The immunosuppressive effects of dexmedetomidine, a highly selective and widely used a2-adrenoceptor agonist for sedation, analgesia, and stress management, are investigated in vitro. In the present study, the respiratory burst of human neutrophils separated from venous blood was evaluated with dexmedetomidine treatment after Escherichia coli stimulation. The effects of five concentrations of d...

Background. Chronic renal insufficiency is associated with the retention of solutes normally excreted by healthy kidneys. P-cresol, a prototype protein-bound uraemic retention solute, has been shown to exert toxic effects in vitro. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that p-cresol in the human body is conjugated, with p-cresylsulphate as the main metabolite. Methods. The present study e...

BACKGROUND Chronic renal insufficiency is associated with the retention of solutes normally excreted by healthy kidneys. P-cresol, a prototype protein-bound uraemic retention solute, has been shown to exert toxic effects in vitro. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that p-cresol in the human body is conjugated, with p-cresylsulphate as the main metabolite. METHODS The present study e...

Haemocytes of bivalve molluscs are known to be responsible for many immunological functions, including recognition, phagocytosis, and killing or elimination of invading microorganisms, such as potentially infective bacteria and parasites. In many bivalves, killing of microorganisms engulfed by haemocytes is accomplished by a sudden release of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within the haemocytes;...

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of the pulsed electrical field/current alone or combined with ionomycin, fMLP and PMA, the chemical stimuli that operate through distinctly different activation pathways, on the time course of the oxidative burst response in human neutrophils. Neither the control groups nor the neutrophils treated with electrical field alone showed any increase in o...

Helicobacter pylori infection of the stomach is accompanied by a persistent polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMNL) infiltrate of the mucosa. The aim of this work was to study the activation of human PMNL by substances produced by H pylori. Filtered H pylori conditioned media stimulated a significant PMNL oxidative burst (p less than 0.002). This was equal to 26% of the maximal response stimulated b...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Stroke-induced immune alterations predispose patients to infections. Although the relationship between stroke and the adaptive immune system has been investigated in detail, to date it is unknown whether the innate immune system, which forms the first line of antibacterial defense, is also impaired in patients with stroke. Therefore, we investigated whether chemotaxis, ph...

Nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs) have great potential for biotechnological and medical applications. However, the biological mechanisms causing the cellular responses are still far from understood. We used the unicellular green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as experimental model to dissect the immediate consequences of electroporation from the developmental cellular responses evoked...

PURPOSE Monocytes actively participate in inflammatory mechanisms that contribute to the development of adipose tissue dysfunction and atherogenesis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of monocyte CCR2 chemokine receptor expression and intracellular oxidative burst with the metabolic and inflammatory factors related to body weight. METHODS The study was performed in 67 post...

The oxidative burst constitutes one of the most rapid defence responses characterized in the Plant Kingdom. We have observed that four distinct elicitors of the soya bean oxidative burst activate kinases of masses approximately 44 kDa and approximately 47 kDa. Evidence that these kinases regulate production of reactive oxygen species include: (i) their rapid activation by oxidative burst elicit...