Epidermotropism of T cells correlates with intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM1) expression in human papillomavirus (HPV)-induced lesions

Venn-diaNet : venn diagram based network propagation analysis framework for comparing multiple biological experiments

BACKGROUND

The main research topic in this paper is how to compare multiple biological experiments using transcriptome data, where each experiment is measured and designed to compare control and treated samples. Comparison of multiple biological experiments is usually performed in terms of the number of DEGs in an arbitrary combination of biological experiments. This process is usually facilitated with Venn diagram but there are several issues when Venn diagram is used to compare and analyze multiple experiments in terms of DEGs. First, current Venn diagram tools do not provide systematic analysis to prioritize genes. Because that current tools generally do not fully focus to prioritize genes, genes that are located in the segments in the Venn diagram (especially, intersection) is usually difficult to rank. Second, elucidating the phenotypic difference only with the lists of DEGs and expression values is challenging when the experimental designs have the combination of treatments. Experiment designs that aim to find the synergistic effect of the combination of treatments are very difficult to find without an informative system.

RESULTS

We introduce Venn-diaNet, a Venn diagram based analysis framework that uses network propagation upon protein-protein interaction network to prioritizes genes from experiments that have multiple DEG lists. We suggest that the two issues can be effectively handled by ranking or prioritizing genes with segments of a Venn diagram. The user can easily compare multiple DEG lists with gene rankings, which is easy to understand and also can be coupled with additional analysis for their purposes. Our system provides a web-based interface to select seed genes in any of areas in a Venn diagram and then perform network propagation analysis to measure the influence of the selected seed genes in terms of ranked list of DEGs.

CONCLUSIONS

We suggest that our system can logically guide to select seed genes without additional prior knowledge that makes us free from the seed selection of network propagation issues. We showed that Venn-diaNet can reproduce the research findings reported in the original papers that have experiments that compare two, three and eight experiments. Venn-diaNet is freely available at: http://biohealth.snu.ac.kr/software/venndianet.

The antigen-presenting environment in normal and human papillomavirus (HPV)-related premalignant cervical epithelium

The activation of HPV-specific T cells within the cervical microenvironment is likely to play an important part in the natural history of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). The extent and the type of T cell activation will depend critically on the expression of MHC, costimulatory cell surface molecules and cytokines by keratinocytes and Langerhans cells within the cervical lesion. Expression of MHC class II (HLA-A-DR and -DQ), costimulatory/adhesion molecules (CD11a/18, CD50, CD54, CD58 and CD86) and cytokines (tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and IL-10) was therefore investigated by immunohistochemistry in normal squamous epithelium (n = 12), low-grade (n = 23) and high-grade (n = 18) squamous intraepithelial lesions of the cervix. CIN progression was associated with de novo expression of HLA-DR and CD54, and increased expression of CD58 by keratinocytes. However, significantly, there was no expression of any adhesion/costimulation molecule by epithelial Langerhans cells in any cervical biopsy studied. Furthermore, TNF-alpha, a potent activator of Langerhans cells, was expressed constitutively by basal keratinocytes in normal cervix (12+/12). but expression of this cytokine was absent in a number of CIN samples (20+/23 for low-grade, 12+/18 for high-grade CIN). Conversely, the suppressive cytokine IL-10 was absent in normal epithelium (0+/12), but was up-regulated in a number of CIN lesions (12+/23 for low-grade; 8+/18 for high-grade CIN). The restricted expression of costimulation/adhesion molecules and the nature of the cytokine microenvironment within the epithelium may act to limit effective immune responses in some CIN lesions.

Phase I safety and antigenicity of TA-GW: a recombinant HPV6 L2E7 vaccine for the treatment of genital warts

A phase I double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study was carried out in healthy subjects to assess the safety and immunogenicity of TA-GW, a recombinant HPV6 L2E7 fusion protein vaccine for the treatment of genital warts. Forty-two healthy male volunteers were randomised to receive three intramuscular injections of either 0, 3, 30 or 300 microg of recombinant L2E7 adsorbed onto Alhydrogel. Two vaccination schedules were compared: weeks 0, 1 and 4 (accelerated schedule) and weeks 0, 4 and 8 (classical schedule). Subjects were monitored for adverse events throughout. Immunogenicity was assessed by measuring L2E7 specific in vitro T cell proliferative responses, production of IFNgamma and IL-5 and serum antibodies. Dose-dependent and long-lived T and B cell immune responses were elicited by TA-GW with both vaccination schedules. In conclusion, TA-GW is both safe, well-tolerated and immunogenic. The results allow the selection of the 300-microg vaccine formulation and accelerated vaccination schedule for phase II trials in patients with genital warts.

Induction of the expression of gag protein in HTLV-I infected lymphocytes by anti-ICAM 1 antibody in vitro

Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM 1) is an inducible protein ligand which is up-regulated during inflammation and is either not constitutively expressed or is only expressed at low levels. The expression of ICAM 1 increases in HTLV-I infected T cell lines as well as in CD4+ T-cells of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) from HAM/TSP patients. After PBLs of HAM/TSP patients were cultured in the presence of stimulating anti-ICAM 1 antibody, the expression of the HTLV-I gag protein in PBLs was observed by both immuno-histostaining and western blot analysis using HTLV-I Ag-specific mouse monoclonal antibody. These data thus suggested that the signal transduction via adhesion molecule, ICAM 1 could induce the transcription of the HTLV-I gene and this might therefore play an important role in the pathogenesis of HAM/TSP.

Phenotypic changes in Langerhans' cells after infection with arboviruses: a role in the immune response to epidermally acquired viral infection?

The role of Langerhans cells (LC) in the initiation of an immune response to a viral infection remains unclear. In vivo epidermal infection with the arboviruses West Nile virus and Semliki Forest virus significantly increased the expression of major histocompatibility complex class II antigens, CD54, and CD80 on LC. Thus, during an epidermally acquired viral infection, local LC appear to mature to a phenotype approximating that of lymphoid dendritic cells. This change may be important in the activation of naïve T cells and the subsequent clearance of viral infection.

Expression of ICAM-3/CD50 in normal and diseased skin

ICAM-3 is a newly recognized adhesion molecule, which is a member of the immunoglobulin supergene family of ICAMs, and has been shown to be identical with the CD50 antigen. Recent functional studies have shown that ICAM-3 is a ligand for LFA-1, and plays an important part in immune reactions. To date, very few data exist in the literature concerning its expression in the skin. In the present study, we investigated the expression of ICAM-3 in normal skin and in 98 biopsy specimens of various inflammatory and neoplastic dermatoses. ICAM-3 was found to be expressed by epidermal CD1a+ Langerhans cells, by cells of Langerhans cell histiocytosis, by T and B lymphocytes infiltrating the dermis in cutaneous lymphomas and in a wide spectrum of inflammatory dermatoses. Epidermal keratinocytes were consistently negative; endothelial expression of ICAM-3 was observed in six of the 98 cases. These results show that ICAM-3 is constitutively and widely expressed by cells participating in inflammatory dermatoses (including Langerhans cells and T and B lymphocytes), and that it can be, albeit rarely, induced on endothelial cells and dermal dendrocytes. These results highlight the important part that ICAM-3 may play in cutaneous inflammatory and immune reactions.

An investigation into the mechanisms by which human dermis does not significantly contribute to the rejection of allo-skin grafts

The dermis is an important element in skin substitutes and in allo- or xeno-skin grafts. However, the reason(s) why dermis does not significantly induce the immune rejection reaction in vivo remain(s) hitherto unknown. To clarify the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, we undertook the evaluation of: (i) the response of the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBM) to isolated allo-dermal cells or to pieces of or to whole allo-dermis, (ii) the migration and homing of the PBM inside allo-dermis or split thickness allo-skin, (iii) the distribution of the ICAM-1 protein within skin, and (iv) the features expressed by the PBM that migrate into allo-skin. The results herein presented show that (1) the isolated allo-dermal cells had the highest and the whole allo-dermis the lowest capacity to initiate the reactive proliferation of the PBM in vitro; (2) in an allo-skin/PBM co-culture model, most of the PBM slowly, yet preferentially, migrated to and homed inside the allo-epidermal compartment, instead of staying in the allo-dermis; (3) under the conditions employed, rather little ICAM-1 could be immunohistochemically detected within the epidermis, conversely, both the dermal cells and the dermal matrix were ICAM-1 positive; and (4) most of the PBM migrating into the allo-skin pieces expressed either the CD18 or the CD19 or the CD8 molecule, yet very few of them exhibited the LFA-1-antigen, and none of them were found to be CD4 positive.2+Therefore, we conclude that because

Expression of immune associated surface antigens of keratinocytes in human papillomavirus-derived lesions

The expression of immune associated surface antigens of keratinocytes was studied in human papillomavirus (HPV) derived lesions in order to determine whether HPV types have a regulatory role in the pathogenesis of papillomas. A series of cutaneous and mucosal lesions were immunolabeled with monoclonal antibodies to the major histocompatibility complex class 1 (beta 2-microglobulin) and 2 (HLA-DR antigens), intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM-1) and glycoprotein CD36 (OKM5) as well as CD1a (Langerhans cells), CD4, CD8 (T cells) and CD11a (LFA1 antigen). Testing for the presence of HPV was carried out by in situ hybridization with biotinylated probes for viral DNA detection and typing. We observed a drastic reduction or a loss of beta 2-microglobulin by keratinocytes from cutaneous lesions in correlation with the disappearance of Langerhans cells. Only mild alterations were observed in mucosal lesions. HLA-DR expressed by keratinocytes was only detected in condylomas and laryngeal papillomas and was usually associated with a dense inflammatory reaction. This HLA-DR expression may be correlated with an up-regulation of ICAM-1 and the presence of LFA1 positive leukocytes, mainly of CD8 phenotype, in the epithelium. CD36 was detected on differentiated keratinocytes of all lesions; its expression seems related to the proliferation state of the lesions and probably does not represent an immune marker. The different reactivity patterns observed in cutaneous and mucosal lesions may reflect: 1. different roles for mucosal and cutaneous HPV types in the induction of immunoregulatory surface antigens of keratinocytes, or 2. the changing nature of the cytokines released by mononuclear cells and infected keratinocytes in these lesions.