Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0153470 (Spleen)
 4,015 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Autoimmune-prone MRL/lpr mice, homozygous for the lpr mutation, exhibit defective apoptosis and develop generalized lymphoproliferation with the accumulation of a double-negative (DN: CD4- CD8-) T cell population. The capacity of lpr T lymphocytes to effectuate Fas- and perforin-mediated cytotoxicity was investigated. Spleen and lymph nodes cells spontaneously lyse Fas- targets (thymocytes) through a Fas-mediated mechanism as a consequence of their overexpression of Fas ligand (FasL) confirmed by semiquantitative reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and immunoprecipitation analysis. This cytotoxicity was greatly increased after stimulation of the effectors by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) + ionomycin. Under these conditions, MRL/lpr spleen and LN cells exhibited strong Fas-mediated Ca2+-independent cytotoxic activity against wild-type Fas+ (H-2 compatible or incompatible) thymocytes or lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-transformed blast cells. Such Fas-mediated cytotoxic activity was also observed with C57BL/6-lpr, but never with wild-type C57BL/6 or MLR+/+ effectors. Depletion experiments showed that the effector cells of this Fas-mediated cytotoxicity were DN T cells. This subset, which represent in vivo activated T cells, can spontaneously lyse Fas+ targets by a mechanism that does not need the interaction of the T cell receptor (TCR) with major histocompatibility complex molecule plus antigen. This lytic potential is increased by PMA + ionomycin, which sends a second activation signal to these primed T cells. Therefore, the small amounts of Fas receptor expressed on MRL/lpr tissues may account for their nonspecific autoimmune attack by DN cells. In Con A-containing medium, which allows detection of the perforin-mediated pathway against Fas targets, cytotoxic CD8+ effectors were detected that are able to kill lpr thymocytes via a Ca2+-dependent pathway. Thus, in MRL/lpr mice, these CD8+ cells could constitute potent cytotoxic effectors against cells presenting antigen to their TCR.
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PMID:MRL/lpr CD4- CD8- and CD8+ T cells, respectively, mediate Fas-dependent and perforin cytotoxic pathways. 904 12

Dendritic cells (DC) are a subset of leukocytes whose major function is antigen presentation. We investigated the phenotype and function of enriched (95-98.5%) rat DC. We show that both spleen and thymus DC express the natural killer cell receptor protein 1 (NKR-P1) as a disulfide linked homodimer of 60 kD. Freshly isolated DC express a low level of NKR-P1, which is strongly upregulated after overnight culture. Spleen, but not thymus DC, were able to kill the NK-sensitive YAC-1 cell line in vitro, and since this killing was Ca2+ dependent, a Fas ligand-Fas interaction was probably not involved. Besides their potent antigen-presenting function, DC can thus be cytotoxic for some tumor targets.
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PMID:Rat spleen dendritic cells express natural killer cell receptor protein 1 (NKR-P1) and have cytotoxic activity to select targets via a Ca2+-dependent mechanism. 923

Fas/Fas ligand (FasL) interactions regulate disease outcome in coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3)-induced myocarditis. MRL(+/+) mice infected with CVB3 develop severe myocarditis, a dominant CD4(+) Th1 (gamma interferon [IFN-gamma(+)]) response to the virus, and a predominance of gammadelta T cells in the myocardial infiltrates. MRL lpr/lpr and MRL gld/gld mice, which lack normal expression of Fas and express a mutated FasL, respectively, have minimal myocarditis and show a dominant CD4(+) Th2 (interleukin-4 [IL-4(+)]) phenotype to CVB3. Spleen cells from virus-infected wild-type, lpr, and gld animals proliferate equally to virus in vitro. Adoptive transfer of gammadelta T cells from hearts of CVB3-infected MRL(+/+) mice (FasL(+)) into infected MRL gld/gld recipients (FasL(-)/Fas(+)) restores both disease susceptibility and Th1 cell phenotype. However, transfer of these cells into MRL lpr/lpr recipients (FasL(+)/Fas(-)) did not promote myocarditis and the viral response remained Th2 biased. This paralleled the expression of very high surface levels of FasL by myocardial gammadelta T cells, as well as their propensity to selectively lyse Th2 virus-specific CD4(+) T cells. These results demonstrate that Fas/FasL interactions conferred by gammadelta T cells on lymphocyte subpopulations may regulate the cytokine response to CVB3 infection and pathogenicity.
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PMID:Gammadelta T cells promote a Th1 response during coxsackievirus B3 infection in vivo: role of Fas and Fas ligand. 1205 Mar 61