Cytokine is a substance that is made by cells of the immune system. Some cytokines can boost the immune response and others can suppress it. Cytokines can also be made in the laboratory by recombinant DNA technology and used in the treatment of various diseases, including cancer.
Since stem cells can continually self-regenerate, making more stem cells, and differentiate into many different specialized cell types, they play an important role in our development and health.
A new study performed by scientists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) has demonstrated that putatively immature dendritic cells in young children can trigger powerful immune responses. The findings may result in better vaccination protocols.
UC San Francisco scientists have discovered a new way to control the immune system's "natural killer" (NK) cells, a finding with implications for novel cell therapies and tissue implants that can evade immune rejection.
According to a research team headed by the University of Connecticut Health, a sugar-binding protein could drive terrible inflammation and worsen sepsis—a disease that kills over 270,000 individuals per year in the United States alone.
To effectively combat an infection, the body first has to sense it's been invaded, then the affected tissue must send out signals to corral resources to fight the intruder.
Molecular markers in the blood shown to be predictive of severe COVID-19 outcomes resulting from SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection have been identified in a study by a Chinese research team.
Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have demonstrated for the first time that in COVID-19 patients an immune mechanism known as the inflammasome participates in activation of the inflammatory process that can damage several organs and even lead to death.
The cytokine family including interleukin-2 and -15 (IL-2 and IL-15) started out in a primitive vertebrate species with three related cytokines IL-2, IL-15, and IL-15-like (IL-15L), all sharing binding capacity for receptor chain IL-15Rα. IL-15L was conserved in fishes, reptiles, and some mammals but lost in humans and mice.
There is an idea within the coronavirus research field that there is some kind of T cell abnormality in critically ill COVID-19 patients, but specific details have not yet been clarified. To shed light on the problem, a research collaboration based in Kumamoto University (Japan) has performed a genetic analysis of T cells from lung tissue of COVID-19 patients.
Enrichment of the lungs with oral commensal microbes was associated with advanced-stage disease, worse prognosis, and tumor progression in patients with lung cancer.
"Wound healing is one of the most complex biological processes," writes Professor Kazumitsu Sugiura and Dr Kenta Saito from Fujita Health University, Japan, in their article recently published in Nature's Scientific Reports.
Researchers from Kumamoto University, Japan have proposed that cellular senescence variations during the aging process could lead to control of health and onset of age-related diseases.
Individuals require enough action to remove offensive viruses or bacteria, but not so much that their body suffer a considerable damage.
COVID-19 remains stubbornly inconsistent. More than a million people have died and 35 million have been diagnosed, but a large fraction of people infected with the coronavirus--about 45%, according to recent estimates--show no symptoms at all.
Scientists from Emory Health Sciences have been observing an intense stimulation of immune cells in severe cases of COVID-19 disease. This activation of immune cells is similar to acute flares of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)—an autoimmune disease.
Broiler chicken producers the world over are all too familiar with coccidiosis, a parasite-borne intestinal disease that stalls growth and winnows flocks.
Loved or hated, the humble oat could be the new superfood for cancer patients as international research shows a diet rich in fiber could significantly reduce radiation-induced gut inflammation.
After an infection of the human body with a pathogen, a cascade of reactions will usually be set into motion.
The results obtained are encouraging and the researchers could make headway in a multifunctional cell therapy system to treat inflammatory bowel disease.
Different plants and their products contain “bioactive” components that can reduce human diseases.