Chemokines are key mediators of leukocyte recruitment during pathogenic insult and also play a prominent role in homeostasis. While most chemokine receptors bind to multiple chemokines, CCR6 is unique in that this receptor is one of only a few that can bind only a single chemokine ligand, CCL20. CCR6 is an important receptor that is involved in regulating several aspects of mucosal immunity, including the ability to mediate the recruitment of immature dendritic cells (DCs) and mature DCs, and professional antigen presenting cells (APCs) to the sites of epithelial inflammation. Further, CCR6 mediates the homing of both CD4 + T (T-helper; Th) cells and DCs to the gut mucosal lymphoid tissue. DCs, which are known to be essential immune cells in innate immunity and in the initiation of adaptive immunity, play a central role in initiating a primary immune response Herein, we summarize the role of CCR6 in immune responses at epithelial and mucosal sites in both the lung and gut based on a review of the current literature.

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Pneumoperitoneum increased implantation of free intra-abdominal cancer cells at wound sites on the abdominal wall or within the abdominal cavity in this animal model. The use of pneumoperitoneum during laparoscopy in patients with colon cancer should only be performed in a protocol setting to evaluate the effect of pneumoperitoneum on the treatment of cancer.

Objective This study examined the effectiveness of prospective stratification to identify and target high-dose glucocorticoid therapy for subjects developing lethal sepsis. Design Prospective, randomized, laboratory-controlled experiment. Setting University research laboratory. Subjects Adult female outbred CD-1 mice. Interventions Mice (n = 88) were subjected to sepsis induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). Mice were prospectively divided into two groups, predicted to die (P-DIE) or predicted to live (P-LIVE), based on plasma levels of interleukin (IL)-6 obtained 6 hours after CLP. Following stratification, dexamethasone (DEX, 2.5 mg/kg, two doses) was administered to half the animals in each group whereas the other half received saline. Measurements and Main Results Without stratification, DEX conferred no benefit. In the P-DIE group, none of saline-treated mice lived whereas 40% of the DEX-treated mice survived. Of the nonsurvivors, 67% had death delayed by 24 – 48 hours compared with saline-treated mice. Twenty-four hours post-CLP, the lymphocyte count was higher in the P-DIE than in the P-LIVE mice regardless of treatment status, whereas the opposite trend was noted for neutrophils. Plasma cytokine and cytokine inhibitor levels in the saline-treated animals showed that levels in the P-DIE group were higher than those in the P-LIVE group (e.g., 60 vs. 10 ng/mL for IL-6 and 453 vs.129 ng/mL for IL-1 receptor antagonist). Interestingly, DEX therapy did not decrease 24 hours post-CLP circulating cytokines in either the P-DIE or the P-LIVE group. Conclusions Following CLP-induced sepsis, early and accurate survival prediction allows targeted immunosuppression that improves survival. Better survival occurred without suppression of the typical proinflammatory mediators, suggesting that the deaths were not mediated by excessive cytokine-driven inflammation. Nonspecific anti-inflammatory/immunosuppressive treatment administered to more rigorously defined cohorts may be more successful than mediator-specific drugs used indiscriminately.