The current Bacillus anthracis vaccine consists largely of protective antigen (PA), the protein of anthrax toxin that mediates entry of edema factor (EF) or lethal factor (LF) into cells. PA induces protective antibody (Ab)-mediated immunity against Bacillus anthracis but has limited efficacy and duration. We previously demonstrated that activation of CD1d-restricted natural killer-like T cells...

Injection drug users uninfected by hepatitis C virus (HCV) despite likely repeated exposure through high-risk behaviour are well documented. Factors preventing infection in these individuals are incompletely understood. Here, we looked for anti-HCV-envelope antibody responses in a cohort of repeatedly exposed but uninfected subjects. Forty-two hepatitis C diagnostic antibody- and RNA-negative i...

In. this paper there is described an antibody auxiliary to the neutralization of meningococcus reacting factors. The presence of the antibody facilitates studies on neutralizing potency of antimeningococcus sera. There is also reported a non-specific neutralizing factor of a heterologous immune serum, which can be differentiated from specific neutralizing antibodies of antimeningococcus sera. I...

In this issue of Blood, 2 independent studies analyzed the relevance of the von Willebrand factor (VWF)–ADAMTS13 axis in a murine model of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. It is demonstrated that genetic ablation, neutralization or increased cleavage of VWF is protective in this experimental setting.1,2 This strongly supports the concept that interference with the ADAMTS13-VWF axis may b...

HIV-1 virions infect target cells by first establishing contact between envelope glycoprotein trimers on the virion's surface and CD4 receptors on a target cell, recruiting co-receptors, fusing with the cell membrane and finally releasing the genetic material into the target cell. Specific experimental setups allow the study of the number of trimer-receptor-interactions needed for infection, i....

The development of T1-cell-mediated immunity is required to clear a pulmonary Cryptococcus neoformans infection. The objective of these studies was to determine the mechanism by which tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) augments the development of pulmonary T1 immunity to C. neoformans infection. TNF-alpha expression was detected in lavage sample cells at days 2, 3, and 7 following C. neofo...

The objective of this study was to investigate whether intramuscular vaccination of healthy adult horses with a killed or a modified live equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) vaccine could induce transient positive PCR results in either blood or secretions collected on a nasopharyngeal swab. Four horses in each group received either a single killed or a modified-live vaccine intramuscularly. Two l...

Biermer’s disease also called: Addison’s anemia or in old textbooks, pernicious anemia, is an autoimmune disease, caused by impaired absorption of cobalamin (vitamin B12) owing to the neutralization of intrinsic factor action in the setting of immune atrophic gastritis [1]. In adults and elderly patients, this form of megaloblastic anemia is one of the leading causes of cobalamin deficiency, wi...

The cytotoxic activity of lethal factor (LF), a critical reagent used in the cell-based lethal toxin neutralization assay to assess anthrax vaccines, was shown to depend on the identity of its N-terminal amino acid, which plays a role in the targeting of LF to the proteasome for degradation. These results demonstrate that care must be taken to ensure that LF preparations used in standardized ce...

the enterotoxins (ets) of clostridium perfringens isolated from enterotoxemic or diarrheic alpacas, pigs, calves, dogs, and horses were obtained from sporulated cell extracts. the ets from alpaca, pig, and calf isolates were chromatographed on sephadex g-loo. monoclonal antibodies (mabs) against ets derived from alpaca, pig, and calf c. perfringens isolates were produced. the mabs were used in ...