Viral diseases of the respiratory tract, which include influenza pandemic, children acute bronchiolitis, and viral pneumonia of the elderly, represent major health problems. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells play an important role in anti-viral immunity, and these cells were recently shown to express ChemR23, the receptor for the chemoattractant protein chemerin, which is expressed by epithelial cel...

Peripheral blood dendritic cells seem to play a crucial role in psoriatic inflammatory processes. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between plasma interleukin-18 (IL-18) levels and blood dendritic cells in psoriatic patients. IL-18 plasma levels were measured by ELISA. Phenotypes of dendritic cell subsets were analyzed by double-colour flow cytometry. Plasma IL-18 level in...

HIV-1 infection usually leads to systemic chronic inflammation that is associated with gut microbial translocation. The recently defined group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) are critical for maintenance of intestinal barrier function; however, it is not clear whether and how HIV-1 infection influences the function of these cells. In this issue of the JCI, Zhang and colleagues present compellin...

The onset, progression and exacerbations of asthma are frequently associated with viral infections of the lower respiratory tract. An emerging paradigm suggests that this relationship may be underpinned by a defect in the host's antiviral response, typified by the impaired production of type I and type III interferons (IFNs). The failure to control viral burden probably causes damage to the lun...

In industrialized countries bacterial intestinal infections are commonly caused by enteropathogenic Enterobacteriaceae. The interaction of the microbiota with the host immune system determines the adequacy of an appropriate response against pathogens. In this study we addressed whether the probiotic Bifidobacterium adolescentis is protective during intestinal Yersinia enterocolitica infection. ...

Dendritic cells are present in both lymphoid and non-lymphoid organs, which heterogenous group of nonphagocytic nonlymphoid immune accessory cells. Plasmacytoid dendritic cell (which has an eccentric nuclei) subset aid secreting high levels type 1 interferons by activation gaining like morphology, play important role antiviral immunity involved initiation development stages inflammatory respons...