The immune response activatesB cells to produce antibody and T cells to mediate cytotoxicity or produce cytokines. An important division in the development of T cells is their tendency to develop into subpopulations producing either TH1 or TH2 cytokines. The TH1 cytokines include interferon g, tumour necrosis factor b (TNFb) and interleukin 2 (IL-2), while the cytokines which best characterize ...

IL-12 and IL-18 are immunomodulatory cytokines that play important roles in host immune response against cancers. Variation in DNA sequence in gene promoter may lead to altered IL-18 production and/or activity, and hence can modulate an individual's susceptibility to BC. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the relationship of IL-18 gene promoter -137 G/C and -607C/A polymorphisms and IL12 ...

Legionella pneumophila is the causative agent of Legionnaires' disease, a potentially fatal lung infection. Alveolar macrophages support intracellular replication of L. pneumophila, however the contributions of other immune cell types to bacterial killing during infection are unclear. Here, we used recently described methods to characterise the major inflammatory cells in lung after acute respi...

Synbiotics are synergistic combinations of prebiotics and probiotics. In chickens, synbiotics can be delivered in ovo to expedite colonization of the gut by beneficial bacteria. We therefore aimed to design synbiotics in vitro and validate them in broiler chickens upon in ovo delivery. The probiotic components of the synbiotics were Lactobacillus salivarius and Lactobacillus plantarum. Their gr...

P HAGOCYTIC CELLS and natural killer (NK) cells are among the effector cell types of innate resistance that represent a first line of defense against infections or foreign pathogens. During the early inflammatory response to an infection, regulatory interactions between these cell types take place, mostly mediated by cytokines that regulate activation and migration of phagocytic cells and NK ce...