Serum from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) prevents the proliferative response of normal T cells when stimulated by autologous or allogeneic non-T cells. The abrogation of proliferation in an autologous mixed lymphocyte reaction (AMLR) with SLE serum is associated with a lack of suppressor T cell generation. Fractionation of SLE sera on sucrose gradients reveals an 18-12 S peak...

A basic insight into the atomic structures of elements of the Periodic Table are presented in terms of their covalent radii, Bohr radii, nuclear and electron radii and their relation to the Golden ratio. The detailed structures of the quasi crystal forming elements, aluminium and manganese have been chosen here as special examples. At the atomic level, their crystal parameters and bond lengths ...

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), etiologically linked with human B-cell malignancies and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), establishes three types of latency that facilitate its episomal genome persistence and evasion of host immune responses. The innate inflammasome responses recognize the pathogen-associated molecular patterns which lead into the association of a cytoplasmic sensor such as NLRP3 and A...

Clinical trials with rituximab in combination with chemotherapeutic regimens have shown promising results. Data on the effects of rituximab treatment in combination with irradiation are, however, limited and inconsistent. This study aims to investigate the effects of rituximab (R) on cell death induced by X-irradiation in Raji lymphoma cells and to evaluate its mechanisms. We found the cell gro...

The B cell C receptor specific for C3dg (CR2) shares a number of features with the primate E C receptor (CR1). Previously, we have demonstrated, both in vitro and in animal models, that immune complexes (IC) bound to primate E CR1, either via C opsonization or by means of bispecific mAb complexes, can be transferred to acceptor macrophages in a process that also removes CR1 from the E. We have ...

Icaritin (ICT), a hydrolytic product of icariin from Epimedium genus, exhibits antitumor activities in several human solid-tumor and myeloid leukemia cells with extensive influence on various cell signal molecules, such as MAPKs being involved in cell proliferation and Bcl-2 participating in cell apoptosis. However, the effect of icaritin on Burkitt Lymphoma has not been elucidated. In the pres...

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) has been reported to be strongly associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. The fact that EBV is generally present in cancer cells but rarely found in healthy cells represents an opportunity for targeted cancer therapy. One approach is to activate the lytic replication cycle of the latent EBV. Nuclear factor (NF)-κB ...

Autologous T cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) specific for CD19 have demonstrated remarkable efficacy as therapeutics for B cell malignancies. In the present study, we generated FLAG-tagged CD19-specific CAR-T cells (CD19-FLAG) and compared them to their non-tagged counterparts for their effects on solid and hematological cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. For solid tumors, we...

After a 3-day exposure to 0.1 microM 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine (ara-C) in culture, growth was inhibited to 5.6% in MOLT-4F, 25% in Raji, and 91% in Daudi cells compared with control. Growth inhibition was more profound when exposure time was extended up to 7 days. Inhibition of DNA synthesis varied with sensitivity to ara-C. Plateau levels of intracellular 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytos...

One common attribute of herpesviruses is the ability to establish latent, life-long infections. The role of virus-virus interaction in viral reactivation between or among herpesviruses has not been studied. Preliminary experiments in our laboratory had indicated that infection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome-positive human lymphoid cell lines with human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) results in EBV r...