Being discovered long ago basophils have been neglected for more than a century. During the past decade evidence emerged that basophils share features of innate and adaptive immunity. Nowadays, basophils are best known for their striking effector role in the allergic reaction. They hence have been used for establishing new diagnostic tests and therapeutic approaches and for characterizing natur...

Whether or not primary norovirus infections induce protective immunity has become a controversial issue, potentially confounded by the comparison of data from genetically distinct norovirus strains. Early human volunteer studies performed with a norovirus-positive inoculum initially led to the conclusion that primary infection does not generate long-term, protective immunity. More recently thou...

Interaction between host cells and microbes is known as crosstalk. Among other mechanisms, this takes place when certain molecules of the micro-organisms are recognized by the toll-like receptors (TLRs) in the body cells, mainly in the intestinal epithelial cells and in the immune cells. TLRs belong to the pattern-recognition receptors and represent the first line of defense against pathogens, ...

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are expressed on all major subsets of liver cells. Both exogenous ligands derived from pathogens, and endogenous ligands that are products of cellular injury, engage these receptors and activate aspects of innate immunity. These receptors play a role in viral and parasitic infections of the liver, in ischemia-reperfusion injury, and in toxic liver damage, promoting an...

B cells require signals transduced by the B cell antigen receptor (BCR) to provide humoral adaptive immunity. These signals are modulated by co-receptors like the Fcγ receptor IIb (FcγRIIb) that prevents activation of B cells after co-ligation with the BCR. Positive and negative effectors need to be precisely organized into signaling complexes, which requires adapter proteins like the growth fa...

An extraordinary progress has been made over the last two decades on understanding the components and mechanisms governing plant innate immunity. After detection of a pathogen, effective plant resistance depends on the activation of a complex signaling network integrated by small signaling molecules and hormonal pathways, and the balance of these hormone systems determines resistance to particu...

Variability in the susceptibility to HIV-1 infection and disease progression depends on both virus and host determinants. Some exposed individuals remain HIV-1-uninfected and HIV-1-infected subjects develop disease at varying intervals with a small percentage remaining long-term non-progressors. As innate immunity is the earliest response to microbial entry and injury, host factors that impact ...

Former epidemiologic studies have consistently shown an inverse relation between number of siblings and allergic diseases. Strachan formulated the hygiene hypothesis, suggesting that the risk of allergic disease is reduced by infectious diseases in infancy transmitted by older siblings (1). Children are born with a tendency to show allergic-type (type 2 cytokine) immune reactions, a pattern tha...

Specificity of cytotoxic T-cell function was investigated for a range of different influenza viruses. T cells from mice immunized with A or B strain influenza viruses, or with vaccinia virus, showed reciprocal exclusion of cytotoxicity. Extensive cross-reactivity was, however, found for lymphocyte populations from mice infected with a variety of serologically distinct influenza A viruses, thoug...

Cross-talk within the innate immune pathways is highly complex and contains many unknowns. Here, we discuss the different combinations of PAMPs, together with the sequence, order, and dosage of consecutive PAMP challenges, which determine the nature of the immune response by macrophages. The engagement of different Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands leads to quantitatively and qualitatively uniqu...