Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P04141 (granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor)
 6,790 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Early studies of patients dying from status asthmaticus revealed marked inflammation of the bronchial tree. Subsequent histological studies of the airways and examination of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of subjects with mild asthma have confirmed the presence of airway inflammation in life. There is epithelial edema and desquamation, subepithelial deposition of collagen and fibronectin, and an inflammatory cell infiltrate in the mucosa. There are increased numbers of activated eosinophils, CD25-positive T lymphocytes, and immature macrophages with the phenotypic characteristics of blood monocytes. An increased expression of HLA class II is present on epithelium, macrophages, and other infiltrating cells. The severity of clinical asthma correlates with several measurements of the severity of the inflammatory response, suggesting a crucial role for airway inflammation in the pathophysiology of the disease. There is considerable interest and research into the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and maintenance of the inflammatory response in asthma. The development and maintenance of the inflammatory response in asthma is likely to be a consequence of a complicated interaction between various cells and the mediators they generate. The characterization of an ever-increasing number of cytokines is of particular interest. Interleukin-3, interleukin-5, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor are hematopoietic growth factors that increase the survival of eosinophils in culture and enhance certain eosinophil functions, such as mediator generation and toxicity. Alveolar macrophages derived from asthmatic subjects produce twofold to threefold more GM-CSF than do those from normal control subjects. Using in situ hybridization, the presence of IL-5 mRNA has been demonstrated in bronchial biopsies from asthmatic subjects. Thus IL-3, IL-5, and GM-CSF influence eosinophil function and survival, and may be generated by T lymphocytes and/or alveolar macrophages within the airways in asthma. In addition to these three cytokines, IL-4 and interferon-gamma may be crucial to the regulation of IgE biosynthesis. TNF-alpha and IL-1 are potentially important in the up-regulation of endothelial adhesion molecules. An important step in the recruitment of leukocytes to an inflammatory focus is margination to the vascular endothelium. Our understanding of the molecular events involved in migration of leukocytes to an inflammatory focus has been advanced by the discovery and characterization of a variety of cell adhesion molecules. The potential role of ELAM-1 and ICAM-1 in allergic inflammation is suggested by their up-regulation on vascular endothelium in association with late cutaneous responses to allergen and by their role in certain primate models of asthma.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:The pathobiology of bronchial asthma. 150 77

The anticryptococcal activity of peripheral blood polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) and monocytes was compared on plastic versus human umbilical vein endothelial cell surfaces. Various amounts of PMN and monocytes were incubated on plastic or endothelial surfaces and then challenged for 18 h with Cryptococcus neoformans. Both phagocyte populations exhibited significantly more anticryptococcal activity on an endothelial cell monolayer than on plastic. Prestimulating the endothelial cell monolayer with interleukin-1 augmented the antifungal activity of PMN but not that of monocytes. In the absence of phagocytes, endothelial cells lacked activity. Blocking antibodies directed against endothelial adhesion molecules ICAM-1 and ELAM-1 did not affect PMN-mediated inhibition of fungal growth. Recombinant interleukin-1 and interleukin-8 (two cytokines secreted by endothelial cells) activated neutrophils for modestly enhanced antifungal activity. However, supernatants derived from endothelial cells, as well as neutralizing antibodies directed against the endothelial cell-derived cytokines interleukin-8 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor failed to augment PMN antifungal activity. PMN viability after 18 h was diminished on plastic compared with endothelial surfaces. While the percentages of C. neoformans bound to neutrophils were similar on both surfaces, the patterns of binding were markedly different: on endothelial (but not plastic) surfaces, most cryptococci were surrounded by greater than five PMN. Thus, phagocyte-mediated inhibition of cryptococcal growth is enhanced on endothelial monolayers compared with plastic surfaces, possibly as a result of differences in phagocyte viability and patterns of binding. Bolstering the activity of circulating phagocytes by stimulating endothelial cells may be of relevance in the treatment of patients with or at risk for cryptococcemia.
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PMID:Effect of endothelial cells on phagocyte-mediated anticryptococcal activity. 835 3

Bone marrow microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC) are a functional component of the bone marrow stroma and have been shown to release hematopoietic regulatory factors as well as to selectively adhere and support the proliferation and differentiation of CD34+ hematopoietic progenitors. An early passage of these cells was immortalized by transfection with a vector (pSVT) encoding the large T antigen of SV40. The transformed cell line (CDC/CU.BMEC-1) expresses the SV40 transcript, retains the primary cell expression of Ulex europeaus and vWF/ FVIII, and incorporates acetylated low-density lipoprotein. In addition, BMEC-1 mirrors the phenotype of the primary cells with only a few exceptions. Both cell populations express the cellular adhesion molecules ICAM-1 and PECAM and also VCAM-1 and ELAM-1 after upregulation by tumor necrosis factor-alpha. The fibronectin receptor, hyaluronate receptor, collagen receptor, integrins VLA-alpha 3, VLA-alpha 4, and beta 4, endoglin, collagen IV, CD58, and CD61 are also expressed. The only differences are that BMEC-1 expresses higher levels of ICAM-1, CD58, CD34, CD36, and c-kit than the primary cells. The supernatants of primary cell and BMEC-1 contain stem cell factor, interleukin-6 (IL-6), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), IL-1 alpha, IL-11, and G-CSF. The functional significance of these hematopoietic cytokines was demonstrated in transwell cultures. Both cell populations supported the expansion of progeny from CD34+ cell-enriched cord blood mononuclear cells suspended in the upper chamber. These characteristics, plus the fact that BMEC-1 can be maintained independently of exogenous growth factors and exhibit contact inhibition, indicate that this cell line can be used to further define the role of BMEC in hematopoiesis.
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PMID:BMEC-1: a human bone marrow microvascular endothelial cell line with primary cell characteristics. 895 64