Tryptophan catabolism via the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) allows human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) and other APC to suppress T cell proliferation. IDO helps protect murine fetuses from rejection by the maternal immune system and can promote tolerance and immunosuppression. For tryptophan to be catabolized by IDO, it must first enter the APC via transmembrane transport. It ha...

Macrophages are essential to maintaining lung homoeostasis and recent work has demonstrated that influenza-infected lung macrophages downregulate their expression of the scavenger receptor CD36. This receptor has also been shown to be involved in phagocytosis of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a primary agent associated with pneumonia secondary to viral infection. The aim of this study was to investi...

INTRODUCTION The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines recommend that breast reconstruction should be available to all women undergoing mastectomy and discussed at the initial surgical consultation (2002, and updated 2009). The National Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction Audit (2009) showed that 21% of mastectomy patients underwent immediate breast reconstruction (I...

Macrophages are recognized as a putative reservoir for HIV-1, but whether HIV can establish latent infection in this cell type is not known. An in vitro model using long-term cultured primary human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) infected with an M-tropic, enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) tagged reporter virus was developed to test the hypothesis that HIV can establish a latent infe...

BACKGROUND Cells of monocyte/macrophage lineage are one of the major targets of HIV-1 infection and serve as reservoirs for viral persistence in vivo. These cells are also the target of the protozoa Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, being one of the most important endemic protozoonoses in Latin America. It has been demonstrated in vitro that co-infection with other patho...

Evaluation and selection of concrete production facility location is an important strategic decision making problem for both public and private sector. The multi-dimensional, multi-criteria nature of the concrete production facility location problem limits the usefulness of any particular single objective model. In this study, social, economical, technological, environmental and transportation ...

Differentiated macrophages are the resident tissue phagocytes and sentinel cells of the innate immune response. The phenotype of mature tissue macrophages represents the composite of environmental and differentiation-dependent imprinting. Phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (VD(3)) are stimuli commonly used to induce macrophage differentiation in monocytic cell li...

Chronic HIV infection leads to the development of cognitive impairments, designated as HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). The secretion of soluble neurotoxic factors by HIV-infected macrophages plays a central role in the neuronal dysfunction and cell death associated with HAND. One potentially neurotoxic protein secreted by HIV-1 infected macrophages is cathepsin B. To explore the...

BACKGROUND Chemokine CXCL8 is an important neutrophil chemoattractant implicated in various neurodegenerative disorders. Cytokine/chemokine imbalance, with an increase in proinflammatory cytokines like interleukin-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α within the central nervous system, is a hallmark of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection. We previously reported that HIV-1 infection is linke...

Die sich beschleunigende technologische Entwicklung der letzten Jahrzehnte und die zunehmende digitale Vernetzung erhöhen den Bedarf an qualitativ hochwertigen, aktuellen und zuverlässigen Verkehrsdaten. Mit der MDM-Initiative hat die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) auf diese Entwicklung reagiert und mit dem MobilitätsDatenMarktplatz (MDM) eine universelle Plattform zum Austausch von Verk...