Type 2 diabetes is more prevalent and severe among African Americans. Even within the Veterans Health Administration, which is thought to have minimized barriers in access to care, racial disparities in glucose control and outcomes persist. This Issue Brief summarizes work testing two novel interven …

Ophthalmologists are daily confronted with intraocular inflammation following trauma and/or intraocular surgery. In rare cases, this may lead to the loss of visual function in both eyes, i.e. sympathetic ophthalmia (SO). In order to reduce the scope of responsible action between enucleation of the e …

Over the past three decades the incidence of allergic disorders and autoimmune diseases has risen and this trend is particularly prominent in developed nations. The hygiene hypothesis suggests that as a living environment becomes more sanitized, children are not exposed to microbial and parasitic st …

The instant blood-mediated inflammatory reaction (IBMIR) leads to massive destruction of transplanted islets. Islet isolation and time of culture may elicit the release of potent activators of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) signaling pathways during IBMIR. This work sought to evaluate the role of TLR si …

Antioxidant rhTrx-1 effectively prevents T1D which may be attributed to its activity to modulate autoimmunity.

Two longitudinal field experiments in a middle school examined how a brief "values affirmation" affects students' psychological experience and the relationship between psychological experience and environmental threat over 2 years. Together these studies suggest that values affirmations insulate ind …

Cyclosporin and other immunosuppressive agents have been proposed as a preventive treatment against the development of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in relatives at increased risk for the disease, based on the understanding that its etiology is an ongoing process of autoimmune beta-cell …

(R)- or (S)-2-Hydroxy-4-(methylthio)butanoic acid (HMTBA) is used as a poultry nutritional supplement and to treat renal failure disease. Herein, we report an artificially designed biocatalytic cascade process, which uses l-methionine to synthesize (R)- or (S)-HMTBA. This biocatalysis cascade comprises a basic module and two different extender modules and operates in a modular assembly manner. The basic module responsible for the transformation of l-methionine to α-keto-γ-methylthiobutyric acid (KMTB) is comprised of the l-amino acid deaminase. Two different extender modules responsible for the transformation of KMTB to (R)- or (S)-HMTBA are comprised of the R/S-specific lactate dehydrogenase in combination with the formate dehydrogenase, respectively. Engineered Escherichia coli catalysts, one containing the basic module, the other containing the one of two different extender modules, produced 97.6 g L−1 (R)-HMTBA and 96.4 g L−1 (S)-HMTBA with a yield of 96.9% and 95.8% at the large scale (1 L) using a two-stage strategy in one pot, respectively. Therefore, this biocatalytic process lays the foundation for the industrial-scale conversion of low-cost l-amino acids to corresponding high-value enantiopure chiral 2-hydroxy acids.

clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00179478.

Serial human AD-MSC transplantation had beneficial effects in the treatment of SLE, without adverse effects. Transplantation of human AD-MSCs before disease onset was preferable for amelioration of SLE and restoration of immune homeostasis.

Knowledge of immunity enables us to predict that the reactions set in response to infection with helminth would prevent concomitant disease driven by an opposing spectrum of immune events. In another way, the immune response generated to combat the helminth infection could counteract the immunopatho …

Cell death mediated through the intrinsic, Bcl-2-regulated mitochondrial apoptosis signalling pathway is critical for lymphocyte development and the establishment of central and maintenance of peripheral tolerance. Defects in Bcl-2-regulated cell death signalling have been reported to cause or corre …

The prevention of RA in at-risk populations is feasible; however, this will necessitate novel efforts to identify patients very early in disease development to examine the effectiveness and cost of preventive interventions.

Prevention of disease can in principle be accomplished by identification of environmental and/or lifestyle risk and protective factors followed by public health measures (such as for smoking and lung cancer), or by modification of the individual's reactions to disease-inducing factors (such as in va …

Bacterial infection is known to trigger a number of autoimmune disorders, an observation that indicates a potentially important role for antibiotics in treating these diseases. Indeed, results from an experimental model of autoimmune arthritis in mice suggest that antibiotics can prevent the onset o …

According to the 'hygiene hypothesis', the decreasing incidence of infections in western countries and more recently in developing countries is at the origin of the increasing incidence of both autoimmune and allergic diseases. The hygiene hypothesis is based upon epidemiological data, particularly …

Three studies investigated whether self-affirmation can proceed without awareness, whether people are aware of the influence of experimental self-affirmations, and whether such awareness facilitates or undermines the self-affirmation process. The authors found that self-affirmation effects could pro …

Autoimmune diseases are increasing worldwide, and associated morbidity, mortality, and health care costs are high. Biological therapies, however, have brought physicians an extraordinary opportunity to change natural disease history, although these therapies can also have high associated iatrogenic …

This collective review focuses on three major factors that influence the incidences of multiple sclerosis (MS) to include ultraviolet radiation (UVR), vitamin D3 supplementation, and vitamin D receptor gene (VDRG) polymorphisms. In general, the rate of MS increases with latitude. Individuals tend to …