Adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patients and human T-cell leukemia virus-1 (HTLV-1) infected individuals succumb to opportunistic infections. Cell mediated immunity is impaired, yet the mechanism of this impairment has remained elusive. The HTLV-1 basic leucine zipper factor (HBZ) gene is encoded in the minus strand of the viral DNA and is constitutively expressed in infected cells and ATL cells. T...

to study the effect of depression on the endocrine and immune systems, 557 male freshman and sophomore medical students (20-30 years old) were given beck's depression inventory. students with marks 5 or above were selected as the control (n=26) and those with marks of 20 or higher were chosen as the test group (n=27). all of the students were subjected to the following tests: cbc, differen...

We have studied functional alteration of immunocytes in mice following inoculation of Toxocara canis second stage larvae. Results indicated depression of lymphocyte blastogenesis in response to concanavalin-A, phytohemagglutinin and allogeneic non B-cells; however, B-cell polyclonal activation was not affected as indicated by the production of total IgG. In contrast, frequency of antibody ...

BACKGROUND Infection or stimulation of the innate immune system by nonspecific microbial antigens is thought to educate the immune system to respond appropriately to allergens, preventing allergy. OBJECTIVE To determine the immunologic pathways that might explain how infection/microbial exposure inhibits allergic sensitization. METHODS Immunologic studies of non-antigen-specific functions o...

BACKGROUND Over the past decade there has been increasing interest in the use of lactic acid bacteria as mucosal delivery vehicles for vaccine antigens, microbicides and therapeutics. We investigated the mechanism by which a mucosal vaccine based in recombinant lactic acid bacteria breaks the immunological tolerance of the gut in order to elicit a protective immune response. METHODOLOGY/PRINC...