University of Birmingham

About: University of Birmingham is a education organization based out in Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 51794 authors who have published 115304 publications receiving 4335316 citations. The organization is also known as: Birmingham University & Uni of Birmingham.

Angiogenesis in skeletal and cardiac muscle

Abstract: The role that mechanical factors deriving from blood flow play in the growth of blood vessels was most probably mentioned for the first time by John Hunter in his “Treatise on the Blood Flow, Inflammation and Gunshot Wounds,” published in 1794. Hunter was an anatomist who kept a deer herd in Richmond Park. He described enlargement of the carotid arteries in deer, coincident with the development of new antlers, which is known to involve intensive vascular growth. Almost a century later, Thoma (1) demonstrated that ontogenetic growth of vessels is caused by a combination of hemodynamic forces — increased blood flow, blood pressure, and wall tension — and mechanical stretch of vessels owing to the growth of the surrounding tissue. The importance of flow for capillary development was later shown in tadpole tails by Clark (2), who exposed to observation under the microscope the same site over many days, and in wound healing in the rabbit ear chamber (3). Today, the roles in angiogenesis of mechanical factors such as shear stress, circumferential stress, stretch, or physical forces owing to modification of the extracellular matrix are widely studied in tissue culture.

The emerging role of CTLA4 as a cell-extrinsic regulator of T cell responses

Abstract: The T cell protein cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4) was identified as a crucial negative regulator of the immune system over 15 years ago, but its mechanisms of action are still under debate. It has long been suggested that CTLA4 transmits an inhibitory signal to the cells that express it. However, not all the available data fit with a cell-intrinsic function for CTLA4, and other studies have suggested that CTLA4 functions in a T cell-extrinsic manner. Here, we discuss the data for and against the T cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic functions of CTLA4.

Evidence from d + Au measurements for final state suppression of high p(T) hadrons in Au+Au collisions at RHIC

Abstract: We report measurements of single-particle inclusive spectra and two-particle azimuthal distributions of charged hadrons at high transverse momentum (high p(T)) in minimum bias and central d+Au collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV. The inclusive yield is enhanced in d+Au collisions relative to binary-scaled p+p collisions, while the two-particle azimuthal distributions are very similar to those observed in p+p collisions. These results demonstrate that the strong suppression of the inclusive yield and back-to-back correlations at high p(T) previously observed in central Au+Au collisions are due to final-state interactions with the dense medium generated in such collisions.

Small intestinal CD103+ dendritic cells display unique functional properties that are conserved between mice and humans.

Abstract: A functionally distinct subset of CD103+ dendritic cells (DCs) has recently been identified in murine mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) that induces enhanced FoxP3+ T cell differentiation, retinoic acid receptor signaling, and gut-homing receptor (CCR9 and α4β7) expression in responding T cells. We show that this function is specific to small intestinal lamina propria (SI-LP) and MLN CD103+ DCs. CD103+ SI-LP DCs appeared to derive from circulating DC precursors that continually seed the SI-LP. BrdU pulse-chase experiments suggested that most CD103+ DCs do not derive from a CD103− SI-LP DC intermediate. The majority of CD103+ MLN DCs appear to represent a tissue-derived migratory population that plays a central role in presenting orally derived soluble antigen to CD8+ and CD4+ T cells. In contrast, most CD103− MLN DCs appear to derive from blood precursors, and these cells could proliferate within the MLN and present systemic soluble antigen. Critically, CD103+ DCs with similar phenotype and functional properties were present in human MLN, and their selective ability to induce CCR9 was maintained by CD103+ MLN DCs isolated from SB Crohn's patients. Thus, small intestinal CD103+ DCs represent a potential novel target for regulating human intestinal inflammatory responses.