Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.25.1 (proteasome)
28,817 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The present study examined the contribution of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) to granulomatous inflammation mediated by Th1- and Th2-related cytokines. Types 1 and 2 lung granulomas (GR) were respectively induced in presensitized CBA mice by embolization of beads coupled to purified protein derivative of Mycobacteria tuberculosis or soluble Ags derived from Schistosoma mansoni eggs. MCP-1 was spontaneously produced by intact GR, isolated GR macrophages, and draining lymph node cultures, but levels were greater in the type 2 than in the type 1 response. In vivo depletion of IFN-gamma augmented type 2 inflammation and local MCP production; IL-4 depletion had the opposite effect. These treatments had no significant effect on the type 1 response. Treatment with anti-MCP-1, but not that with anti-MIP-1alpha, Abs caused a 30% decrease in type 2 GR area. Neither treatment affected the type 1 GR. Intrinsic MCP-1 was detected immunohistochemically within lymph nodes and appeared to support IL-4-/IL-5-producing lymph node cells. In addition, MCP-1 inhibited IL-12 production by inflammatory macrophages. The latter was demonstrated as a potentially direct effect of MCP-1 on macrophages. These findings show that MCP-1 contributes more to type 2 than to type 1 cytokine-mediated inflammation and suggest a broader role for chemokines in regulating Th cell expression.
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PMID:Role of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) in Th1 (mycobacterial) and Th2 (schistosomal) antigen-induced granuloma formation: relationship to local inflammation, Th cell expression, and IL-12 production. 890 39

Previous studies in murine models, including those using the beta2 microglobulin knockout mouse, have suggested an important role for CD8+ T cells in host defense to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). At present, little is understood about these cells in the human immune response to tuberculosis. This report demonstrates the existence of human Mtb-reactive CD8+ T cells. These cells are present preferentially in persons infected with Mtb and produce interferon gamma in response to stimulation with Mtb-infected target cells. Recognition of Mtb-infected cells by these CD8+ T cells is restricted neither by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I A, B, or C alleles nor by CD1, although it is inhibited by anti-MHC class I antibody. The Mtb-specific CD8+ T cells recognize an antigen which is generated in the proteasome, but which does not require transport through the Golgi-ER. The data suggest the possible use of nonpolymorphic MHC class Ib antigen presenting structures other than CD1.
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PMID:Characterization of human CD8+ T cells reactive with Mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected antigen-presenting cells. 958 41

We report here that the existence of the potentially broad substrate specificity protease Lon (also called La), is evolutionarily discontinuous within the order Actinomycetales. Lon homologues were identified in the fast-growing species Mycobacterium smegmatis, and the slow-growing species Micobacterium avium and Mycobacterium intracellulare. However, Lon homologues were not detected in the slow-growing species Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium bovis, or Mycobacterium leprae; or in the non-mycobacterial Actinomycetale Corynebacterium glutamica. To characterize the function of the Lon protease within the Actinomycetales, a viable M. smegmatis Deltalon strain was constructed, demonstrating that lon is not essential under certain conditions. Surprisingly, lon was also dispensable in M. smegmatis cells already lacking intact 20S proteasome alpha- and beta-subunit genes (called prcA and prcB, respectively). Creation of the later double deletion strain (prcBA::kan Deltalon) necessitated use of a novel gene deletion strategy that does not require an antibiotic resistance marker. The M. smegmatis prcBA::kan Deltalon double mutants displayed wild type (wt) growth rates and wt stress tolerances. In addition, the M. smegmatis prcBA::kan Deltalon double mutants degraded at wt rates the broad spectrum of truncated proteins induced by treating cells with puromycin. This later result was in sharp contrast to those in Escherichia coli, where either lon or hslUV single mutants are strongly impaired in their degradation of puromycyl peptides (hslV is a prcB homologue). Overall these data suggested that mycobacterial species contain additional ATP-dependent proteases that have broad substrate specificity. Consistent with this suggestion, M. smegmatis and M. tuberculosis each contain at least one homologue of ClpP, the proteolytic subunit common to the ClpAP and ClpXP proteases.
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PMID:Species variation in ATP-dependent protein degradation: protease profiles differ between mycobacteria and protease functions differ between Mycobacterium smegmatis and Escherichia coli. 1023 73

Granuloma formation in response to mycobacterial infections is associated with increased expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (NOS2) within granuloma macrophages and increased levels of nitrate/nitrite in the sera of infected mice. Continuous treatment with 5 mm or 10 mm l-N6-(1-imino-ethyl)-lysine (L-NIL), a selective NOS2-inhibitor, in acidified drinking water for up to 7 weeks consistently reduced infection-induced nitrate/nitrite to background levels in mycobacteria-infected BALB/c mice. Oral treatment with 5 mm L-NIL initiated at the time of infection significantly exacerbated growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but had no effect on Mycobacterium avium colony-forming unit development in the liver, spleen and lungs of intravenously infected mice. In order to examine the role of nitric oxide in mycobacteria-induced granulomatous inflammation in the absence of any effect on the bacterial load, M. avium-infected mice were treated with 5 mm L-NIL from day 1 through 38 and the development of granulomatous lesions in the liver was assessed by histology, immunohistology and reverse-transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Computer- and video-assisted morphometry performed at 4 and 7 weeks post-infection showed that treatment with L-NIL led to markedly increased number, cellularity and size of granulomatous lesions in infected mice regardless of the virulence of the M. avium isolate used for infection. Immunohistology of the liver revealed that in mice treated with L-NIL, the numbers of CD3+ T cells, CD21/35+ B cells, CD11b+ macrophages and RB6-8C5+ granulocytes associated with granulomatous lesions was increased. RT-PCR of the liver showed that in L-NIL-treated mice infected with M. avium, mRNA levels of tumour necrosis factor, interleukin-12p40, interferon-gamma, interleukin-10 and interferon-gamma-inducible protein-10 (IP-10) were up-regulated, while mRNA levels of interleukin-4, monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) and MCP-5 were similar to those in untreated control infected mice. When M. avium-infected mice were treated with 5 mm L-NIL between the 5th and 12th weeks of infection, similar changes in granuloma number and size were found in the absence of any effect on the bacterial load. These findings demonstrate that nitric oxide regulates the number, size and cellular composition of M. avium-induced granulomas independently of antibacterial effects by modulating the cytokine profile within infected tissues.
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PMID:NOS2-derived nitric oxide regulates the size, quantity and quality of granuloma formation in Mycobacterium avium-infected mice without affecting bacterial loads. 1058 88

Bacterial antigens recognized by CD8(+) T cells in the context of MHC class I are thought to play a crucial role in protection against pathogenic intracellular bacteria. Here, we demonstrate the induction of HLA-A*0201-restricted CD8(+) T cell responses against six new high-affinity HLA-A*0201-binding CTL epitopes, encoded within an immunodominant and highly conserved antigen of Mycobacteria, the heat shock protein 65 (hsp65). One of these epitopes, Mhsp65(9(369)), is identical in a large number of pathogenic bacteria, and is recognized in a CD8-independent fashion. Mhsp65(9(369)) could be presented by either mycobacterial hsp65-pulsed target cells or BCG-infected macrophages. Interestingly, T cells specific for this epitope did not recognize the corresponding human hsp65 homologue, probably due to structural differences as revealed by modeling studies. Furthermore, in vitro proteasome digestion analyses show that, whereas the mycobacterial hsp65 epitope is efficiently generated, the human hsp65 homologue is not, thus avoiding the induction of autoreactivity. Collectively, these findings describe high-affinity HLA class I-binding epitopes that are naturally processed and are recognized efficiently by MHC class I-restricted CD8(+) T cells, providing a rational basis for the development of subunit vaccine strategies against tuberculosis and other intracellular infectious diseases.
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PMID:The identification of a common pathogen-specific HLA class I A*0201-restricted cytotoxic T cell epitope encoded within the heat shock protein 65. 1174 80

Tuberculosis of the thyroid gland is extremely uncommon. The infection may present first in the thyroid gland or appear secondary to a tuberculous process elsewhere in the body. The diagnosis is rarely made clinically because the different presentations of the disease often mimick malignancy or euthyroid nodular goitre. It is of interest to report a case of tuberculosis of the thyroid associated with papillary microcarcinoma of the gland. No tuberculous process elsewhere in the body has been found. The frequency of MCP on thyroidectomy specimens suggest that this association is incidental.
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PMID:[Thyroid tuberculosis associated with papillary microcarcinoma of the thyroid gland: a case report]. 1179 65

Biogenesis of phagolysosomes proceeds through a sequential series of interactions with endocytic organelles, a process known to be regulated by Rab and SNARE proteins. The molecular mechanisms underlying phagosome maturation in neutrophils are, however, not clearly understood. We investigated fusion between phagosomes containing the intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis versus the extracellular pathogen Staphylococcus aureus (designated MCP for mycobacteria-containing phagosome and SCP for S. aureus-containing phagosome) and cytoplasmic compartments in human neutrophils. Western blot analysis of phagosomes isolated after internalisation revealed that lactoferrin (a constituent of secondary granules) and LAMP-1 were incorporated into both SCP and MCP, whereas hck (marker of azurophil granules) interacted solely with SCP. The subcellular distribution of the proteins Rab5a and syntaxin-4 suggested a role in docking of granules and/or endosomes to the target membrane in the neutrophil. We observed that during phagocytosis, Rab5a in GTP-bound form interacted with syntaxin-4 on the membrane of MCP and were retained for up to 90 minutes, whereas the complex was recruited to the SCP within 5 minutes but was selectively depleted from these vacuoles after 30 minutes of phagocytosis. Downregulation of Rab5a by antisense oligonucleotides efficiently reduced the synthesis of Rab5a, the binding of syntaxin-4 to MCP and SCP and the capacity for fusion exhibited by the pathogen-containing phagosomes, but it had no effect on bacteria internalisation. These data indicate that the difference in granule fusion is correlated with a difference in the association of Rab5a and syntaxin-4 with the phagosomes. Intracellular pathogen-containing phagosomes retain Rab5a and syntaxin-4, whereas extracellular pathogen-containing phagosomes bind briefly to this complex. These results also identified Rab5a as a key regulator of phagolysosome maturation in human neutrophils.
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PMID:Rab5a GTPase regulates fusion between pathogen-containing phagosomes and cytoplasmic organelles in human neutrophils. 1188 31

The production of nitric oxide and other reactive nitrogen intermediates (RNI) by macrophages helps to control infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). However, the protection is imperfect and infection persists. To identify genes that Mtb requires to resist RNI, we screened 10,100 Mtb transposon mutants for hypersusceptibility to acidified nitrite. We found 12 mutants with insertions in seven genes representing six pathways, including the repair of DNA (uvrB) and the synthesis of a flavin cofactor (fbiC). Five mutants had insertions in proteasome-associated genes. An Mtb mutant deficient in a presumptive proteasomal adenosine triphosphatase was attenuated in mice, and exposure to proteasomal protease inhibitors markedly sensitized wild-type Mtb to RNI. Thus, the mycobacterial proteasome serves as a defense against oxidative or nitrosative stress.
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PMID:The proteasome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is required for resistance to nitric oxide. 1467 Dec 81

Since the publication of the complete genome of a pathogenic bacterium in 1995, more than 50 bacterial pathogens have been sequenced and at least 120 additional projects are currently underway. Faced with the expanding volume of information now available from genome databases, vaccinologists are turning to epitope mapping tools to screen vaccine candidates. Bioinformatics tools such as EpiMatrix and Conservatrix, which search for unique or multi-HLA-restricted (promiscuous) T cell epitopes and can find epitopes that are conserved across variant strains of the same pathogen, have accelerated the process of epitope mapping. Additional tools for screening epitopes for similarity to 'self' (BlastiMer) and for assembling putative epitopes into strings if they overlap (EpiAssembler) have been developed at EpiVax. Tools that map proteasome cleavage sires are available on the Internet. When used together, these bioinformatics tools offer a significant advantage over traditional methods of vaccine design since high throughput screening and design is performed in silico, followed by confirmatory studies in vitro. These new tools are being used to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases such as HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis, and some cancers. More recent applications of the tools involve deriving novel vaccine candidates directly from whole genomes, an approach that has been named 'genome to vaccine'.
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PMID:From immunome to vaccine: epitope mapping and vaccine design tools. 1471 32

Exogenous heat shock protein (HSP):peptide complexes are processed for cross-presentation of HSP-chaperoned peptides on class I MHC (MHC-I) molecules. Fusion proteins containing HSP and Ag sequences facilitate MHC-I cross-presentation of linked antigenic epitopes. Processing of HSP-associated Ag has been attributed to dendritic cells and macrophages. We now provide the first evidence to show processing of HSP-associated Ag for MHC-I cross-presentation by B lymphocytes. Fusion of OVA sequence (rOVA, containing OVA(230-359) sequence) to Mycobacterium tuberculosis HSP70 greatly enhanced rOVA processing and MHC-I cross-presentation of OVA(257-264):K(b) complexes by B cells. Enhanced processing was dependent on linkage of rOVA sequence to HSP70. M. tuberculosis HSP70-OVA fusion protein enhanced cross-processing by a CD91-dependent process that was independent of TLR4 and MyD88. The enhancement occurred through a post-Golgi, proteasome-independent mechanism. These results indicate that HSPs enhance delivery and cross-processing of HSP-linked Ag by B cells, which could provide a novel contribution to the generation of CD8(+) T cell responses. HSP fusion proteins have potential advantages for use in vaccines to enhance priming of CD8(+) T cell responses.
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PMID:Mycobacterium tuberculosis heat shock fusion protein enhances class I MHC cross-processing and -presentation by B lymphocytes. 1584 16


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