Effects of temperature on amoebic gill disease development : Does it play a role?

Funding Information Scottish Government project grant. Grant Number: AQ0080 University of Aberdeen Marine Scotland Science (MSS) Marine Laboratory, UKPeer reviewedPostprintPostprin

Changes in antigen-specific T cell number and function during oral desensitization in cow’s milk allergy enabled with omalizumab

Food allergy is a major public health problem for which there is no effective treatment. We examined the immunological changes that occurred in a group of children with significant cow’s milk allergy undergoing a novel and rapid high dose oral desensitization protocol enabled by treatment with omalizumab (anti-IgE mAb). Within a week of treatment, the CD4+ T cell response to milk was nearly eliminated, suggesting anergy in, or deletion of, milk-specific CD4+ T cells. Over the following three months while the subjects remained on high doses of daily oral milk, the CD4+ T cell response returned, characterized by a shift from IL-4 to IFN-γ production. Desensitization was also associated with reduction in milk-specific IgE and a 15-fold increase in milk-specific IgG4. These studies suggest that high dose oral allergen desensitization may be associated with deletion of allergen-specific T cells, without the apparent development of allergen-specific Foxp3+ regulatory T cells

A Fungal Glycosphingolipid Directly Activates Natural Killer T Cells and Rapidly Induces Airways Disease

Aspergillus fumigatusis a saprophytic fungus that is ubiquitous in the environment and commonly associated with allergic sensitization and severe asthma in humans. Although A. fumigatus is recognized by multiple microbial pattern recognition receptors, we identified and synthesized an A. fumigatus glycosphingolipid, asperamide B, that directly activated invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells in vitro in a CD1d-restricted, MyD88- and dectin-1-independent fashion. Moreover, asperamide B, when loaded into CD1d, directly stained, and was sufficient to activate, iNKT cells. In vivo, asperamide B rapidly induced airway hyperreactivity, a cardinal feature of asthma, by activating pulmonary iNKT cells in an IL-33-ST2-dependent fashion. Asperamide B is thus the first fungal glycolipid found to directly activate iNKT cells. These results extend the range of microorganisms that can be directly detected by iNKT cells to the Kingdom of Fungi, and may explain the effectiveness of A. fumigatus in causing severe chronic respiratory diseases in humans

TIM-family Proteins Promote Infection of Multiple Enveloped Viruses through Virion-associated Phosphatidylserine

Human T-cell Immunoglobulin and Mucin-domain containing proteins (TIM1, 3, and 4) specifically bind phosphatidylserine (PS). TIM1 has been proposed to serve as a cellular receptor for hepatitis A virus and Ebola virus and as an entry factor for dengue virus. Here we show that TIM1 promotes infection of retroviruses and virus-like particles (VLPs) pseudotyped with a range of viral entry proteins, in particular those from the filovirus, flavivirus, New World arenavirus and alphavirus families. TIM1 also robustly enhanced the infection of replication-competent viruses from the same families, including dengue, Tacaribe, Sindbis and Ross River viruses. All interactions between TIM1 and pseudoviruses or VLPs were PS-mediated, as demonstrated with liposome blocking and TIM1 mutagenesis experiments. In addition, other PS-binding proteins, such as Axl and TIM4, promoted infection similarly to TIM1. Finally, the blocking of PS receptors on macrophages inhibited the entry of Ebola VLPs, suggesting that PS receptors can contribute to infection in physiologically relevant cells. Notably, infection mediated by the entry proteins of Lassa fever virus, influenza A virus and SARS coronavirus was largely unaffected by TIM1 expression. Taken together our data show that TIM1 and related PS-binding proteins promote infection of diverse families of enveloped viruses, and may therefore be useful targets for broad-spectrum antiviral therapies

IL-17 producing innate lymphoid cells and the NLRP3 inflammasome facilitate obesity-associated airway hyperreactivity

Obesity is associated with the development of asthma and considerable asthma-related healthcare utilization. To understand the immunological pathways that lead to obesity-associated asthma, we fed mice a high fat diet for 12 weeks, which resulted in obesity and the development of airway hyperreactivity (AHR), a cardinal feature of asthma. This AHR depended on innate immunity, since it occurred in obese Rag−/− mice, and on IL-17A and the NLRP3 inflammasome, since it did not develop in obese Il17−/− or Nlrp3−/− mice. The AHR was also associated with the presence in the lungs of CCR6+ innate lymphoid cells producing IL-17A (ILC3 cells), which could by themselves mediate AHR when adoptively transferred into Rag2−/− Il2rγ−/− mice. IL-1β played an important role by expanding the ILC3 cells, and treatment to block the function of IL-1β abolished obesity-induced AHR. Since we found ILC3-like cells in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of human patients with asthma, we suggest that obesity-associated asthma is facilitated by inflammation mediated by NLRP3, IL-1β and ILC3 cells