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Topic Review
Lyotropic Liquid Crystals for Efficient Intestinal Lymphatic Targeting
Lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) are liquids that have crystalline structures. LLCs as drug delivery systems that can deliver hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and amphiphilic agents. Due to their unique phases and structures, LLCs can protect both small molecules and biologics from the gastrointestinal tract’s harsh environment, thus making LLCs attractive as carriers for oral drug delivery.
  • 495
  • 30 Nov 2023
Topic Review
Functional Ambivalence of Dendritic Cells
Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and inducers of T cell-mediated immunity. Although DCs play a central role in promoting adaptive immune responses against growing tumors, they also establish and maintain peripheral tolerance. DC activity depends on the method of induction and/or the presence of immunosuppressive agents. Tolerogenic dendritic cells (tDCs) induce immune tolerance by activating CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells and/or by producing cytokines that inhibit T cell activation. These findings suggest that tDCs may be an effective treatment for autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, and infertility.
  • 494
  • 28 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Effects of Circadian Disruption on Innate Immunity
Circadian rhythms control almost all aspects of physiology and behavior, allowing temporal synchrony of these processes between each other, as well as with the external environment. In the immune system, daily rhythms of leukocyte functions can determine the strength of the immune response, thereby regulating the efficiency of defense mechanisms to cope with infections or tissue injury. The natural light/dark cycle is the prominent synchronizing agent perceived by the circadian clock, but this role of light is highly compromised by irregular working schedules and unintentional exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN).
  • 492
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Leptin in Obesity and Immune Response
Leptin, an adipokine regulating body fat mass, represents a key molecule in obesity, able to modulate immune responses and foster chronic inflammatory response in peripheral tissues.
  • 490
  • 10 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Pyroptosis in SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Pyroptosis is a gasdermin-mediated, membrane pore forming, proinflammatory type of cell death. This necrotic form of cell death causes cell swelling and lysis and was initially found to be an infection triggered event occurring mostly in myeloid cells which leads to ion fluxes and release of proteins of the interleukin (IL) family. It was first described in 1992 by a group that saw a Caspase 1-dependent form of cell death in macrophages that were infected with Shigella flexneri and initially thought it was a form of apoptosis because of its caspase dependency. Pyroptosis is an important event in non-infectious diseases as well and therapeutic approaches have been developed in the hope of influencing several of these disease outcomes.
  • 490
  • 22 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Exercise and Its Effects
Physical exercise represents an effective preventive and therapeutic strategy beneficially modifying the course of multiple diseases. The protective mechanisms of exercise are manifold; primarily, they are elicited by alterations in metabolic and inflammatory pathways. Exercise intensity and duration strongly influence the provoked response. 
  • 489
  • 17 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Role of Antimicrobial Peptides in Autoimmune Disorders
The antimicrobial peptides are present in many parts of the human body such as skin, mucosae, etc., that are exposed to microbes. AMPs are typically produced together as a mixture of several peptides, with tissue-specific unique AMP combinations. While specific AMPs are more prevalent in particular parts of the body, very few are exclusively produced by a single tissue or cell type. Almost all AMPs have multiple functions. AMPs, such as defensins and cathelicidins, were initially identified and studied due to their antimicrobial properties. Defensins and cathelicidins possess various immunomodulatory activities apart from their broad spectrum of activity against pathogens.
  • 488
  • 09 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Protein-Based Adjuvants
 New-generation vaccines, formulated with subunits or nucleic acids, are less immunogenic than classical vaccines formulated with live-attenuated or inactivated pathogens. This difference has led to an intensified search for additional potent vaccine adjuvants that meet safety and efficacy criteria and confer long-term protection. Notably, despite structural differences, all protein-based adjuvants (PBAs) show significant immunostimulatory properties, eliciting B-cell- and T-cell-mediated immune responses to administered antigens, providing advantages over many adopted adjuvant approaches. Furthermore, PBAs are natural biocompatible and biodegradable substances that induce minimal reactogenicity and toxicity and interact with innate immune receptors, enhancing their endocytosis and modulating subsequent adaptive immune responses. This entry proposes that PBAs can contribute to the development of vaccines against complex pathogens, including intracellular pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, those with complex life cycles such as Plasmodium falciparum, those that induce host immune dysfunction such as HIV, those that target immunocompromised individuals such as fungi, those with a latent disease phase such as Herpes, those that are antigenically variable such as SARS-CoV-2 and those that undergo continuous evolution, to reduce the likelihood of outbreaks.
  • 487
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Exosomal ncRNAs
Exosomes, small extracellular vesicles mediate intercellular communication by transferring their cargo including DNA, RNA, proteins and lipids from cell to cell. ExVs contain varying amounts of RNAs concerning over a dozen different RNA forms , the majority of which are classified as ncRNAs (non-coding RNAs). 
  • 487
  • 08 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Immunotherapy of Glioblastoma
Glioblastoma is the most common brain malignant tumor in the adult population, and immuno-therapy is playing an increasingly central role in the treatment of many cancers. Nevertheless, the search for effective immunotherapeutic approaches for glioblastoma patients continues. The goal of immunotherapy is to promote tumor eradication, boost the patient’s innate and adaptive im-mune responses, and overcome tumor immune resistance. A range of new, promising immuno-therapeutic strategies has been applied for glioblastoma, including vaccines, oncolytic viruses, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and adoptive cell transfer. However, the main challenges of im-munotherapy for glioblastoma are the intracranial location and heterogeneity of the tumor as well as the unique, immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.
  • 486
  • 05 Feb 2021
Topic Review
The IFN–JAK–STAT AXIS in Radiotherapy and Immunotherapy
The JAK-STAT pathway is a rapid membrane-to-nucleus signaling module regulated by a wide array of extracellular signals including cytokines and growth factors, as well as cell-intrinsic mutations/alterations. Among all those upstream signals, interferons (IFNs), especially IFN-α/β (belonging to type I IFNs: IFN-Is) and IFN-γ (the only member in type II IFN), are the most widely studied. With their pleiotropic immunological activities in almost all known pathophysiological settings, we discussed the role of the IFN-JAK-STAT axis in radiotherapy (RT) and immunotherapies (IOs), two major pillars of cancer care. 
  • 486
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Imprinted Genes and Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system that arises from interplay between non-genetic and genetic risk factors. The epigenetics - the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in the primary DNA sequence or genotype - functions as a link between these factors, affecting gene expression in response to external influence. Among others, the epigenetic mechanisms underlie the establishment of parent-of-origin effects that appear as phenotypic differences depending on whether the allele was inherited from the mother or father. The most well described manifestation of parent-of-origin effects is genomic imprinting that causes monoallelic gene expression. It becomes more obvious that disturbances in imprinted genes affecting their expression do occur in MS and may be involved in its pathogenesis. 
  • 485
  • 07 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Burn Injuries
In burn injuries, risk factors and limitations to treatment success are difficult to assess clinically. However, local cellular responses are characterized by specific gene-expression patterns. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are single-stranded, non-coding RNAs that regulate mRNA expression on a posttranscriptional level.
  • 485
  • 13 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Cancer-Related Fatigue
Cancer treatments can cause adverse effects such as cancer-related fatigue. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are a relatively new therapy for some cancers and have shown great promise in helping people. Physical activity has been shown to aid many cancer patients to overcome adverse effects in traditional chemotherapy, but along with ICIs, it hasn’t been fully examined.
  • 485
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Toll-like Receptor 2 in Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Processes
While a certain level of inflammation is critical for humans to survive infection and injury, a prolonged inflammatory response can have fatal consequences. Pattern recognition Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are key players in the initiation of an inflammatory process. TLR2 is one of the most studied pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and is known to form heterodimers with either TLR1, TLR4, TLR6, and TLR10, allowing it to recognize a wide range of pathogens.
  • 484
  • 17 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disorder that deteriorates quality and function of the synovium membrane, resulting in chronic inflammation, pain and progressive cartilage and bone destruction. The mechanism of RA pathogenesis is associated with dysregulation of innate and adaptive immunity.
  • 482
  • 06 Dec 2021
Topic Review
The Tumor-Intrinsic NLRP3-HSP70 Signaling Axis in Immune Evasion
The tumor-intrinsic NLRP3 inflammasome is a newly recognized player in the regulation of tumor-directed immune responses and promises to provide fresh insight into how tumors respond to immunotherapy. 
  • 479
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Pyroptosis in Inflammasome-Related Disorders
Inflammasomes are multiprotein complexes orchestrating intracellular recognition of endogenous and exogenous stimuli, cellular homeostasis, and cell death. Upon sensing of certain stimuli, inflammasomes typically activate inflammatory caspases that promote the production and release of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-1α, and IL-18 and induce a type of inflammatory cell death known as “pyroptosis”. Pyroptosis is an important form of regulated cell death executed by gasdermin proteins, which is largely different from apoptosis and necrosis. Recently, several signaling pathways driving pyroptotic cell death, including canonical and noncanonical inflammasome activation, as well as caspase-3-dependent pathways, have been reported. While much evidence exists that pyroptosis is involved in the development of several inflammatory diseases, its contribution to inflammasome-related disorders (IRDs) has not been fully clarified. 
  • 478
  • 21 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Role of PPARα in the Gastrointestinal Mucosa
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) is expressed throughout the mammalian gut: in epithelial cells, in the villi of enterocytes and in Paneth cells of intestinal crypts, as well as in some immune cells (e.g., lamina propria macrophages, dendritic cells) of the mucosa.  The Ppara transcription quantification in villus-crypt axis showed that the highest expression is observed in the peaks of villi of the middle part between duodenum and ileum of murine intestine. 
  • 478
  • 05 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Tumor-Associated Carbohydrate Antigen-Targeted Immunotherapy
Glycosylation is one of the most pivotal post-translational modifications on all types of biomolecules for the formation of glycoproteins, glycolipids, and glycoRNAs in a tissue-type specific manner. Normal glycans participate in biological events such as development, metabolism, differentiation, and immunity in mammalian cells. In cancers, the altered glycosylation, known as tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACAs), is specifically expressed on cell surface molecules and play important roles in facilitating tumor formation, progression, metastasis, and immunosurveillance evasion by generating the vulnerable tumor microenvironment through the interaction of glycan binding receptors expressed on immune cells. TACAs are potential tumor glyco-biomarkers, glycoimmune checkpoints, and therapeutics.
  • 478
  • 17 Jul 2023
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