Background & Aims: Reports have shown an increased risk of melanoma skin cancer (MSC) with exposure to tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) inhibitors and non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) with thiopurine exposure in in ammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Using the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) we sought to evaluate the odds of developing MSC and NMSC for p...

Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury leads to increased mortality and morbidity in lung transplant patients. Lung I/R injury involves inflammation contributed by innate immune responses. IL-17 and TNF-α, from iNKT cells and alveolar macrophages, respectively, contribute importantly to lung I/R injury. This study tests the hypothesis that IL-17 and TNF-α synergistically mediate CXCL1 (a potent neut...

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) plays a pivotal role in inflammatory response. Dysregulation of TNF can lead to a variety of disastrous pathological effects, including auto-inflammatory diseases. Antibodies that directly targeting TNF-α have been proven effective in suppressing symptoms of these disorders. Compared to protein drugs, small molecule drugs are normally orally available and less ex...

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play a fundamental role in the immune system by detecting pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) to sense host infection. Ethanol at doses relevant for humans inhibits the pathogen induced cytokine response mediated through TLRs. The current study was designed to investigate the mechanisms of this effect by determining whether ethanol inhibits TLR3 and TLR4 me...

Responsiveness to tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors has been associated with the TNF-α G-308A polymorphism in rheumatoid arthritis. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the presence of this polymorphism and the response to TNF inhibitors in patients with refractory sarcoidosis. Patients (n=111) who started TNF-inhibitor treatment (76 infliximab, 35 adalimumab) were...

BACKGROUND Raf kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP) regulates growth and differentiation and plays a role in key signal transduction cascades in mammalian cells. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism for which RKIP regulates cell-cell adhesion remains unknown. Our study investigated the function of the RKIP overexpression on adhesion molecules expression induced by tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in ...

Increasing evidence indicates that the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain is mediated through spinal cord microglia activation. The intracellular protease caspase-6 (CASP6) is known to regulate neuronal apoptosis and axonal degeneration; however, the contribution of microglia and CASP6 in modulating synaptic transmission and pain is unclear. Here, we found that CASP6 is expressed specifically in ...

Circadian clock is known to be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple diseases. However, its role inflammatory skin diseases remains ill-defined. Psoriasis a common disease, which affects 1∼3% population worldwide. To date, there no cure for psoriasis. Keratinocyte hyper-proliferation and over-activated immune responses play essential roles psoriasis, while underlying mechanism not fully unde...

The lipoxygenase isoform of 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) is reported to be overexpressed in human rheumatoid arthritis synovial tissue and involved in the progress of inflammatory arthritis. However, the detailed mechanism of how 5-lipoxygenase regulates the inflammatory response in arthritis synovial tissue is still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the involvement of lipoxygenase pa...