Scholars@Duke
George James Cianciolo

George James Cianciolo

Associate Professor Emeritus of Pathology
Pathology
george.cianciolo@duke.edu
2424 Erwin Road, Hock Plaza, Suite 405, Durham, NC 27710
DUMC 3712, Durham, NC 27710

Featured Works

Alpha 2-macroglobulin binds CpG oligodeoxynucleotides and enhances their immunostimulatory properties by a receptor-dependent mechanism.

Journal article J Leukoc Biol · February 2008 Featured Publication CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) stimulate the immune system and are under evaluation as treatments and vaccine adjuvants for infectious diseases, cancer, and immune system disorders. Although they have shown promising results in numerous clinical trials, t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Probing the stability of native and activated forms of alpha2-macroglobulin.

Journal article Int J Biol Macromol · January 1, 2008 Featured Publication alpha2-Macroglobulin (alpha2M) is a 718 kDa homotetrameric proteinase inhibitor which undergoes a large conformational change upon activation. This conformational change can occur either by proteolytic attack on an approximately 40 amino acid stretch, the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Incorporation of low molecular weight molecules into alpha(2)-macroglobulin by nucleophilic exchange.

Journal article Biochem Biophys Res Commun · June 1, 2007 Featured Publication alpha(2)-Macroglobulin (alpha(2)M) is a proteinase inhibitor that functions by a trapping mechanism which has been exploited such that the receptor-recognized, activated form (alpha(2)M( *)) can be employed to target antigens to antigen-presenting cells. A ... Full text Link to item Cite

LMP-420, a small-molecule inhibitor of TNF-alpha, reduces replication of HIV-1 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in human cells.

Journal article AIDS Res Ther · March 31, 2006 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Co-infections of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. Tb) are steadily increasing and represent a major health crisis in many developing countries. Both pathogens individually stimulate tumor necrosis factor-alp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inhibition of endothelial activation: a new way to treat cerebral malaria?

Journal article PLoS Med · September 2005 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Malaria is still a major public health problem, partly because the pathogenesis of its major complication, cerebral malaria (CM), remains incompletely understood. However tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is thought to play a key role in the developm ... Full text Link to item Cite

A retroviral-derived peptide phosphorylates protein kinase D/protein kinase Cmu involving phospholipase C and protein kinase C.

Journal article Peptides · May 2003 Featured Publication CKS-17, a synthetic peptide representing a unique amino acid motif which is highly conserved in retroviral transmembrane proteins and other immunoregulatory proteins, induces selective immunomodulatory functions, both in vitro and in vivo, and activates in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increased immunogenicity of HIV envelope subunit complexed with alpha2-macroglobulin when combined with monophosphoryl lipid A and GM-CSF.

Journal article Vaccine · May 22, 2002 Featured Publication Critical to the success of HIV-1 subunit vaccines is the development of strategies to augment vaccine immunogenicity. Successful adjuvants must not only improve immunogenicity above current adjuvant levels, but must also decrease the dose of immunogen requ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Covalent complexes of antigen and alpha(2)-macroglobulin: evidence for dramatically-increased immunogenicity.

Journal article Vaccine · November 12, 2001 Featured Publication A safe, effective, more potent adjuvant than currently available would be beneficial in developing new therapeutics and diagnostic reagents. We report here a technique for the rapid, efficient incorporation of non-proteolytic antigens into alpha(2)-macrogl ... Full text Link to item Cite

Immunosuppressive retroviral peptides: immunopathological implications for immunosuppressive influences of retroviral infections.

Journal article J Leukoc Biol · June 1997 Featured Publication Studies of the effects of retroviruses on the immune system, which date back through thirty years of investigations, are reviewed. In the earliest published studies in the 1960s, it was demonstrated that mice infected with oncogenic viruses were immunosupp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Interleukin 10 is induced by recombinant HIV-1 Nef protein involving the calcium/calmodulin-dependent phosphodiesterase signal transduction pathway.

Journal article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · April 1, 1997 Featured Publication HIV-1 Nef protein shares a significant homology with the immunosuppressive and highly conserved retroviral transmembrane protein p15E. In the present study, extracellular Nef protein is shown to induce interleukin (IL)-10 mRNA expression in human periphera ... Full text Link to item Cite

Induction of intracellular cAMP by a synthetic retroviral envelope peptide: a possible mechanism of immunopathogenesis in retroviral infections.

Journal article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · June 6, 1995 Featured Publication A synthetic heptadecapeptide, CKS-17, represents the highly conserved amino acid sequences occurring within the transmembrane envelope protein of many animal and human retroviruses. CKS-17 has been demonstrated to exhibit suppressive properties for numerou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transcriptional down-regulation of tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene expression by a synthetic peptide homologous to retroviral envelope protein.

Journal article J Immunol · September 1, 1993 Featured Publication We have previously shown that a synthetic peptide (CKS-17) homologous to retroviral envelope protein suppresses the accumulation of superantigen staphylococcal enterotoxin-induced TNF-alpha mRNA in human PBMC and in highly purified human monocytes. The pre ... Link to item Cite

Antiinflammatory effects of neoplasms.

Journal article Res Immunol · May 1993 Featured Publication Full text Link to item Cite

A synthetic peptide homologous to retroviral envelope protein down-regulates TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma mRNA expression.

Journal article J Leukoc Biol · October 1992 Featured Publication We investigated the influence of CKS-17, a synthetic heptadecapeptide that corresponds to a highly conserved domain of the immunosuppressive retroviral envelope protein p15E, on staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB)-induced TNF-alpha gene expression in human ... Full text Link to item Cite

A soluble inhibitor of T lymphocyte function induced by HIV-1 infection of CD4+ T cells: characterization of a cellular protein and its relationship to p15E.

Journal article Cell Immunol · July 1990 Featured Publication Soluble suppressor factor (SSF), first described in association with HIV-1 infection in vivo, is a molecule(s) capable of inhibiting T cell-dependent immune reactivity. Its relationship to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was further defined as supernata ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inhibition of lymphocyte proliferation by a synthetic peptide homologous to retroviral envelope proteins.

Journal article Science · October 25, 1985 Featured Publication The retroviral transmembrane envelope protein p15E is immunosuppressive in that it inhibits immune responses of lymphocytes, monocytes, and macrophages. A region of p15E has been conserved among murine and feline retroviruses; a homologous region is also f ... Full text Link to item Cite