Background: Antifertility effect of naturally occuring antisperm antibody (ASA) in infertile couples and studies on experimental immunization of various animals with sperm antigens represents ASA as immunocontraceptive target. Despite extensive research on the effects of different factors on sperm immunogenecity and ASA production variable result have been reported. Objective: To study whole sp...

OBJECTIVE To study activation of intracellular pathways depending on nuclear factor kappa B (NFkappaB) and mitogen activated kinases (MAPK) in the synovium of patients with psoriatic arthritis before and after treatment with etanercept. METHODS Synovial biopsies were obtained by needle arthroscopy of the knee in 9 patients with active psoriatic arthritis before the initiation of etanercept. F...

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to the EMBO Journal. Your study has now been seen by three referees and their comments to authors are provided below. As you can see, the referees appreciate the analysis and find the identification of RISK and the characterization of its role in TAV-dependent reinitiation interesting. However, they also raise a number of different issues with the manusc...

cAMP negatively regulates T cell immune responses by activation of type I protein kinase A (PKA), which in turn phosphorylates and activates C-terminal Src kinase (Csk) in T cell lipid rafts. Using yeast two-hybrid screening, far-Western blot, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescense analyses, and small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown, we identified Ezrin as the A-kinase anchoring protein ...

Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT) is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland. Patients may present or not a hypothyroid state, and frequently have manifestations of myopathy. The present work was aimed to assess the clinical symptoms and signs of skeletal muscle alterations in HT, describe the muscular pathological changes and relate them to the functional thyroid status and to the autoimmune condi...

We have studied caveolin-1 expression and the frequency and distribution of typical invaginated caveolae as they are identified by electron microscopy in the polarized epithelial cell lines MDCK II and Caco-2. In wild-type MDCK II cells caveolin expression is high and more than 400 caveolae/mm filter were observed at the basolateral membrane. No caveolae were found at the apical surface. By con...

Chondrocytes' hypertrophy includes metabolic changes, matrix remodelling, proliferation and apoptosis, characteristics associated with the progression of osteoarthritis. We investigated a possible association among Runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX-2), SOX-9 and fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-23 mRNA expressions in articular chondrocytes in order to elucidate their contribution in the o...

Background: Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is the prototype of subepidermal autoimmune bullous dermatoses (SABDs). Direct immunofluorescence on salt split skin substrate (DIF-SS) is one of the methods used to differentiate this group of dermatoses. Objective: We conducted this study in order to delineate the results of DIF-SS in SABD patients. Patients and Methods: Seventeen patients with a BP-like cl...

nasopharyngeal swab samples from patients with an acute flu-like illness were evaluated for the presence of respiratory syncytial virus (rsv) from october 1996 to march 1998. the relative frequency and seasonal distribution of rsv was assessed. in addition, the virus correlated with specific clinical signs and symptoms. during the study, 268 samples were collected from children under the age of...

α-SNAP has an essential role in membrane fusion that consists of bridging cis SNARE complexes to NSF. α-SNAP stimulates NSF, which releases itself, α-SNAP, and individual SNAREs that subsequently re-engage in the trans arrays indispensable for fusion. α-SNAP also binds monomeric syntaxin and NSF disengages the α-SNAP/syntaxin dimer. Here, we examine why recombinant α-SNAP blocks secretion in pe...