• Toxicological Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2000

The immunosuppressive effects of thirty nine chemicals chosen by their potential toxicity were evaluated using a three-step testing method. The immunotoxicity test method developed in this study consisted of three simple assays of lymphoproliferation, mixed leukocyte response, and interleukin (IL)-2 production. The first step was mitogen-induced proliferation assay. Ten chemicals showed the inhibitory effects on the mitogen (lipopolysaccharide or concanavalin A)-induced proliferation in dose-dependent manners. The second step was mixed lymphocyte response. This step crosschecked the growth-suppressive effects detected at the first step. All of 10 chemicals, which showed suppression of lymphoproliferation, also exhibited the suppressive effects on the mixed lymphocyte response in the similar range of chemical concentration. The third step was planned to determine whether or not this growth suppression was mediated through an early activation of T-cell, which could be represented with IL-2 production. Six out of 10 chemicals decreased the interleukin-2 production in the similar concentration range used in the step 1 and 2. These results suggest that those 6 chemicals might have their targets on the signal transduction path-way toward the IL-2 production. In the meantime the other 4 chemicals might have their targets after the IL-2 production signal. Taken all together, the three-step test would be simple, fast, and efficient to deter-mine whether or not the chemical has immunosuppressive effects.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.847-854
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• 2004

Allergy is a multi-factorial disease influenced by genetic and environmental factors. As the number of allergy-affected people is increasing in developed countries, there is an increasing interest in genetic predisposition to the allergy. A number of genes and chromosomal region have been identified to be linked to allergy including rhinitis, asthma and atopy. In order to understand the genetic background for the allergy-affected people, we investigated genetic predisposition among students enrolled in Busan Science Academy. Among 138 students, about 30% students had some allergy-related disorder including rhinitis, asthma and atopy. We analyzed several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within two genes, Inter-leukin-4(IL-4) and Interleukin-4 receptor(IL-4R), which are involved in the induction of allergy reaction with the Th2 immunity. For 96 samples obtained from students, we analyzed 9 SNPs including -590 C/T and -34 C/T in IL-4, and I75V, Q576R, E375A, e406R, 5411L, S761P and S727A in IL-4R. From the analysis, these SNPs showed slight differences among normal and allergy-affected students, but these differences was not enough to predict the predisposition to the allergy. In contrast to previous reports, we could not find SNP(s) related with allergy. These results suggest that genetic tests recently performed in Korea widely have to be reassessed for its validity of genetic predisposition. [Supported by grants from MOST]