Dendritic cells tagged posts

Early findings indicate eating the fruit could help with skin allergies

In a study done with mice and published earlier this month in the journal Nutrients, researchers found that a diet high in black raspberries reduced inflammation from contact hypersensitivity – a condition that causes redness and inflammation in the skin.

“A lot of times, treatments are directly applied to the skin – things like steroids,” said Steve Oghumu, senior author on the paper and an assistant professor of pathology at The Ohio State University.

“And it was interesting that the mere consumption of a fruit can achieve the same effects.”

The researchers put a group of mice on a ...

Confocal image showing glucose signalling.

Glucose may actually be crucial in the fight against cancer and inflammatory disease as scientists have just discovered a new role in which it stimulates cells that work on the front line in the fight against tumours and infection. The immune cells become very active during an immune response, such as when responding to infection, and as a result they tend to have high demands for glucose. Unsurprisingly, when immune cells are starved of glucose, as might occur within tumours for instance, they become dysfunctional.

However, new research led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin shows that the immune cells that monitor our bodies for signs of danger (dendritic cells) are different—when they are starved of glucose they actually become better at s...

CD24 expressed by cells of hematopoietic origin and not cells in stromal compartments is required for extramedullary stress erythropoiesis following in vivo CD24 engagement

This could represent a significant step forward in the battle against anemia, benefitting people with diabetes, kidney disease or cancer, and older people for whom anemia can become a chronic problem. While more work needs to be done before the method could be used in people, the possibilities are tantalizing.

Eg it could allow doctors to turn on red blood cell production whenever necessary;
~be used on the battlefield to triage wounded soldiers until they could receive a blood transfusion; and
~be used to treat people who cannot receive blood transfusions because of religious beliefs.

Note: Anemia is the most common bl...