ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Recent Progress in Allergen Immunotherapy
The efficacy of allergen immunotherapy for the treatment of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis with or without seasonal bronchial asthma and anaphylaxis caused by the sting of the hymenoptera class of insects has been clearly demonstrated in numerous well-designed, placebo-controlled trials. Immunotherapy whether by subcutaneous injection of allergen extract or by oral/sublingual routes modifies peripheral and mucosal TH2 responses in favour of TH1 responses and augments IL-10 synthesis by TRegs both locally and by pe-ripheral T cells. Recent researches into the cellular and molecular basis of allergic reac-tions have advanced our understanding of the mechanisms involved in allergic diseases. They have also helped the development of innovative approaches that are likely to fur-ther improve the control of allergic responses in the future. Novel approaches to immu-notherapy that are currently being explored include the use of peptide-based allergen preparations, which do not bind IgE and therefore do not activate mast cells, but reduce both TH1 and TH2-cytokine synthesis, while increasing levels of IL-10. Alternative strategies include the use of adjuvants, such as nucleotide immunostimulatory se-quences derived from bacteria CpG or monophosphoryl lipid A that potentiate TH1 re-sponses. Blocking the effects of IgE using anti-IgE such as omalizumab, a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that selectively binds to IgE, has been shown to be a useful strategy in the treatment of allergic asthma and rhinitis. The combination of anti-IgE-monoclonal antibody omalizumab with allergen immunotherapy has proved benefi-cial for the treatment of allergic diseases, offering improved efficacy, limited adverse effects, and potential immune-modifying effects. This combination may also accelerate the rapidity by which immunotherapy induces TReg cells. If allergic diseases are due to a lack of allergen-specific TReg cells, then effective therapies should target the induction and the development of TReg cells producing cytokines such as IL-10.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17096_4bb24b0948398c8754f8910f580c70da.pdf
2008-03-01
1
24
allergy
IgE
Rhinitis
immunotherapy
Kayhan T
Nouri-Aria
k.nouri-aria@imperial.ac.uk
1
Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, England
LEAD_AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Immunophenotypic Characterization of the Leukemic B-cells from Iranian Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Association between CD38 Expression and Disease Progression
Background: Patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) have hetero-geneous clinical courses, thus several biological parameters need to be added to the cur-rent clinical staging systems to predict disease outcome. Recent immunophenotypic stud-ies performed mainly in Western populations have demonstrated the prognostic value of CD38 and ZAP-70 expression in B-CLL. Objectives: To investigate the expression pat-tern of a variety of membrane antigens on leukemic cells from Iranian patients with CLL and to find out if there are any differences in the expression of these markers between in-dolent and progressive groups. Methods: In the present study, peripheral blood samples from 87 Iranian patients with B-CLL were analysed by flow cytometry. Results: In all cases, the neoplastic cells displayed B-CLL phenotype (CD5+/CD19+/sIg+). The vast ma-jority of the cases expressed CD23, but failed to stain for CD3 or CD14. The leukemic cells of most patients expressed CD27 (84/87, 95.4%) and CD45RO (74/87, 83.9%) molecules, suggesting a memory B-cell phenotype. Comparison between the indolent (n=42) and progressive (n=37) patients revealed significantly higher frequency and inten-sity of CD38 expression in progressive group (40.5%) compared to indolent (11.9%) pa-tients (p<0.05). None of the other membrane antigens were differentially expressed in these two groups of patients. Conclusion: Our results obtained in an Asian ethnic popula-tion confirm and extend previous findings obtained from Western populations regarding the association of CD38 expression and disease progression in B-CLL.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17097_bb2db15f8f0c3df2a4e88aedd2a976c8.pdf
2008-03-01
25
35
Immunophenotyping
B-CLL
Indolent
Progressive
CD38
Mohammad Hojjat
Farasangi
1
Department of Immunology, School of Public Health, Medical Sciences /Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
AUTHOR
Mahmood
Jeddi-Tehrani
mahjed@avicenna.ac.ir
2
Immune and Gene Therapy Lab, Cancer Center Karolinska, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
AUTHOR
Seyed Mohsen
Razavi
3
Clinic of Hematology and Oncology, Firozgar Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences
AUTHOR
Ramazan Ali
Sharifian
4
Clinic of Hematology and Oncology, Vali-Asr Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Sciences/ University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Ahmad
Shamsian Khoramabadi
5
Clinic of Hematology and Oncology, Firozgar Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences
AUTHOR
Hojatollah
Rabbani
6
Immune and Gene Therapy Lab, Cancer Center Karolinska, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
AUTHOR
Fazel
Shokri
fshokri@sina.tums.ac.ir
7
Department of Immunology, School of Public Health, Medical Sciences /Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
LEAD_AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Listeria Monocytogenes Activated Dendritic Cell Based Vaccine for Prevention of Experimental Tumor in Mice
Background: The use of dendritic cells (DCs) as a cellular adjuvant provides a promis-ing approach in immunotherapy of cancer. It has been demonstrated that Listeria mono-cytogenes activated DCs pulsed ex vivo with tumor antigens trigger a systemic Th1-biased specific immune response and a single dose of this vaccine will cause a consider-able anti tumor immunity. Objective: The present study was designed to evaluate the ability of multiple doses of tumor antigen-pulsed DCs, matured in the presence of Lis-teria monocytogenes components in induction of a potent anti-tumor response and the prevention of tumor formation in an experimental model. Methods: Bone-marrow de-rived DCs (BMDCs) were cultured in the presence of GM-CSF and IL-4. After 5 days, tumor lysates with/without Listeria monocytogenes lysate were added to the culture media for another 2 days. Mice received mature and tumor antigen pulsed dendritic cells subcutaneously in 3 groups. Tumor growth was monitored and two weeks after immu-notherapy, cytotoxic activity of CD8+ T cells was evaluated in different groups. Re-sults: According to the findings, repeated doses of vaccine did not lead to a significant increase in the activity of cytotoxic T cells and decreased tumor growth of immunized animals. Conclusion: The current study suggests that increased doses of vaccine do not have sufficient efficiency for prevention of tumor induction. Generation of T regulatory responses upon repeated doses of such vaccines should be considered in future investi-gations.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17098_278c91f7d206494ee4d11aaf9d12ae51.pdf
2008-03-01
36
44
Dendritic Cells
immunotherapy
cancer
Listeria monocytogenes
Masoumeh
Khamisabadi
1
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Samaneh
Arab
2
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Masoumeh
Motamedi
3
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Nematollah
khansari
4
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Seied Mohammad
Moazzeni
5
Department of Immunology, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran
AUTHOR
Zahra
Gheflati
6
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
AUTHOR
Jamshid
Hadjati
hajatij@tums.ac.ir
7
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran
LEAD_AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Antitetanus Toxoid Antibody Titer of Chronic Hemodialysis Patients in Iran
Background: Patients with end stage renal disease have higher incidence of infection dis-eases that is thought to be related to impaired immune system. Objective: To determine the antitetanus IgG antibody level in Iranian hemodialysis patients with end stage renal disease and to find its association with sex, age, blood hemoglobin, serum albumin, dura-tion of dialysis, time of dialysis per week, dialysis adequacy, erythropoietin, or iron sup-plementation, body mass index (BMI) and underlying renal disorder. Methods: We con-ducted a cross sectional study on a total of 108 Iranian hemodialysis patients with end stage renal disorder, and 36 healthy individuals in the control group matched with the pa-tient group. The patients and controls did not receive any antitetanus vaccine or immu-noglobulins a year prior to the investigation. The serum antitetanus IgG antibody levels were measured by an ELISA method. Results: We found 74.3% of patients to have un-protected antitetanus IgG antibody level compared with 52.8% of the control group. Ex-cept hemodialysis duration, none of the contributing factors seemed to affect immunity. Conclusion: We conclude that in our study, there is a significant difference in the an-titetanus IgG antibody level between hemodialysis patients and the control group and also in the chronic hemodialysis patients.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17099_4d48b675cfa820e1963519d1b84d1f71.pdf
2008-03-01
45
50
Antitetanus IgG
hemodialysis
chronic renal failure
Mohammad Mahdi
Sagheb
saghebm@sums.ac.ir
1
Department of Internal Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Science, Shiraz, Iran
LEAD_AUTHOR
Sharareh
Sajjadi
2
Department of Internal Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Science, Shiraz, Iran
AUTHOR
Golmehr
Sajjady
3
Dundee University Medical school, Scotland, UK
AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
High Sensitivity C–Reactive Protein and Im-munoglobulin G against Chlamydia Pneumo-niae and Chlamydial Heat Shock Protein-60 in Ischemic Heart Disease
Background: Inflammation and infectious agents such as Chlamydia pneumoniae have been associated with cardiovascular disease. Objective: To evaluate the serum high sensitivity C - reactive protein (hs-CRP) and antibodies against Chlamydia pneumoniae and Chlamydial heat shock protein-60 (Cp-HSP60) in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD). Methods: 62 patients with IHD having either acute myocardial infarction (AMI; n=31) or unstable an-gina (UA; n=31) and 31 sex- and age- matched healthy subjects as a control group were en-rolled in this study. Serum samples of participants were tested for the presence of hs-CRP and antibodies against C. pneumoniae and Cp-HSP60 using ELISA method. Results: The sero-prevalence of anti-C. pneumoniae antibody in AMI group (93.5%) or UA group (90.3%) was significantly higher than the control group (61.3%; p<0.001). The sero-prevalence of anti-Cp-HSP60 IgG was 22.6% in healthy subjects with mean end titer of 43.1 ± 6.32. The seropositive rates of anti-Cp-HSP60 were 48.4%, 54.8% and 51.6% in AMI, UA and the overall IHD groups with mean end titers of 94 ± 22.86, 113.8 ± 24.25 and 103.9 ± 16.57, respectively. Both the seroprevalence and the mean titer of anti-Cp-HSP60 in patients groups were significantly higher than those observed in the control group (p<0.04 and p<0.03, respectively). Moreover, the mean serum hs-CRP levels was significantly higher in the IHD group as compared to the control group (21.6 μg/ml ± 3.73 vs 2.5 μg/ml ± 0.52; p<0.00001). The mean serum hs-CRP levels of AMI (30.3 μg/ml ± 6.07) or UA (12.9 μg/ml ± 3.85) groups were also significantly higher than those observed in the control group (p<0.00001 and p<0.001, respectively). Further-more, the difference of the mean serum hs-CRP levels between AMI and UA groups was also significant (p<0.02). Conclusions: These results showed that the seroprevalence of antibodies against C. pneumoniae and Cp-HSP60 and the serum levels of hs-CRP and anti-Cp-HSP60 IgG were higher in patients with IHD.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17100_3cc7f3f9f94efbda6daad818a071e641.pdf
2008-03-01
51
56
Ischemic Heart Disease
Chlamydia pneumoniae
HSP60
CRP
Abdollah
Jafarzadeh
jafarzadeh14@yahoo.com
1
Department of Immunology
LEAD_AUTHOR
Ali
Esmaeeli-Nadimi
2
Department of Cardiology
AUTHOR
Mehdi
Shariati
3
Department of Histology, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran
AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Immunotherapy of Chenopodium Album Induced Asthma by Intranasal Administration of CpG Oligodeoxynucleotides in BALB/c Mice
Background: There are many therapeutic methods for allergic conditions. CpG oli-gonucleotides play a critical role in immunity via the augmentation of Th1 and suppres-sion of Th2 responses. Objective: In the present study we aimed to estimate the effec-tiveness of intranasal administration of CpG ODN plus Chenopodium album allergen in allergic asthma compared with the administration of allergen alone and to find out how CpG ODN therapy is useful in the treatment of allergen induced asthma. Methods: BALB/c Mice were intraperitoneally and intranasally sensitized with allergenic extract precipitated on aluminum hydroxide. Therapy with CpG/Ag was performed intrana-sally. After antigenic challenge, a number of Immunologic variables such as serum IgE and IgG, systemic and local IL-10 and IFN-γ were studied in splenocytes, and lung tis-sue culture supernatants, respectively. Results: Our study indicated that intranasal ad-ministration of CpG/Ag had significant increases in both systemic and local levels of IL-10 and IFN-γ (p≤ 0.001), but showed no significant effect on the levels of IgE, IgG2a, and IgG1 in serum (p= 0.06). This study demonstrated that CpG ODN has thera-peutic effects not only on splenocytes but also on nasal lymphocytes to produce IFN-γ as a Th1 cytokine, and IL-10 as a regulatory cytokine. Conclusion: According to these data from the mouse model, we conclude that intranasal administration of CpG motifs before allergen exposure may be useful for the control of allergic asthma. Therefore, further investigations on humans using CpG motifs are recommended in order to modu-late the allergic effects of Chenopodium album as well as other regional allergens.
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17101_0e8a707a6567b9d1c48323ec457b2816.pdf
2008-03-01
57
63
Asthma
CpG ODN
Chenopodium album
Tahereh
Mousavi
mousavi36@yahoo.com
1
Department of Immunology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
LEAD_AUTHOR
Alireza
Salek Moghadam
2
Department of Immunology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
AUTHOR
Reza
Falak
3
Department of Immunology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Co-existence of Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID) with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP)
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17102_6a5174f2aba8ceeee7a83147702ec7ab.pdf
2008-03-01
64
67
Mohamed Osama
Hegazi
drosama02@gmail.com
1
Department of Medicine
LEAD_AUTHOR
Ramesh
Kumar
2
Department of Hematology, Al Adan Hospital, Kuwait
AUTHOR
Mubarak
Alajmi
3
Department of Medicine
AUTHOR
Eman
Ibrahim
4
Department of Hematology, Al Adan Hospital, Kuwait
AUTHOR
ORIGINAL_ARTICLE
Anticardiolipin and Antiphospholipid Antibodies in Iraqi Patients with Angina Pectoris
https://iji.sums.ac.ir/article_17103_5de43f0e955f40262520e8e076be5f37.pdf
2008-03-01
68
69
Sabah Nima
Mohammed
dr_sabah_nima@yahoo.com
1
Al Sadar Teaching Hospital of Najaf
LEAD_AUTHOR
Khalida M.
Mousawy
2
Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine
AUTHOR
Ayden Kamel Muhammed
AL Bayati
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
AUTHOR
Hilal B.
Shawki
4
Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, Baghdad University
AUTHOR
Nahla
Ghanim
5
Medical City, Teaching Laboratories, Unit of Clinical Immunology, Iraq
AUTHOR