Lymphocyte Expression of Intracellular Cytokines and Heat Shock Proteins in Peripheral Blood of Patients with Atopic Dermatitis.

INTRODUCTION: The present study evaluates expression by activated CD4+ T helper1 (Th1) and T helper 2 (Th2) T lymphocytes of pro-inflammatory cytokines and cytoprotective heat shock proteins (HSPs) in peripheral blood of atopic dermatitis (AD) patients. METHODS: This research represents preliminary work by the authors to identify correlates between critical immune parameters with the potential to serve as guidelines for the development of pharmacological strategies for altering these factors to promote the restoration of healthy immune profiles in persons afflicted with major atopic diseases. The major experimental strategy used in this research assessed immune activation by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 21 AD patients and 12 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects cultured with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) and ionomycin (PMA/I), which are mutagenic immune activators, to induce expression of pro-inflammatory biomarkers in CD4+ T cells differentiated to express Th1 or Th2 cytokines and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) intracellularly (i). Evaluations were performed using an FC500 Beckman-Coulter flow cytometer. Elevated CD4+ T cell expression of cytokines, interleukin-4 (iIL-4), interleukin- 5 (iIL-5), interleukin-10 (iIL-10), interferon-gamma (iIFN-g), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (iTNF-α), were observed. RESULTS: Additionally, the heat shock proteins (HSP) iHO-1 and iHSP-70 were evaluated in cells from the blood of AD patients versus the control subjects. The present study demonstrated an elevated expression of both Th1 and Th2-associated cytokines in CD4+ T cells of AD patients, with a significant direct correlation between Th1 and Th2 cell populations, thus yielding insight into the immune features of the AD-associated systemic inflammatory profile. CONCLUSION: Finally, the observed increased iHO-1 and iHSP-70 expressions likely represent adaptive physiologic countermeasures to AD-associated inflammatory tissue damage, suggesting that HSP inducers are promising candidates for the management of atopic disorders.

Detecting Cocircular Subsets of a Spherical Set of Points.

Given a spherical set of points, we consider the detection of cocircular subsets of the data. We distinguish great circles from small circles, and develop algorithms for detecting cocircularities of both types. The suggested approach is an extension of the Hough transform. We address the unique parameter-space quantization issues arising due to the spherical geometry, present quantization schemes, and evaluate the quantization-induced errors. We demonstrate the proposed algorithms by detecting cocircular cities and airports on Earth's spherical surface. These results facilitate the detection of great and small circles in spherical images.

Effect of Diabetea tea ™ consumption on inflammatory cytokines and metabolic biomarkers in type 2 diabetes patients.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Diabetea tea™ (DT) is an anti-diabetic alternative medicine in some Asian countries. The main constituent of DT is black tea originating from Camellia sinensis that is supplemented by 12 other medicinal plants. Black tea contains a large amount of the flavonoids catechins especially epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) which has anti-inflammatory and antioxidative capacity. This study was undertaken to evaluate the possible effects of DT intake on inflammatory cytokines, regulatory T cells (Tregs) and metabolic biomarkers in T2DM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 50 patients with T2DM. The patients had received 3 cups (600ml) of DT extract or placebo (PL) extract per day during a period of 12 weeks. Intracellular cytokine expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) as well as the glycemic and lipid profiles were measured at baseline and after the treatment period. The active constituents of the medicinal plants included in DT were investigated by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). RESULTS: Ingestion of DT suppressed CD4+ T cell expression of IL-1ß and Il-8 (p<0.05) and up-regulated the expression of IL-10 and the Treg/IL-17 ratio (p<0.05) which was not shown in PL. A significant decrease in HbA1c and LDL was observed at the end of the study period (p<0.05) in DT. The GC/MS analyses of DT indicated the presence of lupeol, ß-Amyrin and ß-sitosterol. Also analyses of individual herbs showed the presence of higher levels of lupeol and ß-Amyrin in Nuga Ficus bengalensis and ß-sitosterol in the Attikka Ficus racemosa, indicating that the active ingredients of DT are concentrated in these two herbs. CONCLUSION: The present study provides evidence that DT has hypoglycemic and antihyperlipidemic properties. Interestingly, DT has anti-inflammatory effects. These properties are attributed to the flavonoids, triterpenes and phytosterol contents of the tea. We suggest that DT protects against diabetes complications in the long term.

Sour cherry (Prunus cerasus) seed extract increases heme oxygenase-1 expression and decreases proinflammatory signaling in peripheral blood human leukocytes from rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Sour cherry seed extract (SCE) was evaluated for its capacity to inhibit lipopolysaccharide-treated human peripheral blood T cells expressing tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and the chemokine interleukin-8. Both proteins are diagnostic biomarkers for inflammatory pathologies. Peripheral blood leukocytes from 11 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and 8 healthy control subjects were co-cultured for 24h in lipopolysaccharide and the extract, then evaluated by flow cytometry for T cell activation and by enzyme-linked immunoassay for lymphocyte-associated heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression. There was a dose-dependent decrease in expression of the immunophenotypes: CD3+TNF-α+, and CD3+IL8+ in cultures from RA patients to a greater extent than in cells from healthy participants. These results suggest that the extract may have a modulatory roll in RA and other inflammatory disorders via the induction of HO-1, thus abating oxidative stress and strengthening regulation of pro-inflammatory signaling pathways.