242 research outputs found
Th17-related cytokines: new players in the control of chronic intestinal inflammation
No full textAbstract Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), the main forms of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) in man, are thought to be caused by an excessive and poorly controlled immune response that is directed against components of the normal microflora. The exact sequence of events by which this pathological process is triggered and maintained is not fully understood, but studies in experimental models of IBD and data emerging from recent clinical trials indicate that T cell-derived cytokines are crucial mediators of the tissue damage. Although CD and UC have been traditionally considered two typical examples of T helper (Th)1 or Th2-associated disease respectively, it is now known that CD- and UC-related inflammation is also marked by enhanced production of cytokines made by a distinct subset of Th cells, termed Th17 cells. Th17 cytokines can have both tissue-protective and inflammatory effects in the gut and there is evidence that Th17 cells can alter their cytokine program according to the stimuli received and convert into Th1-producing cells. These novel findings have contributed to advancing our understanding of mechanisms of gut tissue damage and open new avenues for development of therapeutic strategies in IBD.</p
Electronic Dictionaries for Information Retrieval, Automatic Textual Analysis and Semantic-Based Data Mining Software
No full textToday Lexicon-Grammar (LG) remains one of the most consistent
Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches, especially for
Semantic-Based Data Mining (SBDM) and Semantic Web. Its main goal
is to describe all mechanisms of word combinations closely related to the
concrete use of lexical units and to sentence creation. Also, it gives an
exhaustive description of lexical and syntactic structures of several
languages. LG was set up by the French linguist Maurice Gross during
the ‘60s, and subsequently developed for and applied to Italian by
Annibale Elia, Emilio D’Agostino and Maurizio Martinelli. Its
theoretical approach is prevalently based on Zelig Sabbettai Harris’
Operator-Argument Grammar, which assumes that each human language
is a self-organizing system, and that the syntactic and semantic properties
of a given word may be calculated on the basis of the relationships this
word has with all other co-occurring words inside given sentence
contexts. Simple sentences2 are the minimal linguistic meaning structures
upon which LG founds its studies on natural language syntactic features.
In the last twenty years, LG has also reached important results in the
domain of automatic textual analysis and parsing with NLP-oriented
software such as INTEX3, UNITEX4, and more recently NOOJ5.
1 Alberto Postiglione is author of paragraph 4.1. Mario Monteleone is author of
paragraphs 3.1 and 4. Federica Marano is author of paragraphs 3.2 and 4.3. Johanna
Monti is author of sections 1 and 2. Antonella Napoli is author of paragraph 4.2.
2 In LG, a simple sentence is formed by a unique predicative element (a verb, but
also a name or an adjective) plus all the necessary arguments it selects to achieve
acceptability and grammaticality. The study of simple sentences is completed analyzing
the rules of co-occurrence and selection restriction, which are distributional and
transformational rules based on predicate syntactic-semantic properties.
3 For more on INTEX, see http://intex.univ-fcomte.fr/.
4 For more on UNITEX, see http://www-igm.univ-mlv.fr/~unitex/.
5 For more on NooJ, see http://www.nooj4nlp.net/pages/nooj.html.
ALBERTO POSTIGLIONE - MARIO MONTELEONE -
FEDERICA MARANO - JOHANNA MONTI - ANTONELLA NAPOLI1
Università degli Studi di Salerno
ELECTRONIC DICTIONARIES FOR INFORMATION RETRIEVAL,
AUTOMATIC TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND SEMANTIC-BASED
DATA MINING SOFTWARE
1. Theoretical and analytical framework: Lexicon-Gramma
T-Bet and GATA-3 expression correlates with the predominant Th1 cell polarization in active celiac disease mucosa
No full textAryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Signalling in the Control of Gut Inflammation
No full textAryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), a transcription factor activated by many natural and synthetic ligands, represents an important mediator of the interplay between the environment and the host’s immune responses. In a healthy gut, AHR activation promotes tolerogenic signals, which help maintain mucosal homeostasis. AHR expression is defective in the inflamed gut of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), where decreased AHR signaling is supposed to contribute to amplifying the gut tissue’s destructive immune–inflammatory responses. We here review the evidence supporting the role of AHR in controlling the “physiological” intestinal inflammation and summarize the data about the therapeutic effects of AHR activators, both in preclinical mouse models of colitis and in patients with IBD
Interleukin-23 and Th17 Cells in the Control of Gut Inflammation
No full textCrohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, the major forms of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) in humans, have been traditionally associated with exaggerated and poorly controlled T helper (Th) type 1 or Th2 cell response, respectively. More recent studies have, however, shown that IBDs are also characterized by a sustained production of cytokines made by a distinct lineage of Th cells, termed Th17 cells. The demonstration that Th17-related cytokines cause pathology in many organs, including the gut, and that expansion and maintenance of Th17 cell responses require the activity of IL-23, a cytokine made in excess in the gut of IBD patients has contributed to elucidate new pathways of intestinal tissue damage as well as to design new therapeutic strategies. In this review, we discuss the available data supporting the role of the IL-23/Th17 axis in the modulation of intestinal tissue inflammation
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor and colitis
No full textThe aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a transcription factor activated by a large variety of natural and synthetic ligands, has recently become the object of great interest among researchers since it represents an important link between environment and immune-mediated pathologies. In this context, evidence has been accumulated to show that AhR is necessary for the maintenance/expansion of intraepithelial lymphocytes and interleukin-22-producing innate lymphoid cells in the gut and that defects in AhR-delivered signals may contribute to amplify gut tissue destructive immune-inflammatory reactions. We here review the available data supporting the role of AhR in the control of immune homeostasis in the gut and discuss whether and how AhR activators can help dampen inflammatory processes
Il Mar Piccolo di Taranto tra passato e futuro. Società, ambiente, cultura
No full textIl volume raccoglie saggi di carattere storico, giuridico, economico e pedagogico sul tema della tutela ambientale del Mar Piccolo di Taranto. L'opera è suddivisa in due parti. La prima (Storia e prospettive) contiene i saggi di Maria Casola, “Parco Regionale Mar Piccolo”. Aspetti de iure condito e prospettive de iure condendo; Dario Dell’Osa, Stella Lippolis, Fabio De Matteis, La Regia Marina Italiana e la gestione dell’Arsenale Militare Marittimo di Taranto (1889-1918); Federica Monteleone, La storia del Mar Piccolo di Taranto per la formazione di una cittadinanza attiva;
Luciana Petracca, Il principe, la città, il porto. Strategie di potenziamento dello scalo marittimo di Taranto al tempo di Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo (1420-1463); Giuseppe Portacci, Antonella Di Leo, Geomorfologia culturale applicata al; Mar Piccolo di Taranto: il caso dell’acquerello di Louis Ducros, «Pêche aux moules dans la petite mer de Tarente vue du coin de la Citadelle» 1778; Vito Sibilio, Spunti per una lettura geopolitica della storia della Puglia dalle origini alla fine del Medioevo; Stefano Vinci, Le antiche consuetudini di Taranto sulla pesca e la legislazione
unitaria. Nella seconda parte (Tutela giuridica e sostenibilità ambientale) ci sono i saggi di Barbara Borrillo, La tutela civilistica del Mar Piccolo; Angelo Doglioni, Il sistema delle sorgenti dell’area del Mar Piccolo di Taranto; Cira Grippa, La mitilicoltura nel Mar Piccolo di Taranto; Ivan Ingravallo, Il possibile ruolo dell’UNESCO nella tutela e valorizzazione del Mar Piccolo di Taranto; Adriana Schiedi, Geopedagogia mediterranea. Il modello di una green (intercultural) education per la sostenibilità ambientale; Laura Tafaro, La “sostenibile” soggettività del Mar Piccolo nel prisma della complessità
SMAD7 Sustains XIAP Expression and Migration of Colorectal Carcinoma Cells
No full textThe reorganization of the cell cytoskeleton and changes in the content of cell adhesion molecules are crucial during the metastatic spread of tumor cells. Colorectal cancer (CRC) cells express high SMAD7, a protein involved in the control of CRC cell growth. In the present study, we evaluated whether SMAD7 regulates the cytoskeleton reorganization and dynamics in CRC. Knockdown of SMAD7 with a specific antisense oligonucleotide (AS) in HCT116 and DLD1, two human CRC cell lines, reduced the migration rate and the content of F-ACTIN filaments. A gene array, real-time PCR, and Western blotting of SMAD7 AS-treated cells showed a marked down-regulation of the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP), a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis family, which has been implicated in cancer cell migration. IL-6 and IL-22, two cytokines that activate STAT3, enhanced XIAP in cancer cells, and such induction was attenuated in SMAD7-deficient cells. Finally, in human CRC, SMAD7 mRNA correlated with XIAP expression. Our data show that SMAD7 positively regulates XIAP expression and migration of CRC cells, and suggest a mechanism by which SMAD7 controls the architecture components of the CRC cell cytoskeleton
Th17-related cytokines in inflammatory bowel diseases: friends or foes?
No full textT helper (Th)17 cells and other interleukin (IL)-17-producing cells are supposed to play critical roles in several human immune-mediated diseases, including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), the main forms of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) in man. Th17 cells infiltrate massively the inflamed intestine of IBD patients and in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that Th17-type cytokines may trigger and amplify multiple inflammatory pathways. Nonetheless, some Th17-related cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-17A and IL-22, may target gut epithelial cells and promote the activation of counter-regulatory mechanisms. This observation together with the demonstration that Th17 cells are not stable and can be converted into either regulatory T cells or Th1 cells if stimulated by immune-suppressive (e.g. TGF-β1) or inflammatory (e.g. IL-12, IL-23) cytokines have contributed to advance our understanding of mechanisms that regulate mucosal homeostasis and inflammation in the gut
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