Human fibroblasts provide immunosuppressive functions that are partly mediated by the tryptophan-catabolizing enzyme indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO). Moreover, upon stimulation with inflammatory cytokines human fibroblasts exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial effector functions directed against various clinically relevant pathogens and these effects are also IDO-dependent. Therefore human fib...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is one of the leading prenatal causes of congenital mental retardation and deformities world-wide. Access to cultured human neuronal lineages, necessary to understand the species specific pathogenic effects of HCMV, has been limited by difficulties in sustaining primary human neuronal cultures. Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells now provide an oppo...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a member of the herpesvirus family, establishes life-long persistence and latency after primary infection and can be reactivated later in life. In immunosuppressed patients, it is an important pathogen that can cause severe disease. HCMV is also thought to play a causative role in inflammatory diseases and cancer. The virus can infect different immune cells, includ...

Cellular annexin II has been shown to specifically bind human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and be a component of highly purified virions. In this report, we characterize the interaction of annexin II with HCMV. We found that the binding of annexin II to the HCMV envelope occurs partially through the calcium-dependent phospholipid-binding ability of annexin II since some annexin II was dissociated fro...

UL69 of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) encodes a pleiotropic transactivator protein and has a counterpart in every member of the Herpesviridae family thus far sequenced. However, little is known about the conservation of the functions of the nuclear phosphoprotein pUL69 in the homologous proteins of other betaherpesviruses. Therefore, eukaryotic expression vectors were constructed for pC69 of chi...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is known to evade extrinsic pro-apoptotic pathways not only by downregulating cell surface expression of the death receptors TNFR1, TRAIL receptor 1 (TNFRSF10A) and TRAIL receptor 2 (TNFRSF10B), but also by impeding downstream signalling events. Fas (CD95/APO-1/TNFRSF6) also plays a prominent role in apoptotic clearance of virus-infected cells, so its fate in HCMV-i...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a major risk factor in transplantation and AIDS patients, which induces high morbidity and mortality. These patients infected with HCMV experience an imbalance of redox homeostasis that cause accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) at the cellular level. H2O2, the most common reactive oxygen species, is the main byproduct of oxidative metabolism. However, t...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) reactivation is a common complication after liver transplantation (LT). Here, we investigated whether human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matching was related to HCMV infection and subsequent graft failure after LT for hepatitis B virus  cirrhosis. This retrospective study reviewed 91 LT recipients. All the patients were grouped according to HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR locus...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive human brain tumor. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) immediate-early (IE) proteins that are endogenously expressed in GBM cells are strong viral transactivators with oncogenic properties. Here, we show how HCMV IEs are preferentially expressed in glioma stem-like cells (GSC), where they colocalize with the other GBM stemness markers, CD133, Nestin...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common cause of congenital infections in developed countries, with an incidence varying between 0.5 and 2.2% and consequences varying from asymptomatic infection to lethal conditions for the fetus. Infants that are asymptomatic at birth may still develop neurological sequelae, such as hearing loss and mental retardation, at a later age. Infection of neur...