Brucella ovis infection is associated with epididymitis, orchitis and infertility in rams. Most of the information available on B. ovis and host cell interaction has been generated using murine macrophages or epithelial cell lines, but the interaction between B. ovis and primary ovine macrophages has not been studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of the B. ovis abcEDCBA-encode...

Apoptotic cells generated by programmed cell death are engulfed by phagocytes and enclosed within plasma membrane-derived phagosomes. Maturation of phagosomes involves a series of membrane-remodeling events that are governed by the sequential actions of Rab GTPases and lead to formation of phagolysosomes, where cell corpses are degraded. Here we identified gop-1 as a novel regulator of apoptoti...

Immune responses to the facultative intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) are robust and well characterized. Utilized for decades as a model of host-disease immunology, Lm is well suited for use as an immunotherapeutic bacterial vector for the delivery of foreign antigen. Genetic modification of Lm has been undertaken to create an attenuated organism that is deficient in its maste...

Treatment of disseminated tuberculosis in children≤6years has not been optimized. The pyrazinamide-containing combination regimen used to treat disseminated tuberculosis in babies and toddlers was extrapolated from adult pulmonary tuberculosis. Due to hepatotoxicity worries, there are no dose-response studies in children. We designed a hollow fiber system model of disseminated intracellular tub...

This study indicated that RGSF-A caused a marked reduction in the adherence, internalization and intracellular growth of Brucella abortus in RGSF-A-treated cells. Furthermore, a decline in the intensity of F-actin fluorescence was observed in RGSF-A-treated cells compared with untreated B. abortus-infected cells. In addition, an evaluation of phagocytic signaling proteins by Western blot analys...

Immune responses of invertebrate animals are mediated through innate mechanisms, among which production of antimicrobial peptides play an important role. Although evolutionary Polychaetes represent an interesting group closely related to a putative common ancestor of other coelomates, their immune mechanisms still remain scarcely investigated. Previously our group has identified arenicins-new a...

Global gene expression profiling has emerged as a major tool in understanding complex response patterns of biological systems to perturbations. However, a lack of unbiased analytical approaches has restricted the utility of complex microarray data to gain novel system level insights. Here we report a strategy, express path analysis (EPA), that helps to establish various pathways differentially ...

BACKGROUND Beside their health benefits, dietary omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) might impair host resistance to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) by creating an immunosuppressive environment. We hypothesized that incorporation of n-3 PUFA suppresses activation of macrophage antimycobacterial responses and favors bacterial growth, in part, by modulating the IFNgamma-mediated signa...

Studies have shown that Listeria monocytogenes (Lm)-based vaccine expressing a fusion protein comprising truncated listeriolysin O (LLO) and human papilloma virus (HPV) E7 protein (Lm-LLO-E7) induces a decrease in regulatory T cells (Treg) and complete regression of established, transplanted HPV-TC-1 tumors in mice. However, how the Lm-based vaccine causes a decrease in Tregs remains unclear. U...