Bhatia et al. treated patients with steroiddependent nephrotic syndrome with rituximab, a monoclonal antibody against B lymphocytes, resulting in remission and changes in subsets of T cells. These changes reversed during relapse, suggesting that the mechanism of remission by rituximab was the changes in the T-cell subsets.

Adami et al. studied the impact of intermittent antibiotic exposure in early life on severity of asthma following exposure to house dust mites. Antibiotic exposure increased asthma severityand reduced both pulmonary T-regulatory cells and fecal microbiome diversity.

On the cover: Chernikova et al. studied the gut microbiota in preterm, moderate to late preterm and term infants. Using 16S rDNA microbiome profiling, they found differences in gut bacterial composition between preterm and term infants in the first 6 weeks of life. See article on page 71.