IgM natural autoantibodies against bromelain-treated mouse red blood cells recognise carbonic anhydrase

Bevacizumab: A new take on therapy of muscle phase of Trichinella spiralis infection

Trichinellosis is a zoonosis that causes health and economic problems worldwide. The available therapy is far from perfect as the conventional drugs used against Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis) are active against the intestinal adult parasites but much less active against encapsulated larvae in muscles. Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate the effect of the anti-angiogenic agent, bevacizumab, on the muscle larvae of T. spiralis. For this aim, T. spiralis-infected mice were treated by two different doses of bevacizumab, thereafter larval counts as well as biochemical and pathological changes were evaluated in the muscles. The larval burden was reduced in the muscles of treated mice, denoting a detrimental effect of bevacizumab against encapsulated Trichinella larvae. Moreover, there was marked improvement of muscle inflammation with the treatment, evidenced by reduction of the proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-α) and regression of the inflammatory infiltrates in histological sections. Amelioration of oxidative stress in the muscle was also observed in treated animals with reduction of malondialdehyde and carbonic anhydrase III and increase in superoxide dismutase levels. Finally, the treatment induced downregulation of the expression of VEGF and CD31, denoting suppressed angiogenesis. All these beneficial effects were found to be dose dependent. In conclusion, bevacizumab exhibited anthelmintic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-angiogenic activities against Trichinella during the muscular phase of infection. Therefore, bevacizumab could be considered as a useful adjuvant treatment in the late stages of trichinellosis.

Germline V repertoires: Origin, maintenance, diversification

In our view, Melvin Cohn (Scand J Immunol. 2018;87:e12640) has set out the logical guidelines towards a resolution of the very real enigma of the selectability of vertebrate germline Ig V repertoires under the current evolutionary paradigm…" A somatically derived repertoire scrambles this (germline VL + VH) substrate so that its specificities are lost, making it un-selectable in the germline. Consequently, evolution faced an incompatibility." It is argued here in Reply that a reverse transcriptase-based soma-to-germline process (S->G) targeting germline V segment arrays goes some considerable way to resolving fundamental contradictions on the origin, maintenance and then real-time adaptive diversification of these limited sets of V segments encoded within various V repertoire arrays.

Soma-to-germline feedback is implied by the extreme polymorphism at IGHV relative to MHC: The manifest polymorphism of the MHC appears greatly exceeded at Immunoglobulin loci, suggesting antigen-selected somatic V mutants penetrate Weismann's Barrier

Soma-to-germline feedback is forbidden under the neo-Darwinian paradigm. Nevertheless, there is a growing realization it occurs frequently in immunoglobulin (Ig) variable (V) region genes. This is a surprising development. It arises from a most unlikely source in light of the exposure of co-author EJS to the haplotype data of RL Dawkins and others on the polymorphism of the Major Histocompatibility Complex, which is generally assumed to be the most polymorphic region in the genome (spanning ∼4 Mb). The comparison between the magnitude of MHC polymorphism with estimates for the human heavy chain immunoglobulin V locus (spanning ∼1 Mb), suggests IGHV could be many orders of magnitude more polymorphic than the MHC. This conclusion needs airing in the literature as it implies generational churn and soma-to-germline gene feedback. Pedigree-based experimental strategies to resolve the IGHV issue are outlined.