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Maternal diet modulates the infant microbiome and intestinal Flt3L necessary for dendritic cell development and immunity to respiratory infectionPoor maternal diet during pregnancy is a risk factor for severe lower respiratory infections in the offspring, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that in mice a maternal low-fiber diet led to enhanced LRI severity in infants because of delayed plasmacytoid dendritic cell recruitment and perturbation of regulatory T cell expansion in the lungs.
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Protection against neonatal respiratory viral infection via maternal treatment during pregnancy with the benign immune training agent OM-85Incomplete maturation of immune regulatory functions at birth is antecedent to the heightened risk for severe respiratory infections during infancy. Our forerunner animal model studies demonstrated that maternal treatment with the microbial-derived immune training agent OM-85 during pregnancy promotes accelerated postnatal maturation of mechanisms that regulate inflammatory processes in the offspring airways.
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Innate Immune Training for Prevention of Recurrent Wheeze in Early ChildhoodPat Deborah Holt Strickland PhD, DSc, FRCPath, FRCPI, FAA PhD Emeritus Honorary Researcher Head, Pregnancy and Early Life Immunology Patrick.Holt@
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OPTIMUM study protocol: an adaptive randomised controlled trial of a mixed whole-cell/acellular pertussis vaccine scheduleCombination vaccines containing whole-cell pertussis antigens were phased out from the Australian national immunisation programme between 1997 and 1999 and replaced by the less reactogenic acellular pertussis (aP) antigens. In a large case-control study of Australian children born during the transition period, those with allergist diagnosed IgE-mediated food allergy were less likely to have received whole-cell vaccine in early infancy than matched population controls (OR: 0.77 (95% CI, 0.62 to 0.95)). We hypothesise that a single dose of whole-cell vaccine in early infancy is protective against IgE-mediated food allergy.
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Genetic polymorphism of KIR2DL4 (CD158d), a putative NK cell receptor for HLA-G, does not influence susceptibility to asthmaNo reproducible associations with KIR2DL4 genotype were identified, leading us to conclude that the KIR2DL4 9A/10A polymorphism has no influence...
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Neonatal antigen-presenting cells are functionally more quiescent in children born under traditional compared with modern environmental conditionsOne explanation for the high burden of allergic and autoimmune diseases in industrialized countries is inappropriate immune development under modern...
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Virus infection and allergy in the development of asthma: What is the connection?Information is accumulating which implicates airway inflammation resulting from respiratory viral infections, acting against a background of atopy.
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Maternal serum vitamin D levels during pregnancy and offspring neurocognitive developmentThe objective was to determine the association between maternal serum 25(OH)-vitamin D concentrations and behavioural, emotional and language outcomes...
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A novel role for interleukin-1 receptor signaling in the developmental regulation of immune responses to endotoxinSuggests that IL-1R1 expression provides an additional level of Myd88-dependent signaling during this period of heighted susceptibility to infection.
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T-cell activation genes differentially expressed at birth in CD4+ T-cells from children who develop IgE food allergyTo show underlying mechanisms, we examined differences in T-cell gene expression in samples at birth and at 1 year in children with and without IgE allergy.