Oxygen administration to premature infants suppresses retinal VEGF expression and results in the catastrophic vessel loss associated with retinopathy of prematurity. A study investigating the development of the retinal vasculature in mice (see related article on pages 50–57) demonstrates that specific activation of VEGF receptor-1 by placental growth factor-1 protects against oxygen-induced vessel loss without stimulating vascular proliferation and neovascularization.
Eli Keshet
Apoptosis signal–regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) is an upstream activator of JNK and p38 MAPK signaling cascades. Evidence now shows that the ASK1-interacting protein, AIP1, plays an important role in TNF-α–induced ASK1 activation by facilitating dissociation from its inhibitor.
M. Eugenia Guicciardi, Gregory J. Gores
Microarray analysis of the expression profiles of lung tissue in two murine models of asthma revealed high levels of arginase I and arginase II activity, in association with IL-4 and IL-13 overexpression, suggesting that arginine pathways are critical in the pathogenesis of asthma.
Donata Vercelli
Diabetic retinopathy, the most frequent complication of diabetes and leading cause of vision loss, involves vascular and neural damage in the retina. Insulin and IGF-1 signaling are now shown to contribute to retinal neovascularization, in part, by modulating the expression of various vascular mediators.
Sarah K. Bronson, Chad E.N. Reiter, Thomas W. Gardner
Little is known about the effect of an individual’s immune history on his or her response to an allogeneic tissue transplant. An important study now reveals that individuals harboring virally-induced memory T cells that are cross reactive with donor alloantigen are resistant to conventional strategies designed to induce transplant tolerance.
David H. Sachs
It has been proposed — but remains controversial — that estrogen’s effects on various tissues may be mediated by different cell signaling pathways. Researchers have identified a synthetic ligand that activates only a subset of these pathways, suggesting that bypass of the traditional estrogen pathway can prevent bone loss without associated side effects on reproductive organs.
Joseph Lorenzo
Antimicrobial peptides are effector molecules of innate immunity with microbicidal and pro- or anti-inflammatory activities. Their role is now widening following evidence that one such multifunctional peptide, LL-37, induces angiogenesis, a process essential for host defense, wound healing, and tissue repair.
Peter Elsbach
The presence in newborns of a mature and functional CD8+ T cell response to congenital cytomegalovirus infection suggests that the machinery necessary to prime such responses is present in utero and raises questions related to neonatal vaccination.
P.G. Holt
Tissue tropism of clinical ocular and genital Chlamydia trachomatis strains is shown to be linked to the tryptophan synthase genotype. It is suggested that, in the presence of IFN-γ, which depletes available tryptophan, there exist unique host-parasite interactions that may contribute to persistent chlamydial infection.
Richard P. Morrison
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