Recipients of HLA-identical stem cell transplants have a poorer transplant outcome if the donor is female rather than male. We analyzed whether pregnancy primes for minor histocompatibility (H) antigens. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy multiparous female blood donors were depleted for CD4+, CD14+, CD16+, and CD19+ cells, stained with minor H antigen-specific HLA-A2 tetra...

Sequential rearrangement of the T cell receptor for antigen (TCR) beta and alpha chains is a hallmark of thymocyte development. This temporal control is lost in TCR transgenics because the alpha chain is expressed prematurely at the CD4- CD8- double negative (DN) stage. To test the importance of this, we expressed the HY alpha chain at the physiological CD4+ CD8+ double positive (DP) stage. The...

Complement activation is known to have deleterious effects on organ transplantation. On the other hand, the complement system is also known to have an important role in regulating immune responses. The balance between these two opposing effects is critical in the context of transplantation. Here, we report that female mice deficient in C1q (C1qa(-/-)) or C3 (C3(-/-)) reject male syngeneic graft...

In the interest of optimizing osteogenesis in in vitro, the present study sought to determine how porcine bone marrow stromal cell (BMSc) would respond to different concentrations of hyaluronan (HY) and its different combinations with dexamethasone (Dex) and recombinant human bone morphogenic protein-2 (rhBMP-2). Cellular proliferation was determined by 3H-thymidine incorporation into DNA at bo...

The Chinese herbal formula consisting of Astragalus membranaceus, Epimedium brevicornum, Paeoniae Alba Radix and Radix Ophiopogonis in proper proportions were adopted in order to investigate the immunoenhancing properties of the herbal formula. Fifty ICR mice were randomly divided into 5 groups (NS- NS+Hy-L+Hy-M+Hy-H+Hy ). The mice in hydrocortisone (Hy) groups were injected with hydrocortisone...

HLA-identical bone marrow transplantation (BMT) may be complicated by graft-versus-host disease or graft rejection. Both complications are thought to be initiated by recognition of minor histocompatibility (mH) antigens by HLA-restricted mH-antigen-specific T lymphocytes. Using HLA-A2-restricted mH antigens HA-1-, -2-, and -4-, and HY-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) clones, we studied the...

The interrelationship between baroreflex sensitivity expressed in ms/mm Hg (BRS) or in Hz/mm Hg (BRSf), carotid wall thickness (IMT), and age was investigated in hypertensive and normotensive subjects with respect to the mean inter-beat interval (IBI) and blood pressure (BP). BP monitoring was performed in 25 treated hypertensives (Hy; 47.4+/-9.2 years of age) and 23 normotensives (Norm; 44.5+/...

In the title compound, C(18)H(17)NO(4), the hy-droxy-ethanimine group is essentially coplanar with the ring to which it is attached [C-C-N-O torsion angle = 179.94 (14)°]. The mol-ecules are linked into cyclic centrosymmetric R(2) (2)(6) dimers via O-H⋯N hydrogen bonds and the crystal packing is further stabilized by C-H⋯O inter-actions.