BACKGROUND Over the last decade, our group has demonstrated that murine preconception immunization with allergens has a protective effect on allergy development in offspring. The murine model used in the present study allowed us to compare allergy induction by ovalbumin (OVA) and dust mite extract from Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (Dp). FINDINGS Female mice were immunized with OVA or Dp. Pu...

DCs, like the sensory neurons, express vanilloid receptor 1 (VR1). Here we demonstrate that the VR1 agonists, capsaicin (CP) and resiniferatoxin (RTX), enhance antiviral CTL responses by increasing MHC class I-restricted viral antigen presentation in dendritic cells (DCs). Bone marrow-derived DCs (BM-DCs) were infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus (VV) expressing OVA (VV-OVA), and then tre...

The Ag-specific CD4(+) regulatory T (Tr) cells play an important role in immune suppression in autoimmune diseases and antitumor immunity. However, the molecular mechanism for Ag-specificity acquisition of adoptive CD4(+) Tr cells is unclear. In this study, we generated IL-10- and IFN-gamma-expressing type 1 CD4(+) Tr (Tr1) cells by stimulation of transgenic OT II mouse-derived naive CD4(+) T c...

The objective of this study was to elucidate if Bisphenol A (BPA) administration modulates T helper (Th) cell component of immune responses in a mouse challenged with ovalbumin (OVA), a major food antigen. BALB/c mice, (6 weeks old, female) were orally given either OVA (OVA-fed) or water (Water-fed), immunized intraperitoneally with OVA and injected with either BPA in corn oil or the vehicle al...

Splenic T cells isolated from BALB/c mice that had been mucosally tolerized by oral administration of 25 mg of OVA revealed selective increases in IFN-gamma production with impaired levels of IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-10. These mice possessed reduced splenic OVA-specific T cell proliferative and delayed-type hypersensitivity responses when compared with nontolerized controls. Further, OVA-specif...

We often eat heat-coagulated (H-C) food proteins, but there have been few studies on the allergenic activity of H-C proteins after digestion and absorption in vivo. To show that H-C protein is not an allergen after digestion, mice were used to investigate the digestion and absorption of the protein through the intestinal epithelium into portal blood employing immunoblotting and competitive inhi...

BACKGROUND Allergen-induced imbalance of specific T regulatory (Treg) cells and T helper 2 cells plays a decisive role in the development of immune response against allergens. OBJECTIVE To evaluate effects and potential mechanisms of DNA vaccine containing ovalbumin (OVA) and Fc fusion on allergic airway inflammation. METHODS Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) levels of inflammatory mediators and...

For cross-presentation immature dendritic cells (DC) require enhanced antigen (Ag) uptake and a maturation signal to prime for MHC class I-restricted CTL responses in vivo. While immunostimulatory CpG-DNA provides, via TLR9, the maturation signal, CpG-DNA linked to Ag augments cellular Ag uptake. In this study we show that CpG-DNA ovalbumin (OVA) conjugates trigger in vivo peptide-specific CTL ...

We evaluated the proposal that during microbial infection, dendritic cells (DCs) undergo maturation and present a mixture of peptides derived from the microbe as well as harmless environmental antigens. Mice were exposed to an aerosol of endotoxin free ovalbumin (OVA) in the absence or presence of influenza virus. In its absence, OVA failed to induce B and T cell responses and even tolerized, b...

Invariant NKT cells (iNKT cells) play a pivotal role in the development of allergen-induced airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and inflammation. However, it is unclear what role they play in the initiation (sensitization) phase as opposed to the effector (challenge) phase. The role of iNKT cells during sensitization was examined by determining the response of mice to intratracheal transfer of OVA...