immune system tagged posts

There are a whole lot of good reasons to eat wholegrain products , including the health-promoting benzoxazinoids. Credit: Colourbox

Rye bread and other wholegrain foods contain a particular group of health-promoting substances: benzoxazinoids, or BX. Scientists have documented the uptake of these compounds in humans and their possible beneficial effect on the immune system. Their presence in wholegrain was discovered by scientists from Aarhus University in 2010. Now, the scientists have dug more deeply to discover the BX factor’s secrets.

“Certain medicinal plants and green cereals have previously been found to contain BX, but it was a revelation that they are also found in ripened rye and other wholegrains...

Drug-resistant lung cancer cells are in red. Paclitaxel-loaded exosomes (green) swarm the cancer cells and bypass their drug resistance. Credit: UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

The cancer drug paclitaxel just got more effective. For the first time, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have packaged it in containers derived from a patient’s own immune system, protecting the drug from being destroyed by the body’s own defenses and bringing the entire payload to the tumor. “That means we can use 50 times less of the drug and still get the same results,” said A/Prof Elena Batrakova, Ph.D...

Schematic and characterization of tri-agonist compound, Indole_Lox_CpG. (a) Chemical structure of covalently conjugated tri-agonist compound (Indole_Lox_CpG) (left). Diagram illustrating how each TLR agonist (pyrimido-indole, loxoribine, or CpG-ODN) and the corresponding combinations (Indole_Lox, Lox_CpG, or Indole_CpG) contributed to innate immune activation (right). (b) Confirmation of synthesized Indole_Lox_CpG via MALDI-TOF. (c) Analysis of Indole_Lox_CpG via gel electrophoresis: CpG-ODN1826 reference (lane 1) and Indole_Lox_CpG reaction mixture (lane 2). Tri-agonist was extracted from the gel and isolated as purified Indole_Lox_CpG.

Some vaccines, like the flu shot, contain a dead or weakened version of the disease-causing pathogen...

The immune system protein SARM1 (red) extends to the string-like fibers (axons) of nerve cells in the brains of mice infected with La Crosse virus. Scientists are examining how SARM1 interacts with mitochondria in the axons to induce death of the nerve cells. Credit: NIAID

Many brain disorders involve the death of neurons, or nerve cells, but how these neurons die is not well understood. A new study describes how the activation of normally protective immune responses causes nerve cells to die and identifies the protein responsible, providing a potential target for therapeutic intervention.

Researchers from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) studied the effect of immune system proteins: toll-like receptors on neurons...