Tag: "spleen" at biology news

Spleen may be source of versatile stem cells

...ral Hospital (MGH) researchers discovered that the spleen might be a source of adult stem cells that could r...ing new islets. The result suggestedthat the adult spleen - previously regarded as playing a fairly minorrole in regenerative medicine - might contain a popul...

Iron exporter revealed that may explain common human disorder

... Examination of the animals' intestine, liver, and spleen revealed an accumulation of iron within cells, indicating an inability of cells to release iron once absorbed. Mice lacking ferroportin only in intestinal cells also developed severe iron deficiency anemia, further confirming the protein's role in i...

Natural Killers Could Lead to New Hepatitis Treatments

...rast, he said, immune cells in the lymph nodes and spleen perform their surveillance ensconced within specialized compartments shielded from the turmoil of the bloodstream. “In this case, it looks like NKT cells are doing their surveillance from within the vessels,?he said. The observations revealed that t...

Studies reveal how plague disables immune system, and how to exploit the process to make a vaccine

...h the overwhelming majority of immune cells in the spleen are B cells or T cells, nearly all of the infected cells were macrophages, neutrophils or dendritic cells. These cells make up what immunologists call the "innate" immune system. They are the first to respond to a bacterial invasion. Their role is t...

Recombinant DNA technology may enable oral, rather than injectable, delivery of protein drugs

...errin to move iron through the blood to the liver, spleen and bone marrow. It has been used to carry some protein-based drugs in a piggy-back fashion to their necessary site of action." The next step, Shen explains, was isolating the genetic code for G-CSF, a protein factor that stimulates white blood cell...

A protein in the eye may prevent immune response and protect eyes from disease

...oreign substances) from the eye to the spleen, the spleen stimulates the production of what is known as a "r...ccur when foreign substances were presented to the spleen by antigen presenting cells that did not have F4/80. "This led us to believe that the protein F4/80 ...

Visceral Leishmaniasis: Successful Vaccine Trial In Dogs

... subject suffers bouts of fever, anaemia, enlarged spleen and liver, and weight loss. In the absence of treatment, these clinical signs usually announce a fatal outcome. The sand fly sucks blood from mammals other than humans. This is how, right around the Mediterranean rim, 5 million dogs, a proportion of...

Newly discovered killer cell fights cancer

...se it is rare, making up one-tenth of cells in the spleen with similar features, such as other dendritic cells, according to Frank Housseau, Ph.D., research associate at Hopkins' Kimmel Cancer Center and member of Pardoll's immunology laboratory. Most of the immune system typically works through a web of...

Scientists discover new regulating mechanism in cells

...ws, for example, that when RHA is knocked out, the spleen necrosis virus, a retrovirus Boris-Lawrie and her collaborators were studying as a vector for gene therapy, was unable to make certain proteins. Thus, RHA might be a cellular target for future antiretroviral drugs. (Current antiretroviral drugs targe...

New treatment for severe malaria

...ls can be transported by the blood stream into the spleen and destroyed. The research group, which is headed by Professor Mats Wahlgren, has now developed a substance that prevents infected blood cells from binding in this way. The substance also releases blood cells already bound. Using this method, scie...

A transplant in time

..., had made little headway due to the fact that the spleen is home to the immune system's T cells ?cells resp...n, causing the host to reject them. By taking spleen tissue from embryonic pigs over the course of gestation, they found that the harmful T cells are not...

New data from NIH lab confirms protocol to reverse type 1 diabetes in mice

...d new evidence that adult precursor cells from the spleen can contribute to the regeneration of beta cells. ...lying disease but were inconclusive on the role of spleen cells in the recovery of insulin-producing pancreatic islets. The new data from a study performed a...

The power of one: A simpler, cheaper method for cell fusion

...entists can fuse antibody-producing cells from the spleen (beta cells) with cancer cells in order to create a virtually immortal, antibody-producing hybrid, called a hybridoma. By manipulating the beta cells prior to fusion, scientists can create thousands of different hybridomas that produce antibodies eff...

Einstein researchers demonstrate a novel approach to treating AIDS

...ls into the spleens of immune-deficient mice. (The spleen was chosen because the overwhelming majority of HIV-1-infected cells in humans are present in the spleen and other lymphoid tissues; and the absence of an immune system meant the mice could not mount an im...

Common blood test can help distinguish between mononucleosis and tonsillitis

...s] is the prevention of spontaneous rupture of the spleen and acute intra-abdominal hemorrhage," potential complications of mononucleosis, the authors write. Currently, distinguishing between them requires an expensive mononucleosis spot test. Dennis M. Wolf, B.Sc., D.O.-H.N.S., M.R.C.S., and colleague...

8 plants from South Africa may hold potential for treating high blood pressure

...Amaranthus dubius, a flowering plant also known as spleen amaranth Amaranthus hybridus, commonly known as smooth pigweed or slim amaranth Amaranthus spinosus, also known as spiny amaranth Asystasia gangetica, an ornamental, ground cover known as Chinese violet. Also used in Nigerian folk medi...

How 'memory' T cells curb the spread of viruses throughout the body

...h node and decreased viral spread to the liver and spleen when the virus just barely started to multiply.” Thus, memory CD8 T cells do not prevent infection; but prevent disease partly because they curb the spread of the virus from the lymph node to vital organs at very early stages of the infection. ...

New bacterium discovered -- related to cause of trench fever

...m potentially life-threatening anemia, an enlarged spleen and a high fever for several weeks, as do victims of malaria and typhoid. The Andes are also home to another Bartonella species, spread by sand flies. The researchers first thought this was causing the patient’s infection. But genetic comparison...

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