The human organism is constantly exposed to microbes and infectious agents and consequently has developed a complex and highly efficient immune defense which is aimed to recognize and eliminate such infectious agents. The response of the human host to infectious agents forms a double edged sword of immunity. The immune system has to keep a tight balance between attack on foreign surfaces and pr...

Neutrophils are peripheral blood leukocytes that represent the first line of immune cell defense against bacterial and fungal infections but are also crucial players in the generation of the inflammatory response. Many neutrophil cell surface receptors regulate important cellular processes via activation of agonist-activated PI3Ks. We show here that activation of human neutrophils with insolubl...

Extracellular heat-shock proteins (HSPs) interact with the immune system in a very complex manner. Many such HSPs exert powerful effects on the immune response, playing both stimulatory and regulatory roles. However, the influence of the HSPs on immunity appears to be positive or negative in nature - rarely neutral. Thus, the HSPs can act as dominant antigens and can comprise key components of ...

Autoimmunity is a complex disease process that results from a breakdown in the ability of the immune system to discriminate self from non-self. One approach to unraveling how autoimmunity occurs is to study monogenic diseases, for which a single gene defect is responsible. Recent work on the monogenic autoimmune disease 'autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type 1' (APS1) and on the causal gene of...

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (Mtb), with more than nine million new cases and almost two million deaths in each year is a worldwide important public health problem. Generally, human immune responses prevent Mtb spread, and the infection remains in a latent state. Both, innate and adaptive immune responses are involved against TB. However, the role of the...

Recent experimental studies have shown that the local b inding of circulating ant ibody with antigens existing or planted within the glomerulus can result in damage to this structure (1-6). In particular, chemically cationized proteins are able to bind to the glomerular basement membrane (GBM), act as a planted antigen, and induce in situ immune complex formation accompanied by marked proteinur...