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Immune system involvement in TB
Posted on January 18th, 2010 No commentsTuberculosis is one of the diseases eliminated from occidental countries, even if few cases are reported every year. Granuloma formation into lung is the fundamental characteristics of this disease and the involvement of our immune system in this process is argued since long time. In advance of publication number of Cellular and Molecular Immunology an important paper illustrates how our immune system has a consistent role in granuloma formation and which kind of T cell are involved.
The comparison between blood samples derived from Tuberculosis patients or healthy donors demonstrated that the presence of a special group of T cells – namely the IL 17 producing γδ T cells- in peripheral blood was significantly higher in patients than in healthy donors. In vitro re-stimulation with tuberculosis mycobacterium antigen generated an increase in IFNγ producing T cells ratio in patients than in healthy donors, while the ration of IL17 producing cells was similar within two groups. These data were consistent with other results obtained in mouse model and confirmed the role of IL17 in granuloma formation. The identification of γδ T cells as major IL17 producer may arise some advantages for possible pharmaceutical treatment, but further elucidations are required to better understand all the mechanism at the basis of this complex disease. -
Novel approaches to interfere with HIV infection
Posted on August 26th, 2009 No commentsSeveral studies are currently ongoing to identify some strategy to care HIV infection: in this post we would like to propose you two novel approaches, based on glycerol monolaurate (GML) and griffithsin. GML is a mild detergent that in high concentration can prevent inflammation and recruitment of CD4 T cells, usually cell- host of HIV virus.
In particular, some experiments have been done on vaginal epithelium –this site is frequently involved in the first phases of HIV infection- and decrease of activation of dendritic cells and, thus, of CD4 T cells, was observed. Infection couldn’t spread and systemic infection was blocked. Some authors noted that really high concentration of GML has to be used to obtain inflammation bock, while lower concentration could have the opposite effect. Griffithsin is a protein derived from algae and has been recently cloned into tobacco plant, thus recombinant variant is now available. This protein impairs the binding of viral particles to glycoprotein at the cell surface and determines HIV death. Interesting results showed a block of infection on human cervical explant by adding recombinant griffithsin protein. These two approach could be considered promising prophylactic treatment because both interfere with the first phases of infection and have quickly gained a great interest of some important pharmaceutical companies.
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