Acesso a informações sobre como evitar problemas bucais entre escolares da Rede Pública de Ensino / Access to information about how to prevent oral problems among school children in the public school network

O presente estudo propõe-se a identificar a prevalência do acesso a informações sobre como evitar problemas bucais entre escolares da rede pública de ensino, assim como os fatores associados a este acesso. Trata-se de um estudo transversal e analítico conduzido entre escolares de 12 anos de idade de um município brasileiro de grande porte populacional. Os exames foram realizados por 24 cirurgiões-dentistas treinados e calibrados com auxilio de 24 anotadores. A coleta de dados ocorreu em 36 escolas sorteadas das 89 escolas públicas do município. Foram conduzidas análises descritivas, univariadas e múltiplas. Dos 2510 escolares incluídos no estudo, 2211 relataram já ter recebido informações sobre como evitar problemas bucais. O acesso a tais informações foi maior entre os que utilizaram serviços odontológicos privado/convênio; e menor entre aqueles que utilizaram o serviço para tratamento, os que avaliaram o serviço como regular ou ruim/péssimo, os que utilizam como meio de higiene bucal somente escova dente/escova dente e higienização a língua e os que relataram não estarem satisfeitos com a aparência de seus dentes. Conclui-se que a maioria dos escolares teve acesso a informações sobre como evitar problemas bucais, o qual esteve associado a características dos serviços de saúde, comportamentos e desfechos de saúde.

The scope of this study is to identify the prevalence of access to information about how to prevent oral problems among schoolchildren in the public school network, as well as the factors associated with such access. This is a cross-sectional and analytical study conducted among 12-year-old schoolchildren in a Brazilian municipality with a large population. The examinations were performed by 24 trained dentists and calibrated with the aid of 24 recorders. Data collection occurred in 36 public schools selected from the 89 public schools of the city. Descriptive, univariate and multiple analyses were conducted. Of the 2510 schoolchildren included in the study, 2211 reported having received information about how to prevent oral problems. Access to such information was greater among those who used private dental services; and lower among those who used the service for treatment, who evaluated the service as regular or bad/awful. The latter use toothbrush only or toothbrush and tongue scrubbing as a means of oral hygiene and who reported not being satisfied with the appearance of their teeth. The conclusion drawn is that the majority of schoolchildren had access to information about how to prevent oral problems, though access was associated with the characteristics of health services, health behavior and outcomes.

Application of Regulatory T Cells in Transplantation Field / 대한이식학회지

The development of immunosuppressant treatments has enabled remarkable progress in the tissue and organ transplantation field by helping to prevent acute graft rejection. However, complications related to transplantation, such as infection by bacteria and viruses, and the occurrence of cancers resulting from prolonged immune suppression are major obstacles to overcome. Therefore, transplantation immunology research efforts should focus on the induction of donor-specific immune tolerance which preserves patient immune competence which promotes infection and cancer surveillance. Additionally, lifelong administration of immunosuppressants should be forgone in preference to short term therapies. In the 1990s, Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi identified the CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells which develop in the thymus, and demonstrated that these cells play crucial roles in the maintenance of immune self tolerance. Studies which followed proved that these regulatory T cells are important to the control of autoimmune disease and prevention of graft rejection. Regulatory T cells have also been found to induce immune tolerance in rodent models. In this review, we discuss several considerations for the use of regulatory T cell therapy in the clinical transplantation field.

Peptide/Gene Therapy for the Prevention of Diabetes / 한양의대학술지

Pancreatic betacell function deteriorates continuously in type 2 diabetes patients despite optimal treatment, which has been attributed to hyperglycemia itself via formation of excess reactive oxygen species. Studies of animals with spontaneous autoimmune diabetes have revealed that autoreactive T cells that mediate islet betacell destruction can be manipulated by the administration of cytokines, especially Th2 cytokines. Restoration of self tolerance at certain time period may facilitate islet cell regeneration and may enable complete recovery from diabetes. To overcome short halflives of cytokines, we would like to deliver genes which enable cytokine production in the body. We also induced antiapoptotic molecules in betacells, the protective effect of which we screened systematically, applying new gene/peptide delivery strategies. In this study, the effect of peptide delivery using specific carriers was evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. In view of the immunoregulatory activity of Th2 cytokines, we investigated whether systemic or local cytokine gene therapy stops islet destructive autoimmunity and regenerates betacells of the pancreas in NOD mice. In addition, treatment of betacells with the antioxidant metallothionein resulted in a significant reduction in pathological changes and restored GSIS. Specific inhibition of NF-kappaB activation by retroviral transduction of dominant negative inhibitor of NF-kappaB also protected betacells. Therefore, these results suggest the protective influence of these gene/ peptide delivery as an adjunctive measure to clinical islet transplantation may enable us to improve the results of the cell-based treatment to overcome the battle against the debilitating disease of diabetes mellitus.

Receptor selection and B cell immune tolerance / 生物医学工程学杂志

The immune system of mammalian has developed sophisticated mechanism to deal with diverse unknown antigens by random rearrangement of V, D and J antigen gene fragments. The immune self-tolerance is the mechanism to avoid self-destruction by the gene rearrangement generated autoreactive lymphocytes. Until recently it was believed that autoreactive lymphocytes are either deleted or rendered unable to respond by the supposed cell or clone selection mechanism. However, recent findings from a number of laboratories suggest instead of cell selection but receptor selection plays an essential role in immune self-tolerance. Receptor selection is carried out by secondary or nested rearrangement of antigen receptor gene fragments, and can occur at different stages of lymphocyte differentiation. Furthermore, secondary rearrangement of receptor gene also plays an important role in shaping immune response after the interaction of receptor with antigen by altering its specificity.

Hormonal regulation of ICAM-1 gene expression in thyroid cells, FRTL-5

Our previous works have shown that human thyroid follicular cells from Graves' disease and FRTL-5 rat thyroid cells express the intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) molecule and its expression is upregulated by several cytokines, interferon-gamma, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1 beta and interleukin-6. We used FRTL-5 cells which show hormonal dependence of growth and function for the study of hormonal regulation of ICAM-1 gene, We studied ICAM-1 mRNA expression and promoter regulation after cloning of rat ICAM-1 promoter. We found very interesting findings that thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and forskolin downregulates steady state MHC class land ICAM-1 mRNA levels in FRTL-5 cells; furthermore, TSH/cAMP inhibit cytokines (interferon-gamma,tumor necrosis factor-alpha)-mediated maximal ICAM-1 mRNA expression, In addition, hydrocortisone and insulin differentially regulate the ICAM-1 mRNA levels; hydrocortisone markedly suppresses the mRNA level but insulin partially recovers hydrocortisone mediated ICAM-1 suppression, The interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha increases full ICAM-1 promoter (pCAM-1822) activity and this cytokine mediated increase of the promoter activity is also inhibited by TSH and forskolin, Thus TSH/cAMP pathways play roles as a antagonistic action for maximal expression of ICAM-1 gene by these cytokines. We propose this TSH action is one of physiologic mechanisms to preserve self tolerance in face of abnormal cytokine challenges in systemic inflammatory condition or acute phase response.

Participación de la apoptosis en los procesos inmunológicos / Participation of apoptosis in immunologic processes

Apoptosis is a biological process that leads certain cells to die in a controlled fashion. Its biochemical manifestation is DNA fragmentation due to the action of an endonuclease and morphological consequences is the formation of apoptic bodies, seen with lught or electron microscopy. Apoptosis is universally important in embryogenesis and morphologenesis of all tissues. Lately, a fundamental role of apoptosis in the physiology and physiopathology of immunological events has been uncovered. This review details the role of apoptosis in the development of auto-tolerance, immunological memory and AIDS pathogenesis