Parabens, alkyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid, are widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, personal care products and as food additives to inhibit microbial growth and extend product shelf life. Consumers of these compounds are frequently exposed via the skin, lips, eyes, oral mucosa, nails, and hair. Parabens are estrogenic molecules but exert weaker activity than natural estrogens, which would imply a low risk. Consistent with this idea, a number of recent commission reports from different countries suggested that parabens pose a negligible endocrine-disrupting risk at the recommended doses. However, individuals are not routinely exposed to a single paraben, and most of the available paraben toxicity data, reviewed in these reports, are from single-exposure studies. Further, assessing the additive and cumulative risk of multiple paraben exposure from daily use of multiple cosmetic and/or personal care products is presently not possible based on current studies. In this review, current and recent studies of paraben exposure and public health policies as well as critical gaps in the knowledge are discussed and new research directions regarding multiple exposures and novel target cohorts are recommended.

Inflammaging, defined as chronic, low-grade, systemic inflammation that increases with age in the absence of overt infection, is a phenomenon that was first described in 2000 as a member of a growing number of age-related processes that had pleiotropic effects on immune function and disease susceptibility. Although many pathological consequences have been attributed to inflammaging, it remains distinct from immunosenescence and not completely understood. A resurgence of interest in inflammaging has been spurred by recent work demonstrating roles for senescent cells in driving chronic inflammatory signaling and defining the cellular and molecular triggers that sustain cytokine production during aging. Alongside elevations in pro-inflammatory mediators (e.g., IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β), attention to anti-inflammatory mediators (e.g., IL-10, IL-1Ra) and composite ratios (e.g., IL-6:IL-10) can better index inflammatory balance in older adults. In this review, we summarize the characterization of inflammaging mechanisms, highlight roles for chronic inflammation that are clearly defined in immune system remodeling, and outline questions regarding inflammaging functions in sex differences, hormonal regulation, autoimmunity, and skin biology that still require further exploration.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate effects of tannic acid (TA) on growth performance, fecal moisture content, oocyst shedding, gut permeability, lesion score, intestinal morphology, apparent ileal digestibility, and the antioxidant and immune system of broilers infected with Eimeria maxima. A total of 420 one-day-old broilers were distributed to five treatments with seven replicates of 12 birds. The five treatments were the (1) sham-challenged control (SCC; birds fed a control diet and administrated with PBS); (2) challenged control (CC; birds fed a control diet and inoculated with E. maxima); (3) tannic acid 0.5 (TA0.5; CC + 500 mg/kg TA); (4) tannic acid 2.75 (TA2.75; CC + 2750 mg/kg TA); and (5) tannic acid 5 (TA5; CC + 5000 mg/kg TA). The TA2.75 group had significantly lower gut permeability compared to the CC group at 5 days post-infection (dpi). Supplementation of TA linearly reduced oocyst shedding of E. maxima at 7 to 9 dpi (p < 0.05). At 13 dpi, the TA2.75 group had significantly greater apparent ileal digestibility (AID) of dry matter (DM) and organic matter (OM) compared to the CC group. At 13 dpi, supplementation of TA linearly increased jejunal villus height (VH). Thus, this study showed that supplementation of TA at levels of 500 to 2750 mg/kg has the potential to be an anti-coccidial agent against E. maxima in broilers.

To investigate the role of interferon regulatory factor-1 (IRF-1) in the development of lupus nephritis, IRF-1^–/– genotype mice were bred onto the MRL/lpJfas^lpr (MRL/lpr) background. We examined kidney mesangial cell function and disease progression. Endpoints evaluated included inflammatory mediators, autoantibody production, immune complex deposition, renal pathology, T cell subset analysis, and duration of survival. Mesangial cells cultured from IRF-1^–/– mice produced significantly lower levels of nitric oxide and IL-12 but not TNF-α when stimulated with LPS + IFN-γ. IRF-1^–/– mice showed less aggravated dermatitis compared to the wild-type mice. Anti-double-stranded DNA production and proteinuria were significantly decreased in IRF-1^–/– mice compared to IRF-1^+/+ mice. IgG and C3 deposition as well as glomerulonephritis were decreased in IRF-1^–/– mice at 26 wk of age compared to the IRF-1^+/+ mice. Splenic CD4^–CD8^–CD44⁺ T cells were decreased while CD4⁺CD25⁺ T cells were increased in the IRF-1^–/– mice when compared to IRF-1^+/+ mice. Survival rates (ED₅₀) were 22 wk for IRF-1^+/+ mice and 45 wk for IRF-1^–/– mice. These findings suggest an important role of IRF-1 in mediating renal disease in MRL/lpr mice.

Newcastle disease (ND) is one of the most economically important poultry diseases. Despite intensive efforts with current vaccination programs, this disease still occurs worldwide, causing significant mortality even in vaccinated flocks. This has been partially attributed to a gap in immunity during the post-hatch period due to the presence of maternal antibodies that negatively impact the replication of the commonly used live vaccines. In ovo vaccines have multiple advantages and present an opportunity to address this problem. Currently employed in ovo ND vaccines are recombinant herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT)-vectored vaccines expressing Newcastle disease virus (NDV) antigens. Although proven efficient, these vaccines have some limitations, such as delayed immunogenicity and the inability to administer a second HVT vaccine post-hatch. The use of live ND vaccines for in ovo vaccination is currently not applicable, as these are associated with high embryo mortality. In this study, recombinant NDV-vectored experimental vaccines containing an antisense sequence of avian interleukin 4 (IL4R) and their backbones were administered in ovo at different doses in 18-day-old commercial eggs possessing high maternal antibodies titers. The hatched birds were challenged with virulent NDV at 2 weeks-of-age. Post-hatch vaccine shedding, post-challenge survival, challenge virus shedding, and humoral immune responses were evaluated at multiple timepoints. Recombinant NDV (rNDV) vaccinated birds had significantly reduced post-hatch mortality compared with the wild-type LaSota vaccine. All rNDV vaccines were able to penetrate maternal immunity and induce a strong early humoral immune response. Further, the rNDV vaccines provided protection from clinical disease and significantly decreased virus shedding after early virulent NDV challenge at two weeks post-hatch. The post-challenge hemagglutination-inhibition antibody titers in the vaccinated groups remained comparable with the pre-challenge titers, suggesting the capacity of the studied vaccines to prevent efficient replication of the challenge virus. Post-hatch survival after vaccination with the rNDV-IL4R vaccines was dose-dependent, with an increase in survival as the dose decreased. This improved survival and the dose-dependency data suggest that novel attenuated in ovo rNDV-based vaccines that are able to penetrate maternal immunity to elicit a strong immune response as early as 14 days post-hatch, resulting in high or full protection from virulent challenge, show promise as a contributor to the control of Newcastle disease.