Human natural regulatory CD4+ T cells comprise 5–10% of peripheral CD4+T cells. They constitutively express the IL-2R??chain (CD25) and nuclear transcription Foxp3. These are heterogeneous contain discrete subsets with distinct phenotypes functions. Studies in mice report that LAG-3 has a complex role cell homeostasis is expressed CD4+CD25+ In this st...

Melanoma has a propensity for lymphatogenous metastasis. Improved understanding of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) immunological environment may improve outcomes. The immune phenotype of fresh melanoma SLNs (n = 13) were compared to fresh control lymph nodes (n = 13) using flow cytometry. RNA was isolated from CD4+ T cells of the SLN and control lymph node and assessed for Th1/Th2 gene expression...

The PD-1/PD-L pathway plays a major role in regulating T-cell exhaustion during chronic viral infections in animal models, as well as in humans, and blockade of this pathway can revive exhausted CD8(+) T cells. We examined the expression of PD-1 and its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, in multiple tissues during the course of chronic viral infection and determined how the amount of PD-1 expressed, as ...

During many chronic infections, the responding CD8 T cells become exhausted as they progressively lose their ability to elaborate key effector functions. Unlike prototypic memory CD8 cells, which rapidly synthesize IFN-gamma following activation, severely exhausted T cells fail to produce this effector molecule. Nevertheless, the ontogeny of exhausted CD8 T cells, as well as the underlying mech...

Regulatory T (T reg) cells are critical for preventing autoimmunity mediated by self-reactive T cells, but their role in modulating immune responses during chronic viral infection is not well defined. To address this question and to investigate a role for T reg cells in exhaustion of virus-specific CD8 T cells, we depleted T reg cells in mice chronically infected with lymphocytic choriomeningit...

Influenza infections have high frequency and morbidity in HIV-infected pregnant women, underscoring the importance of vaccine-conferred protection. To identify the factors that determine vaccine immunogenicity in this group, we characterized the relationship of B- and T-cell responses to pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) vaccine with HIV-associated immunologic and virologic characteristics. pH1N1 and seaso...

Background: CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are the main types of lymphocytes in cell-mediated immunity and play a central role in the induction of efficient immune responses against tumors. The frequencies of T cell subtypes in the peripheral blood and tumor tissues, and draining lymph nodes (dLN) can be considered as useful markers for evaluation of the immune system in cancers. Methods: In this study,...

BACKGROUND T cell immunoglobulin-3 (TIM-3) has been established as a negative regulatory molecule and plays a critical role in immune tolerance. TIM-3 is upregulated in exhausted CD8(+) T cells in both chronic infection and tumor. However, the nature of TIM-3(+)CD4(+) T cells in the tumor microenvironment is unclear. This study is to characterize TIM-3 expressing lymphocytes within human lung c...

Multiple myeloma is the most common indication for high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), and lenalidomide maintenance after transplant is now standard. Although lenalidomide doubles progression-free survival, almost all patients eventually relapse. Posttransplant immunotherapy to improve outcomes after ASCT therefore has great merit but first requires delineati...