Amniocentesis was performed in two successive pregnancies of the mother of a child with adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficient severe combined immunodeficiency. Assay of ADA in amniotic fluid fibroblasts showed the pregnancies to be normal and homozygous deficient, respectively. These findings were confirmed by the demonstration of a normal level of erythrocyte ADA in the cord blood of the healthy...

Live pentavalent human-bovine reassortant rotavirus vaccine is recommended in the United States for routine immunization of infants. We describe three infants, two with failure to thrive, who had dehydration and diarrhea within 1 month after their first or second rotavirus immunization and subsequently received a diagnosis of severe combined immunodeficiency. Rotavirus was detected, by means of...

Yau Ma Tei Dermatology Clinic, 12/F, Yau Ma Tei Specialist Clinic, 143 Battery Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong A five-month-old boy presented with fever and multiple cutaneous papular eruptions. Skin biopsy revealed disseminated cutaneous tuberculosis (tuberculosis cutis disseminata). Tissue culture revealed Mycobacteria bovis (BCG). He was later diagnosed to have severe combined immunodeficiency. T...

Gene therapy may be the next major advance for treatment of many diseases, and severe haemophilia (an inherited deficiency of coagulation factor VIII or IX) is a useful model. Progress in gene therapy has been slowed down following fatal multi-organ failure during an adenovirus vector trial for ornithine-transcarbamylase deficiency and two episodes of leukaemia in a retroviral vector trial for ...

To study the role of peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) in the pathogenesis of human systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we transferred PBL from 5 SLE patients into 15 severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Such reconstituted mice showed long-term presence of auto-antibodies characteristic of the donor in their sera, as well as human immunoglobulin deposition, and in some cases mouse C3, ...

The identification of stem-cell-like cancer cells through conventional methods that depend on stem cell markers is often unreliable. We developed a mechanical method for selecting tumorigenic cells by culturing single cancer cells in fibrin matrices of ~100 Pa in stiffness. When cultured within these gels, primary human cancer cells or single cancer cells from mouse or human cancer cell lines g...

chio M, Porta F. Rapid regeneration of normally functional naive CD4+ T-cells after bone marrow transplantation from unrelated donors for combined immunodeficiency. Blood 1998; 92:3484-6. 7. Mackall CL, Hakim FT, Gress RE. T-cell regeneration: all repertoires are not created equal. Immunol Today 1997; 18:245-51. 8. Dickinson AM, Reid MM, Abinum M, et al. In vitro T cell depletion using Campath ...

BACKGROUND Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is given to Canadian Aboriginal neonates in selected communities. Severe reactions and deaths associated with BCG have been reported among infants born with immunodeficiency syndromes. The main objective of this study was to estimate threshold values for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) incidence, above which BCG is associated with greater...

Application of genetically engineered (GE) large animals carrying multi-allelic modifications has been hampered by low efficiency in production and extended gestation period compared to rodents. Here, we rapidly generated RAG2/IL2RG double knockout pigs using direct injection of CRISPR/Cas9 system into developing embryos. RAG2/IL2RG deficient pigs were immunodeficient, characterized by depletio...