Membranous CD44v6 levels in tumors and surrounding samples obtained from 94 patients with squamous cell lung carcinomas were studied and compared to clinical stage, cellular proliferation, membranous CD44v5 levels, epidermal growth factor receptor EG...
Cancer initiating cells (CICs) drive tumor formation and drug-resistance, but how they develop drug-resistance characteristics is not well understood. In this study, we demonstrate that chemotherapeutic agent FOLFOX, commonly used for drug-resistant/...
Background: Several studies have reported an association between high expression of CD44 in different types of cancer. However, no study has reported a link among CD44 expression, other biomarkers, and the aggressiveness of salivary gland tumors. Met...
CD44 variant (CD44v) isoforms are involved in promoting cancer metastasis, sustaining cancer stem cell (CSC) properties, and conferring resistance to therapeutic interventions. Consequently, the development of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting C...
Gastric cancer (GC) remains a major cause of death worldwide mainly because of the late detection in advanced stage. Recently, we proposed CD44v6 as a relevant marker for early detection of GC, opening new avenues for GC-targeted theranostics. Here,...
There is a medical need to develop new and effective therapies against triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cells are a promising alternative to CAR-T cell therapy for cancer. A search for a suitab...
Podoplanin and CD44 are transmembrane glycoproteins involved in inflammation and cancer. In this paper, we report that podoplanin is coordinately expressed with the CD44 standard (CD44s) and variant (CD44v) isoforms in vivo—in hyperplastic skin...
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignant tumors. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for its progression are little known. This study aimed to understand the regulatory role of CD44V3 in pancreatic cancer. A Kaplan–Meier...
Background: Our aim was to estimate the rates of not achieving a robust/above-average humoral response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in people living with HIV (PLWH) who received ≥2 doses and to investigate the role of the CD4 and CD4/CD8 ratio in...
In late 2019, the betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was identified as the viral agent responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Coronaviruses Spike proteins are responsible for their ability to interact with host membrane receptors a...
NRP1/CD304 is a typical membrane-bound co-receptor for the vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF), semaphorin family members, and viral SARS-CoV-2. Cordycepin (CD) is a natural product or active gradient from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM...
Here, we longitudinally assessed the ex vivo frequency and phenotype of SARS-CoV-2 membrane protein (aa145–164) epitope-specific CD4+ T-cells of an anti-CD20-treated patient with prolonged viral positivity in direct comparison to an immunocompe...
We studied SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in 22 subacute MIS-C children enrolled in 2021 and 2022 using peptide pools derived from SARS-CoV-2 spike or nonspike proteins. CD4+ and CD8+ SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells were detected in 5 subjects, CD4...
CD44 is a transmembrane glycoprotein involved in cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions. Several CD44 protein isoforms are generated in human through alternative splicing regulation of nine variable exons encoding for the extracellular ju...
mRNA and Adenovirus vaccines for COVID-19 are used to induce humoral and cell-mediated immunity, with the aim to generate both SARS-CoV-2 B and T memory cells. In present study, we described a simple assay to detect and quantify Spike-specific CD4+ a...
African swine fever (ASF) is a hemorrhagic disease of swine characterized by massive lymphocyte depletion in lymphoid tissues due to the apoptosis of B and T cells, a process likely triggered by factors released or secreted by infected macrophages. A...
Background: Gastric cancer is a major global health burden. Although neoadjuvant chemotherapy and conversion surgery can improve survival, treatment responses vary owing to chemotherapy resistance. Cancer stem cells (CSCs), characterized by self-rene...
Coagulation disorders are described in COVID-19 and long COVID patients. In particular, SARS-CoV-2 infection in megakaryocytes, which are precursors of platelets involved in thrombotic events in COVID-19, long COVID and, in rare cases, in vaccinated...
Considering the biology of CRC, distant metastases might support the identification of high-risk patients for early recurrence and targeted therapy. Expression of a panel of druggable, metastasis-related biomarkers was immunohistochemically analyzed...
The African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes high mortality in domestic pigs. ASFV encodes an important protein target for subunit vaccine development, CD2v, but its most effective immunological regions are not known. Herein, we generated a monoclonal...
CD9 protein belongs to a family of proteins called tetraspanins, so named for their four-transmembrane-spanning architectures. These proteins are located in domains in the plasmatic membrane, called tetraspanin-enriched microdomains (TEMs). Several p...
African swine fever (ASF) leads to high mortality in domestic pigs and wild boar, and it is caused by the African swine fever virus (ASFV). Currently, no commercially available vaccine exists for its prevention in China. In this study, we engineered...
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and the search for effective treatments has been limited. Furthermore, the rapid mutations of SARS-CoV-2...
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly pathogenic and hemorrhagic swine infectious disease caused by the African swine fever virus (ASFV). It encodes over 150 proteins, among which the CD2v protein plays multiple roles throughout the infection process...
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have played a crucial role in effectively reducing COVID-19 disease severity, with a new generation of vaccines that use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology being administered globally. Neutralizing antibodies have featured as the her...
The current battle against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-Coronavirus-2 benefits from the worldwide distribution of different vaccine formulations. All anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in use are conceived to induce anti-Spike neutralizing antibodi...
Memory SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cell responses induced upon infection or COVID-19 vaccination have been important for protecting against severe COVID-19 disease while being largely robust against variants of concern (VOCs) observed so far. However,...
Background: Examination of CD4+ T cell responses during the natural course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection offers useful information for the improvement of vaccination strategies against this virus and the pr...
Primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is a rare myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by stem-cell-derived clonal over-proliferation of mature myeloid lineages, bone marrow fibrosis, osteosclerosis, defective erythropoiesis, and pro-inflammatory cytokine o...
A cell line expressing the CD2v protein of ASFV was generated. The efficient expression of CD2v protein was determined by immunofluorescence and Western blotting. The CD2v protein was Ni-affinity purified from the supernatant of cell cultures. The CD...
Even though several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have shown high effectiveness in the prevention of COVID-19 in healthy subjects, vaccination response in patients with plasma-cell-related disorders (PCD) remains widely unknown. Here, we report on an analysis...
Specific T cell responses against SARS-CoV-2 provided an overview of acquired immunity during the pandemic. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunity determines the severity of acute illness, but also might be related to the possible persistence of symptoms (long COV...
Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has developed variants escaping neutralization antibody immunity established against the original virus. An understanding of broad-spectrum adaptive immunity, including CD8+ T c...
Age-related changes in the immune system are thought to underlie the vulnerability of elderly individuals to emerging viral diseases, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this study, we used a fully validated in vitro approach to determine...
Background/Objectives: To evaluate how immune responses compare among ethnic groups approximately 2 years after receiving a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, ChAdOx1or BBIBP-CorV), we tested T cell responses and Spike-specific RBD-...
SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cell immunity is expected to counteract viral variants in both efficient and durable ways. We recently described a way to induce a potent SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T immune response through the generation of engineered extracellular...
We studied T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 in 19 pregnant subjects at different gestational weeks who received three doses of mRNA-based vaccination to prevent COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools were used for T-cell recognition studies: peptides were...
Infection of pigs with the African swine fever virus (ASFV) leads to a devastating hemorrhagic disease with a high mortality of up to 100%. In this study, a CD2v gene deletion was introduced to a genotype IX virus from East Africa, ASFV-Kenya-IX-1033...
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has posed a devastating threat worldwide. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein is one of the most important antigens for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, while the analysis of CD8 cytotoxic T l...
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 enters the host by infecting nasal ciliated cells. Then, the virus can spread towards the oropharyngeal cavity and the pulmonary tissues. The antiviral adaptive immunity is promptly induced i...
CD44v6-containing isoforms are frequently de novo expressed in gastric cancer (GC). Whether CD44v6 has a central role in GC transformation and/or progression, whether it conditions response to therapy or whether it is only a bystander marker is still...
This study examines an unexplored aspect of SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells, which is widely understood to occur via the viral spike (S) protein’s interaction with human ACE2-associated proteins. While vaccines and inhibitors targeting this me...
African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a highly infectious viral pathogen that endangers the global pig industry, and no effective vaccine is available thus far. The CD2v protein is a glycoprotein on the outer envelope of ASFV, which mediates the transm...
We evaluated cellular immune responses induced by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines in an immunized population based on HLA-E-restricted CD8+ T cell epitope identification. HLA-E-restricted SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T cell n...
Cross-reactive T cell immunity to seasonal coronaviruses (HCoVs) may lead to immunopathology or protection during SARS-CoV2 infection. To understand the influence of cross-reactive T cell responses, we used IEDB (Immune epitope database) and NetMHCpa...
Soluble CD40 ligand (sCD40L) is a molecule known for its thromboinflammatory properties and may act as a biomarker for platelet activation. Platelets are the principal producers of sCD40L, which is recognized for its impact on platelet function. Howe...
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are promising diagnostic and prognostic tools for clinical use. In several cancers, including colorectal and breast, the CTC load has been associated with a therapeutic response as well as progression-free and overall s...
Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines is highly heterogeneous in patients with inborn errors of immunity (IEIs). This case report analyzes the immune response to mRNA COVID-19 two-dose primary vaccination followed by three boosters in an IEI pat...
In gastric cancer (GC), biomarkers that define prognosis and predict treatment response remain scarce. We hypothesized that the extent of CD44v6 membranous tumor expression could predict prognosis and therapy response in GC patients. Two GC surgical...
Anti-CD20 antibodies react with CD20 expressed not only on malignant B cells, but also on normal B cells. It has been reported that patients treated with anti-CD20 antibodies had an insufficient response to two-dose mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. To in...
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