Potential Treatments for Atopic Dermatitis

Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is the most common pruritic inflammatory skin disease which causes economic and social burden. AD is not curable and therapeutic options are limited. Currently, the therapeutic approaches to AD include topical treatment, phototherapy, and systemic treatment.

Although traditional therapeutic strategies are efficacious in ameliorating the symptoms of AD in most patients, sometimes it is a tough challenge for physicians as AD is catastrophic and difficult to treat. Several potential treatments for AD are being studied owing to a clearer understanding of its pathogenesis.

Additionally, animal models of AD allow comprehensive and thorough investigation of pathogenesis and provide more options of therapeutic interventions.

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Targeting Monocytes with TLR7 Ligands as a Novel Opportunity in Immuno- Oncology

Cancer immunotherapy has for the last decade been one of the fastest developing therapeutic areas in oncology with promising clinical benefits, supporting a role of immunotherapy as a cornerstone in future cancer treatment in combination with existing treatments.

Treatment of early stage cancers today is very efficient due to refined surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and use of therapeutic antibodies, but a large group of patients in particular with late stage and metastatic disease have poor prognosis due to lack of efficient treatment options.

Thus, there is an urgent need to develop new technologies to provide more efficient treatment of late stage cancers, focused towards cure of these patients.

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P-Selectin is a Key Molecule Underlying the Pathophysiology of Aspirin- Exacerbated Respiratory Disease

Recently, the evidence for platelet association with allergic diseases has been established by many researches. Activated platelets contribute to airway hyper reactivity, bronchoconstriction, airway inflammation and airway remodeling in asthmatic patients.

We aimed to clarify platelet activation and key molecules on platelets, which are mainly associated with the mechanism underlying aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease.

Aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD) is characterized by the triad of asthma, nasal polyposis, and hypersensitivity to aspirin and other cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 inhibitors.

Urinary leukotriene (LT) E4 (uLTE4) levels are 3-4 fold higher in AERD patients than in ATA patients, which further increase after aspirin-induced reaction in AERD patients.

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Subtleties and Dynamics of Antibody Function: Lessons from Bovine Antibody Fragments

Antibody, nature’s most magnificent molecule, has come of age moving forward from an era of polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies to its applications as functional antibody fragments or modifications thereof for developing new drugs against vexing diseases, such as, cancer and viral infections.

The conventional therapies against these diseases have not been successful resulting in a shift towards development of novel antibody-based therapeutics.

The clinical success of antibodies can be assessed from their major commercial impact as evidenced by the market for antibody drugs being over $60 billion in 2013, which is expected to double globally within the decade.

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Functional Role of a Well Characterized Heteroglycan Isolated from Pleurotus ostreatus Mycelia in Driving Immune Stimulation

Polysaccharides or heteroglycan isolated from fungal species have attained wide recognition for their immune modulating functions. However, there exists a significant relationship in the structural and functional activity of this molecule.

In this commentary, we focus on a well characterized heteroglycan isolated from the mycelia of Pleurotus ostreatus which have been shown to drive immune stimulation in tumor bearing mice.

The heteroglycan possessed high molecular weight and was primarily composed of glucose, mannose and fucose in a 3:2:1 ratio with major β- linkages in the repeating chain. The molecule also exhibited triple helical conformation in solutions.

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The Fractalkine-Receptor Axis Improves Human Colorectal Cancer Prognosis by Limiting Tumour Metastatic Dissemination

Colorectal cancer represents one of the most frequent human neoplasia in Western Countries. Patient prognosis dramatically decreases in advanced tumour stage, when tumour cells acquire the capability to leave the primary tumour site and invade lymph nodes or distant organs.

Chemokines and chemokine receptors have been largely demonstrated to play a crucial role in tumour metastatic progression, influencing the leukocyte composition of the tumour microenvironment through the recruitment of immune cells and driving tumour cells to distant metastatic sites.

In our recent paper, we unexpectedly found that the concomitant expression of the chemokine CX3CL1 (Fractalkine) and its specific receptor CX3CR1 by colorectal cancer cells strongly enforces homotypic tumour cell adhesion, retaining cells locally and avoiding tumour metastatic dissemination

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Improved Immuno-Detection of a Low-Abundance Cyclophilin Allows the Confirmation of its Expression in a Protozoan Parasite

Protein samples can be challenging to analyze due to the presence of high-abundance proteins masking lowabundance proteins of interest, such as biomarkers and novel physiological mediators. Cyclophilins are chaperones involved in the cis/trans isomerization of peptidyl-prolyl bonds in peptides or proteins and have been found in every organism sequenced to date.

Although considerable progress has been made in the characterization of some cyclophilins expressed in diverse parasites invading humans, the main aspects of low-abundance members of this family remain unknown.

In the present work, we present that the combined strategy of using more specific antibodies and increasing the presence of subcellular proteins in the sample, allowed us to confirm the expression of a 21.1 kDa cyclophilin for the first time in Trypanosoma cruzi. 

Fascinating Giardia Lamblia and Vexing Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria: An Under-appreciated Association

Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria (CSU) has been found to have a negative impact on all aspects of patients’ lives - physical, mental, social and emotional. The ubiquitous and fascinating Giardia lamblia is primarily a gastrointestinal pathogen but it may present atypically (with or without gastroenterological manifestations).

A link between Giardiasis and CSU was identified in the past. However, the possibility of this combination has been under-appreciated in clinical practice, even in developed world, resulting in inordinate delay in reaching correct diagnosis and instituting targeted pharmacotherapy. Such a situation adds to the miseries of the patients, both mental anguish and physical suffering.

To determine the role of Giardia lamblia in the causation of CSU -To ratify the effects of eradication of Giardia lamblia on the course of CSU Methods: The present study was conducted on 63 referred cases of CSU (with insignificant improvement from the treatment already instituted). In view of the possibility of concomitant Giardial infection stool microscopy was advised and three fresh stool specimens, taken on alternate days, were collected from every case and examined for parasites.

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Improved Alum Containing Adjuvant by Vitamin A for Enhancing Immune Responses and Efficacy of Leptospira Vaccine in Hamster Model

Use of suitable adjuvant is one of the priorities in vaccine and immune modulation, stimulation and potentiating. Vaccination is effective for prevention and treatment of bacterial diseases including Leptospirosis. In the present study, we prepared Leptospiral vaccine with Alum, modified Alum adjuvant (mAlum) and without adjuvant. Vaccination was done; then we evaluated the immune responses by isolating the splenocytes and sera for interleukin (IL) profiles (the highest level of all cytokines except IL-4 and IL-

12 was obtained in the mAlum antigen group at week 7 post-treatment).

Moreover, the expression of all evaluated cytokines in the mAlum group was greater than in the other groups at week 62. Significant increases in antibody titters were noted in the mAlum and Alum group, challenged interaperitionelly with a lethal dose of virulent and monitored pathological lesion that moderate to severe lesions with score 3 were observed in the control group while the animals immunized with mAlum-antigen and Alum-antigen displayed slight to mild lesions with an average score of 0.5.

The results demonstrated that modified Alum Adjuvants are better than Alum adjuvants as revealed by the enhanced long-term antibody responses.

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Influence of MNRI on the Immune Status of Children with Down Syndrome

The clinical and immunological characteristics of 49 children with Down syndrome were studied. Thirty-four boys and 15 girls between the ages of zero and six years old were observed.

It was revealed that children in the Study Group with Down syndrome developed a greater number of disorders starting at the earliest stages of pregnancy and delivery, such as fetal malnutrition, congenital heart defects, and pathology of vision, than children in the control group (p<0.05).

All of the children in the Study Group had allergic reactions and were frequently ill. There was a noticed decrease in the numbers of subpopulations of T-lymphocytes (СD45/CD3), CD3/CD4, CD3/CD8 and the absolute number of B-cells (CD45/CD19), and at IgG pool, indicating a certain deficiency in cell-mediated and humoral immune responses which provides a base for frequent diseases, including bacterial diseases.

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Contemporary and Future Strategies for Immunome Research

Immunome research journal enormously contributed to understand the molecular immunology. Extensive research lead by immunologist on this direction invoked the need and a common platform for discussion dealing with immunology as a whole. Present issue Volume 12, Issue 1, could bring the existing theories and discoveries in the field of immunome from across the world.

Yilma M. tried to determine the sero-prevalence bovine brucellosis occurrence from Dec 2009 to Feb 2010 at Chencha district of GamoGofa Zone, Ethiopia. These studies tried to unveil the prevalence of treatment by isolation and characterization of Brucella pertaining to the study area. It recommends further research to confirm brucella biotypes circulating in the area.

Shimodaira S, et al. envisaged on the dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy, which is under investigation in developing therapeutic vaccination against cancer. This study demonstrated advancements pertaining to the dendritic cell-based immunotherapy for cancer along with its limitations. Author has concluded that biomarkers can predict the potential efficacy of DC vaccination targeting WT1 are highly relevant to current standards or regulations of personalized cancer therapy.

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