6 research outputs found
Quantifying the relevance of different mediators in the human immune cell network
Immune cells coordinate their efforts for the correct and efficient
functioning of the immune system (IS). Each cell type plays a distinct role and
communicates with other cell types through mediators such as cytokines,
chemokines and hormones, among others, that are crucial for the functioning of
the IS and its fine tuning. Nevertheless, a quantitative analysis of the
topological properties of an immunological network involving this complex
interchange of mediators among immune cells is still lacking. Here we present a
method for quantifying the relevance of different mediators in the immune
network, which exploits a definition of centrality based on the concept of
efficient communication. The analysis, applied to the human immune system,
indicates that its mediators significantly differ in their network relevance.
We found that cytokines involved in innate immunity and inflammation and some
hormones rank highest in the network, revealing that the most prominent
mediators of the IS are molecules involved in these ancestral types of defence
mechanisms highly integrated with the adaptive immune response, and at the
interplay among the nervous, the endocrine and the immune systems.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Mitochondrial DNA involvement in human longevity
AbstractThe main message of this review can be summarized as follows: aging and longevity, as complex traits having a significant genetic component, likely depend on a number of nuclear gene variants interacting with mtDNA variability both inherited and somatic. We reviewed the data available in the literature with particular attention to human longevity, and argued that what we hypothesize for aging and longevity could have a more general relevance and be extended to other age-related complex traits such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The genetics which emerges for complex traits, including aging and longevity, is thus even more complicated than previously thought, as epistatic interactions between nuclear gene polymorphisms and mtDNA variability (both somatic and inherited) as well as between mtDNA somatic mutations (tissue specific) and mtDNA inherited variants (haplogroups and sub-haplogroups) must be considered as additional players capable of explaining a part of the aging and longevity phenotype. To test this hypothesis is one of the main challenge in the genetics of aging and longevity in the next future
A theoretical model for 'in machina': Experiments on immunosenescence
SCOPUS: cp.kFMWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedMolecular and cellular gerontolog
p53 Codon 72 Polymorphism and Longevity: Additional Data on Centenarians from Continental Italy and Sardinia
In a previous letter (Bonafè et al. 1999) we tested the
hypothesis that polymorphic variants of p53 have an
impact on human longevity, by comparing p53 codon
72 allelic and genotypic frequency distributions between
young people and centenarians. A nonsignificant difference
emerged between the groups, and several explanations
were offered. Following the reply letter of Sun
et al. (in this issue), we would like to argue with some
of their comments and to provide new data regarding
centenarians from continental Italy and Sardinia