For many economically important diseases of poultry, there is an increasing interest to develop drug-free alternative control strategies against many infectious diseases due to increasing consumersâ€TM concerns about chemical residues in poultry meat. One promising new avenue to achieve this goal is the use of natural and herbal products, hyperimmune IgY antibodies, oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs)...

induced immunosuppression is much more likely to be via suppression of humoral immunity, which may take many months to normalize after exposure.4 In pointing out our error, it does highlight the importance of the interplay between these 2 arms of the immune system, and also the effect of combining therapies that may influence both Band T-cell immunity. Indeed, there are recent worrying reports ...

UNLABELLED The B cell-activating factor (BAFF) is critical for B cell development and humoral immunity in mice and humans. While the role of BAFF in B cells has been widely described, its role in innate immunity remains unknown. Using BAFF receptor (BAFFR)-deficient mice, we characterized BAFFR-related innate and adaptive immune functions following infection with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV...

The relationship between fever and microbial infections has been known for a number of years, as well as several key mediators involved in its elicitation. However, the mechanisms by which fever confers protection to infected hosts are less clear. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which has been extensively used in recent years to study microbial infections and innate immune responses, has r...

Hospital-acquired infections are one of the main challenges and concerns of patients and medical staff in hospitals and healthcare centers. Meanwhile, Clostridium difficile infection is one of the most important bacterial hospital infections. Prevention is the best and most effective way to deal with these infections. Designing and using vaccines against these infectious microorganisms is the b...

The transmission potential of a novel infection depends on both the inherent transmissibility of a pathogen, and the level of susceptibility in the host population. However, distinguishing between these pathogen- and population-specific properties typically requires detailed serological studies, which are rarely available in the early stages of an outbreak. Using a simple transmission model tha...

A central conundrum in the study of infectious disease dynamics is to defi ne the landscape of population immunity. The proportion of individuals protected against a specifi c pathogen determines the timing and scale of outbreaks, and the pace of evolution for infections that can evade prevailing humoral immunity. Serological surveys provide the most direct measurement to defi ne the immunity l...

The pervasiveness of urinary tract infections (UTIs) with their clinical manifestations in patients with diabetes mellitus has escalated amidst the past decade or so, as myriad predisposing factors contribute to its occurrence. Although the causative agent of UTI is Escherichia coli, the etiopathogenesis can be traced back to glycosuria in the renal parenchymal region. This has precipitated pye...

We sought to define protective mechanisms of immunity to Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans bloodstream infections in mice immunized with the recombinant N-terminus of Als3p (rAls3p-N) vaccine plus aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH(3)) adjuvant, or adjuvant controls. Deficiency of IFN-gamma but not IL-17A enhanced susceptibility of control mice to both infections. However, vaccine-induced prote...