These results show that short-term prophylactic insulin treatment cannot prevent diabetes and thyroiditis development in DP-BB rats. The prophylactic treatment must start well before 60 days of age and be prolonged into the phase when the rats normally become diabetic to reduce diabetes incidence. T …

The effects of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO(2)) therapy on the immune system are reported including potential changes to the CD4/CD8 ratio and a decreased proliferation of lymphocytes during exposure. The immunosuppressive effect of HBO(2) had been suggested to be applicable for the treatment of certain a …

Nicotinamide (NCT) has been shown to be effective in preventing the onset of type 1 diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in mice with non-obese diabetic (NOD) and beta cell damage, mediated by the diabetogenic agents including streptozotocin. NCT therapy in man has been shown to have a beneficial effect on the …

Experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) induced in rats by injection of cardiac myosin is an animal model of human myocarditis and post-myocarditis dilated cardiomyopathy. It has been reported that proinflammatory cytokines play crucial roles in the induction of EAM and in the progression of myoca …

Insulin-dependent mellitus diabetes is an autoimmune disease resulting from the destruction of the beta cells of the islets of Langerhans by autoreactive T cells. Various approaches are being investigated in order to slow down the progression of diabetes using immunotherapy. The most promising resul …

The terms "diabetic control" and "diabetic management" are not synonymous. Diabetic control implies normal glucose metabolism, typically monitored by periodic determinations of plasma glucose and urine reducing sugar concentrations. A group of 220 diabetic children attending a camp complied 74% of t …

ENDIT ("European Nicotinamide Diabetes Intervention Trial") is a large placebo-controlled randomised clinical trial that aimed at studying the efficacy of nicotinamide in the prevention of type 1 diabetes mellitus among first-degree relatives of type 1 diabetic patients with positive islet cell anti …

This review is an evidence- and experience-based approach to the management of SLE, particularly its kidney manifestations. Specific protocols in substantial clinical detail are provided for management and monitoring, according to the severity of the SLE manifestations. The protocols are adapted fro …

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of complex pathologies, which involves infiltration by CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells of and response within the central nervous system. Expression in the CNS of cytokines, reactive nitrogen species and costimulator molecules have all been described in MS. Notably, th …

Autoimmunity accounts for a significant percentage of human disease and remains a challenging syndrome to treat. While systemic immunosuppression can be beneficial, the associated toxicity of the pharmacologic agents necessitates an antigen-specific approach to silence, eradicate or prevent the gene …

Sirolimus is an immunosuppressant that inhibits interleukin (IL)-2 signaling of T-cell proliferation but not IL-2-induced T-cell apoptosis. Therefore, we hypothesized that administration of IL-2, together with sirolimus, might shift T-cell proliferation to apoptosis and prevent autoimmune destructio …

Data are presented demonstrating the prevention of spontaneous autoimmune disease in NZB/Swiss mice treated natural double-stranded RNA. The successful treatment of animals was followed both by improvement in clinical manifestations and by the migration inhibition test performed with DNA as antigen. …

The onset and course of pemphigus are often the result of an interaction between predisposing genetic factors and environmental triggering agents. The latter are heterogeneous, numerous and increasing, ranging from drug intake (the commonest cause of pemphigus induction) to the exposure to physical …

Type 1 diabetes in humans is a serious autoimmune disorder of children that is still poorly understood, unpreventable, and irreversible. Study of its animal models, notably the NOD mouse and BB rat, has generated a wealth of information concerning genetics and immunopathogenesis, but that informatio …

We thus report herein the successful prevention of autoimmune disease by transplantation of a sufficiently large number of purified fully allogeneic HSCs in W/B F1 mice.

Oral administration of relevant autoantigens is being considered as a realistic approach for the prevention of several autoimmune diseases. In this study we administered, orally, to young female NOD/Ak mice (diabetes incidence, 40%) and NOD/LtJ mice (diabetes incidence, 70%) whole pancreatic extract …

The drug Linomide is an immunomodulator showing marked down-regulation of several experimental autoimmune diseases. In this study, its effect on three different experimental models of thyroid disease and on spontaneous infiltration of salivary glands (sialoadenitis), was investigated. Although very …

In conclusion, tonsillectomy does not reduce the risk of developing renal failure or prevent a progressive course of IgA nephropathy.

Assist in diagnosis of innate immunodeficiencies when genetic defects of the innate immune system are suspected in individuals negative for other immunodeficiencies (eg, no detectable abnormality of antibody function, complement activity, neutrophil function, or cell-mediated immunity). This test does not measure the function of toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3). Molecular testing is the preferred method for detection of defects in TLR3.

Background Infections may be associated with exacerbation of allergic and autoimmune diseases. Paradoxically, epidemiological and experimental data have shown that some microorganisms can also prevent these pathologies. This observation is at the origin of the hygiene hypothesis according to which the decline of infections in western countries is at the origin of the increased incidence of both Th1-mediated autoimmune diseases and Th2-mediated allergic diseases over the last decades. We have tested whether Toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation can recapitulate the protective effect of infectious agents on allergy and autoimmunity. Methods and Findings Here, we performed a systematic study of the disease-modifying effects of a set of natural or synthetic TLR agonists using two experimental models, ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma and spontaneous autoimmune diabetes, presenting the same genetic background of the non obese diabetic mouse (NOD) that is highly susceptible to both pathologies. In the same models, we also investigated the effect of probiotics. Additionally, we examined the effect of the genetic invalidation of MyD88 on the development of allergic asthma and spontaneous diabetes. We demonstrate that multiple TLR agonists prevent from both allergy and autoimmunity when administered parenterally. Probiotics which stimulate TLRs also protect from these two diseases. The physiological relevance of these findings is further suggested by the major acceleration of OVA-induced asthma in MyD88 invalidated mice. Our results strongly indicate that the TLR-mediated effects involve immunoregulatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-10 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β and different subsets of regulatory T cells, notably CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ T cells for TLR4 agonists and NKT cells for TLR3 agonists. Conclusions/Significance These observations demonstrate that systemic administration of TLR ligands can suppress both allergic and autoimmune responses. They provide a plausible explanation for the hygiene hypothesis. They also open new therapeutic perspectives for the prevention of these pathologies.