Dendritic cells (DC) present Ag to naive T cells and are therefore pivotal in shaping immune responses. DC may either immunize or tolerize T cells. Humans with pancreatic islet autoimmunity at high risk for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) present the opportunity to investigate DC in autoimmune disease. We compared DC phenotype and function in 12 euglycemic, asymptomatic IDDM relative...

In human systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), diverse autoantibodies accumulate over years before disease manifestation. Unaffected relatives of SLE patients frequently share a sustained production of autoantibodies with indiscriminable specificity, usually without ever acquiring the disease. We studied relations of IgG autoantibody profiles and peripheral blood activated regulatory T-cells (aTr...

Protein S deficiency is a recognized risk factor for venous thrombosis. Of all the inherited thrombophilic conditions, it remains the most difficult to diagnose because of phenotypic variability, which can lead to inconclusive results. We have overcome this problem by studying a cohort of patients from a single center where the diagnosis was confirmed at the genetic level. Twenty-eight index pa...

Recent studies revealed cardiac autonomic dysfunction in patients with acute schizophrenia, which appears to be mainly related to reduced vagal and increased sympathetic modulation. To understand the significance of cardiac autonomic function in patients with schizophrenia, we extended these studies to relatives of patients. In this study, we assessed cardiac autonomic modulation in healthy fir...

Abstract The incidence of diabetes is increasing globally. Short and long-term effects can negatively affect the lives a person their relatives. A good glycaemic control important. Compared to conventional blood glucose measurement with capillary blood, which obtained by finger pricking, it now possible continuously measure using sensors that are placed in subcutaneous tissue remain there for s...

In this issue of Blood, there are 2 reports on the increased risk of plasma cell disorders in the first-degree relatives of patients with multiple myeloma or MGUS.

Objective: Adiponectin (an insulin sensitizing protein) and zinc have insulin like effect. This study was conducted to assess the effect of zinc supplementation on serum adiponectin and insulin resistance in first degree relatives of diabetic patients. Materials and Methods: This study was a randomized clinical trial performed on 58 first degree relatives of diabetic patients with normal gluco...

Having encountered several subjects with venous thromboembolism (VTE) in 1 family in which 1 proband has recurrent VTE (rVTE), we aimed to assess the risk of VTE in first-degree relatives, especially the children of individuals with rVTE, and to investigate the association of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) G894T polymorphism between Chinese persons with rVTE and their offspring.We col...

medullary thyroid carcinoma (mtc) occurs in both sporadic (75%) and hereditary (25%) forms. the missense mutations of the rearranged during transfection (ret) proto-oncogene in mtc development have been well demonstrated. the aim of this study was to investigate frequency of g691s/s904s haplotype in mtc patients and their relatives.in this research 293 participants were studied, including 181 p...