The humoral arm of the mucosal immune system is principally composed of locally synthesized polymeric IgA, whose Fc portion is adapted for binding to the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor that is expressed on the basolateral surface of mucosal epithelial cells, including enterocytes. This receptor mediates the endocytosis and transcytosis of polymeric IgA, which allows IgA to function in host d...

The vocal fold epithelium is critical to upper airway immunologic defense and water/ion transport; therefore, any form of physical trauma or insult increases the vulnerability of this structure to functional impairment and pathogen invasion/infection. In this study, we examined the reestablishment of epithelial and basement membrane barrier structures in a well-established rat model of vocal fo...

Interactions between mucosal surfaces and microbial microbiota are key to host defense, health, and disease. These surfaces are exposed to high numbers of microbes and must be capable of distinguishing between those that are beneficial or avirulent and those that will invade and cause disease. Our understanding of the mechanisms involved in these discriminatory processes has recently begun to e...

The mucosal immune system has bidirectional tasks to mount an effective defense against invading harmful pathogens and to suppress the immune response to alimentary antigens and commensal bacterial flora. Oral tolerance is a suppression of the mucosal immune pathway related to a specific immunophenotype of the dendritic cells and an induction of the regulatory T cells as well as with the silenc...

The presence of Langerhans cells in the developing mucosal epithelium of mice was investigated by ATPase histochemistry and by electron microscopy. In the stratified squamous epithelium of the tongue and forestomach, a few ATPase-positive Langerhans cells could be recognized at 1 or 2 weeks after birth. They increased in number by 3 weeks of age, but the density was lower than that in the epide...

Increased number of mast cells at the site of infection is widely regarded as important host defense against parasites. The kinetics of mucosal mast cells and connective tissue mast cells responses were studied in the intestines of 68 female CFLP mice infected with 100 Schistosoma mansoni cercariae. The number of mucosal mast cells and the connective tissue mast cells increased from week 3 and ...

Infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV1) has now been reported in virtually every country of the world. Responding to the challenge of this devastating pandemic, basic and clinical investigators in many regions of the world have rapidly advanced our understanding of the biology, immunology, and virology of systemic HIV-1 infection. Although the vast majority of HIV-1 infections...