The clinical use of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) based on its immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory potential remains an ongoing challenge. Fcgamma receptor-mediated effects of IVIg, although well elucidated in certain pathologies, cannot entirely account for its proven benefit in several autoimmune disorders mediated by autoreactive T cells. In this study, we show that prophylactic infus...

Guano samples from 412 Brazilian bats were screened with real-time PCR for the virulence genes (eae, est, elt, stx1, stx2, ehxA, invA, bfpA, aggR) representing five intestinal pathotypes of Escherichia coli. From 82 pooled samples, 22% contained Escherichia coli DNA, and eae, est, bfpA, aggR were detected.

We developed a quick genetic approach to screen variants of the intimin gene (eae) by using a heteroduplex mobility assay (HMA) that targets the 5' conserved region of eae. The eae variants were categorized into 4 major HMA types and 10 minor subtypes.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor plays a key role in neuronal and axonal survival. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is expressed in the immune cells in lesions of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis, thus potentially mediating neuroprotective effects. We investigated the functional role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein-in...

Multiple sclerosis is a neuroinflammatory disease that results in serious neurological disability. Besides physical impairment, behavioral symptoms are also common in patients with multiple sclerosis. Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is considered to be a model of multiple sclerosis and mimics the main features of the disease, such as demyelination and motor impairment. In this w...

Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) has been shown to be effective for a variety of autoimmune diseases. Despite its widespread use and therapeutic success, the precise mechanisms for the anti-inflammatory therapeutic effects of IVIg are not well understood. In particular, few reports have examined the mechanism of IVIg on regulatory T cells (Treg: CD4(+)CD25(+)FoxP3(+) T cells). In the present s...

Under pathological conditions such as autoimmune encephalomyelitis or autoimmune uveoretinitis, many T cells infiltrate the central nervous system (CNS) and retina. Even in normal condition, a small number of T cells are detected in the CNS. However the characteristics of the T cells are not defined. To investigate the T cell characteristics in a healthy retina, the chicken and the embryo were ...

Molecular mimics of self-antigens can behave as altered peptide ligands and serve to ameliorate autoimmune disease. Analysis of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis with proteomic autoantibody microarrays reveals that there might exist a wide variety of microbes with features that mimic self-epitopes. Autoimmunity could therefore be modulated via microbial immunity, which may account for r...