4 research outputs found
Defining ecological reference conditions in naturally stressed environments - How difficult is it?
Dune ridge progradation resulting from updrift coastal reconfiguration and increased littoral drift
Deposition and mixing depths on some European intertidal mudflats based on <sup>210</sup>Pb and <sup>137</sup>Cs activities
Staphylococcal alpha-toxin tilts the balance between malignant and non-malignant CD4+ T cells in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma
Staphylococcus aureus is implicated in disease progression in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). Here, we demonstrate that malignant T cell lines derived from CTCL patients as well as primary malignant CD4+ T cells from Sézary syndrome patients are considerably more resistant to alpha-toxin-induced cell death than their non-malignant counterparts. Thus, in a subset of Sézary syndrome patients the ratio between malignant and non-malignant CD4+ T cells increases significantly following exposure to alpha-toxin. Whereas toxin-induced cell death is ADAM10 dependent in healthy CD4+ T cells, resistance to alpha-toxin in malignant T cells involves both downregulation of ADAM10 as well as other resistance mechanisms. In conclusion, we provide first evidence that Staphylococcus aureus derived alpha-toxin can tilt the balance between malignant and non-malignant CD4+ T cells in CTCL patients. Consequently, alpha-toxin may promote disease progression through positive selection of malignant CD4+ T cells, identifying alpha-toxin as a putative drug target in CTCL