All adult BALB/c mice immunized with hen egg white lysozyme (HEL) or its dominant determinant, peptide (p)106-116, mount a T cell response using a "public" Vbeta8.2Jbeta1.5 T cell clone. Neonatal exposure to tolerance-inducing doses of antigen can drastically diminish responsiveness in the draining lymph nodes but not in the spleens of animals chal...
Natural killer (NK) cell activation is regulated by the integration of signals from inhibitory and activating cell surface receptors. Both NKG2A and NKG2C pair with CD94 to form inhibitory and activating receptors specific for the HLA-E-canonical peptide complex. HLA-E is a non-classical MHC class Ib molecule with limited polymorphism. It preferent...
The classical myelin basic protein (MBP) exons belong to a much larger unit, termed the Golli-MBP gene. Here we have examined the T-cell determinant structure of the Golli protein region in the BALB/c mouse. Golli p10-24, which was shown to have the strongest affinity for I-A(d), could not induce T-cell activation. Paradoxically, the poorer bin...
The intrahepatic biliary destruction of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) appears secondary to a multi-lineage response that includes autoantibodies, biliary apotopes, and cellular responses. Although there has been considerable effort in defining the role and specificity of anti-mitochondrial autoantibodies, a major challenge has been the characteri...
Differentiation and activation of osteoclasts play a key role in the development of musculoskeletal diseases as these cells are primarily involved in bone resorption. Osteoclasts can be generated in vitro from monocyte/macrophage precursor cells in the presence of certain cytokines, which promote survival and differentiation. Here, both in vivo and...
Acrodermatitis enteropathica is a rare autosomal recessive disorder of zinc deficiency. The genetic defect has been mapped to 8q24 and the defective gene identified as SLC39A4, which encodes the zinc transporter Zip4. The diagnosis is made by way of clinical presentation together with histopathology and laboratory tests. Here we provide an overview...
The diversity of autoimmune responses poses a formidable challenge to the development of antigen-specific tolerizing therapy. We developed myelin proteome microarrays to profile the evolution of autoantibody responses in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a model for multiple sclerosis (MS). Increased diversity of autoantibody respo...
