1,721,016 research outputs found
The Impact of Dietary Components on Regulatory T Cells and Disease
No full textThe rise in the prevalence of autoimmune diseases in developed societies has been associated with a change in lifestyle patterns. Among other factors, increased consumption of certain dietary components, such as table salt and fatty acids and excessive caloric intake has been associated with defective immunological tolerance. Dietary nutrients have shown to modulate the immune response by a direct effect on the function of immune cells or, indirectly, by acting on the microbiome of the gastrointestinal tract. FOXP3(+) regulatory T cells (Tregs) suppress immune responses and are critical for maintaining peripheral tolerance and immune homeostasis, modulating chronic tissue inflammation and autoimmune disease. It is now well-recognized that Tregs show certain degree of plasticity and can gain effector functions to adapt their regulatory function to different physiological situations during an immune response. However, plasticity of Tregs might also result in conversion into effector T cells that may contribute to autoimmune pathogenesis. Yet, which environmental cues regulate Treg plasticity and function is currently poorly understood, but it is of significant importance for therapeutic purposes. Here we review the current understanding on the effect of certain dietary nutrients that characterize Western diets in Treg metabolism, stability, and function. Moreover, we will discuss the role of Tregs linking diet and autoimmunity and the potential of dietary-based interventions to modulate Treg function in disease.MK was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (640116), by a SALK-grant from the government of Flanders, Belgium and by an Odysseus-grant of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium.Kleinewietfeld, M (reprint author), Univ Hasselt, VIB Lab Translat Immunomodulat, VIB Ctr Inflammat Res IRC, Hasselt, Belgium.
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Teriflunomide Inhibits Human FOXP3+ Regulatory T Cell Function by Interference With Mitochondrial Respiration
No full textRegulatory FOXP3+ T cells (Tregs) have been characterized with unique metabolic demands, preferentially relying on fatty acid beta-oxidation (FAO) and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Several studies have indicated that Treg mitochondrial fitness is crucial for maintaining their stability and suppressive activity with an emphasis on complex-III of the electron transport chain (ETC). Dysfunctional Tregs isolated from patients with autoimmunity like multiple sclerosis (MS) show diminished mitochondrial respiration and the induction of a T helper (Th)1-like phenotype, characterized by increased production of interferon (IFN)-gamma. Teriflunomide reduces the proliferation of activated T and B lymphocytes by inhibition of de novo pyrimidine synthesis, providing therapy for patients with autoimmune diseases. Recent data demonstrated that teriflunomide further inhibited complex-III activity in line with hampered mitochondrial respiration in T cells. Considering the essential role of OXPHOS and complex-III activity for Tregs, we therefore thought to investigate with this study the effects of teriflunomide on immunometabolism and function in human Tregs. Interestingly, teriflunomide impaired the mitochondrial function of human Tregs and further induced a Th1-like phenotype in line with defective suppressive activity. Our findings suggest that teriflunomide may potentially exert distinct effects on pro- versus anti-inflammatory T cell subsets, indicating the need for further detailed evaluation.Hasselt University BOF gran
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dissecting the role of CSF2RB expression in human regulatory T cells
No full textColony stimulating factor 2 receptor subunit beta (CSF2RB; CD131) is the common subunit of the type I cytokine receptors for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-3 and IL-5. Interestingly, FOXP3(+) regulatory T cells (Tregs), which play a pivotal role in prevention of autoimmunity have been demonstrated to highly overexpress CSF2RB and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified CSF2RB as being linked to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the exact biological role of CD131 in human Tregs has not been defined yet. Here we investigated CD131 importance on Treg phenotype and function in a broad range of in vitro studies. Although we could not recognize a specific function of CSF2RB; CD131 in human Tregs, our data show that CD131 expression is vastly restricted to Tregs even under stimulatory conditions, indicating that CD131 could aid as a potential marker to identify Treg subpopulations from pools of activated CD4(+) T cells. Importantly, our analysis further demonstrate the overexpression of CSF2RB in Tregs of patients with autoimmune diseases like MS and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in comparison to healthy controls, thereby indicating that CSF2RB expression in Tregs could serve as a potential novel biomarker for disease
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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