology of the airway epitheliu ...
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), originally described as a vascular permeability factor generating tissue oedema, has be ...
Current internationally recognized guidelines indicate that symptomatic asthmatics using a low to medium inhaled corticosteroid dose (400–800 µg/day of beclomethasone or equivalent) alone should preferentially be commenced on a long-acting agonist ß2 prior to an leukotriene receptor antagonists LTRA (British guideline on the management of asthma 2003; GINA Workshop Report 2004). However, two recent large trials have performed head to-head comparisons of add-on long-acting ß2 agonist versus LTRA as therapeutic adjuncts to inhaled corticosteroids, using exacerbation frequency (rather than lung function and symptoms) as the primary end point. (more…)
Leukotrienes can be found in the airway and urine following both spontaneous exacerbations of asthma and acute exposure to bron ...
Despite optimum drug delivery and good compliance with inhaled corticosteroids, many patients experience symptoms and exacerbat ...
Two long-acting ß 2 -adrenergic agonists (LABAs), salmeterol and formoterol, have been demonstrated to be safe and effective ag ...
Treating allergic rhinitis may have a downstream effect on concomitant asthma and this may be due to attenuation of the underlying ...
Regular use of ß-agonists has been known to lead to tolerance to their bronchodilator effects. It is not known how quickly toleranc ...
Our understanding of hematopoiesis has advanced greatly in recent years with the isolation and characterization of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and the identification of many of the factors that influence the production and differentiation of lineage-committed progenitors (Figure 1 bellow). HSCs are defined by their abilities to self-renew throughout life and to give rise to committed progenitors that can differentiate along all of the possible hematopoietic lineages. They were first purified from mice as a tiny sub-population of marrow cells that could completely reconstitute the hematopoietic systems of other mice, whose own marrows had been destroyed by inherited mutations or by radiation. (more…)
The process by which blood cells grow, divide, and differentiate in the bone marrow is called hematopoiesis. Three general cl ...
Hematopoietic progenitors depend on a variety of cytokines to control their growth and differentiation. These include several d ...
Although it is commonly imagined that hematopoiesis takes place in a liquid environment resembling the blood, with progenitors resp ...
The Ras-dependent pathway can be triggered by a variety of cytokine receptors, as well as by certain adhesion molecules and by ...
Neutrophils make up an army of more-or-less identical circulating phagocytes that are poised to respond quickly and in vast numbers ...
Interleukin-5 is the key cytokine in eosinophil differentiation and growth in the bone marrow and stimulates the release of eosinophils into the peripheral circulation. Thus, it is thought that IL-5 may be involved in the pathogenesis of hypereosinophilic syndromes (HES), a diverse group of poorly treated disorders characterized by sustained peripheral blood and/or tissue eosinophilia. Mepolizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody to IL-5, and its safety and efficacy were assessed in this open-labelled trial. (more…)
Eosinophil infiltration of the mucosa is a feature of asthmatic airways. Their adhesion to bronchial epithelial cells has been ...
IgE plays an important role in allergic asthma. Reducing IgE in the airway mucosa should reduce airway inflammation. Omalizumab has ...
Lidocaine is a local anaesthetic that possesses the ability to potently shorten eosinophil survival. This study assessed the sa ...
Normally present at very low levels in plasma, antibodies of the immunoglobulin E (IgE) isotype were first discovered in 1967, ...
Tumour Necrosis Factor is a pro-inflammatory cytokine implicated in the pathogenesis of asthmatic airway inflammation, hyper-react ...
Seasonal allergic rhinitis is stimulated by an allergic reaction of human body to pollen and spores. This is much depending on the season and region as they are carried by the wind. Your doctor may recommend you to undergo allergies medication that depends on your type of allergy rhinitis. (more…)
About twenty percent of patients who have common allergic rhinitis are also having perennial allergic rhinitis symptoms. This f ...
Leukotrienes are present in increased amounts in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) in patients with asthma. So far, no data have ...
The Hayband and Qu-Chi Band are a natural alternative to help relieve the symptoms of hay fever. There are many remedies on the ...
As a person who suffered form allergies and have a profession as family physician, I have much sympathy for those struggling with i ...
Do you find yourself feeling miserable, coughing, or sneezing at about the same time each and every year? If you do, it is impo ...
The precise mechanisms underlying the effects of Specific Immunotherapy are not well understood but several studies have shown that Specific Immunotherapy T inhibits both early and late immune responses to allergen exposure.
Recently, there have been many studies aimed at elucidating the mechanisms by which allergen-specific immunotherapy works. (more…)
The immunologic mechanisms of sublingual immunotherapy are less established. In Cochrane analysis, the authors concluded that t ...
Histamine is a low-molecular-weight monoamine that binds to four different G-protein-coupled receptors, and has recently been d ...
Allergen-specific immunotherapy aims to correct the underlying immune imbalance associated with specific immunotherapy allergic rhi ...
Allergen-specific immunotherapy is highly effective in the treatment of IgE-mediated allergy diseases such as rhinitis, conjunc ...
The specific treatment of allergy has previously relied upon allergen avoidance and sublingual immunotherapy. These approaches have ...