American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2013
Cytotoxic cells and granulysin in pulmonary arterial hypertension and pulmonary veno-occlusive disease.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) both display occlusive remodeling of the pulmonary vasculature responsible for increased pulmonary vascular resistances. Cytotoxic T (CTL), natural killer (NK), and natural killer T (NKT) cells play a critical role in vascular remodeling in different physiological and pathological conditions. Granulysin (GNLY) represents a powerful effector protein for all these subpopulations. ⋯ PVOD is characterized by alterations of circulating cytotoxic cell subpopulations and by epigenetic dysregulation within the GNLY gene. Our findings may be helpful in the quest to develop needed diagnostic tools, including flow cytometry analyses, to screen for suspected PVOD in patients with pulmonary hypertension.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2013
Test variability of the QuantiFERON-TB gold in-tube assay in clinical practice.
Although IFN-γ release assays (IGRAs) are widely used to screen for Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in high-income countries, published data on repeatability are limited. ⋯ There is substantial variability in TB response when IGRAs are repeated using the same patient sample. IGRA results should be interpreted cautiously when TB response is near interpretation cut-points.
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Allostatic load (AL), a novel measure of the physiologically dysregulated response of the body to stress, represents a biomarker of chronic stress exposure. ⋯ AL and its biomarkers are associated with an increased likelihood of asthma in adolescent boys. The observed association between AL and asthma may be attributable to a combined subset of AL biomarkers.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2013
Semaphorin 7a+ regulatory T cells are associated with progressive idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and are implicated in transforming growth factor-β1-induced pulmonary fibrosis.
Lymphocytes are increasingly associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Semaphorin 7a (Sema 7a) participates in lymphocyte activation. ⋯ Sema 7a+CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells are associated with disease progression in subjects with IPF and induce fibrosis in the TGF-β1-exposed murine lung.