We also thank Sunao Iyoda (National Institute of ABT-199 ic50 Infectious Diseases: NIID) and Yan Lu (NIID) for assistance with HEp-2 adherence assay, and Shizuko Ichinose (Tokyo Medical and Dental University) for assistance with the electron microscopy.

Hidemasa Izumiya (NIID) kindly provided the EPEC reference strain. This study was supported by grants-in-aid for Food and Chemical Safety from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare of Japan. “
“Many differences exist between human immature and mature natural killer (NK) cells, but their respective molecular signatures and transcriptional regulators are relatively unknown. To gain new insights into the diversity and developmental regulation of human NK cells, we used data from high-resolution microarrays with independent verification to describe a comprehensive comparative analysis between immature decidual NK (idNK) cells with a CD56brightCD16−T-bet− phenotype and mature peripheral NK (mpNK) cells with a CD56dimCD16+T-bet+ phenotype. This study shows that many novel growth factors, cytokines, and chemokines are expressed by NK cells, and they may regulate NK-cell development or function in an autocrine manner. Notably, we present that idNK and selleck kinase inhibitor mpNK cells are enriched

for homeobox and zinc-finger transcription factors (TFs), respectively. Additionally, many novel candidate transcriptional regulators are common to both idNK and mpNK cells. We further describe the transcriptional regulatory networks of NK cells and show that the endogenous growth factors, cytokines, and TFs enriched in idNK cells regulate each other and may contribute to idNK-cell immaturity. 5-Fluoracil Together, these findings provide novel molecular signatures for immature and mature NK cells, and the novel candidate regulators identified here can be used to describe and further understand NK-cell differentiation and function. “
“Tumour necrosis factor-α-induced

protein-8 like-2 (TIPE2) is a newly identified immune negative regulator. The abnormal expression of TIPE2 has been found in several human inflammatory diseases. However, the expression level and clinical significance of TIPE2 in childhood asthma remain unclear. In this study, we detected TIPE2 expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 42 children with asthma and 39 healthy controls by RT-PCR, qRT-PCR and Western blot. We also detected the levels of serum total immunoglobulin E (IgE), eosinophil (EO), interleukin-4 (IL-4) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and analysed the correlations of TIPE2 expression with IgE, EO, IL-4 and IFN-γ. The results showed that TIPE2 mRNA and protein expression were decreased in children with asthma compared with healthy controls. The levels of IgE, EO and IL-4 in the children with asthma were obviously higher than those in normal controls, while the level of IFN-γ in patients with asthma was significantly lower than that in healthy subjects.