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Baclofen is used clinically as a drug that treats spasticity, which is a syndrome characterized by excessive contraction of the muscles and hyperflexia in the central nervous system (CNS), by activating GABA(B) receptors (GABA(B)Rs). Baclofen was recently reported to desensitize chemokine receptors and to suppress inflammation through the activation of GABA(B)Rs. GABA(B)Rs are expressed in various immune cells, but the functions of these receptors in autoimmune diseases remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of baclofen in murine collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Oral administration of baclofen alleviated the clinical development of CIA, with a reduced number of IL-17-producing T helper 17 (T(H)17) cells. In addition, baclofen treatment suppressed dendritic cell (DC)-primed T(H)17 cell differentiation by reducing the production of IL-6 by DCs in vitro. Furthermore, the pharmacological and genetic blockade of GABA(B)Rs in DCs weakened the effects of baclofen, indicating that GABA(B)Rs are the molecular targets of baclofen on DCs. Thus, our findings revealed a potential role for baclofen in the treatment of CIA, as well as a previously unknown signaling pathway that regulates DC function.

SUMMARY On the basis of grey system theory, an image information hiding algorithm is proposed in this paper. First, to choose the blocks of rich texture, a method based on two-dimensional grey relational analysis is designed; making use of the improved GM(1,1) prediction model, the secret image is compressed losslessly, and then scrambled by means of time-division multiplexing method in communication theory. Block discrete cosine transform is applied to the chosen blocks, and coefficients of mid frequencies are chosen as the embedded data, whereas the embedding intensity is determined on the basis of human visual system, and the embedding capacity of sub-blocks can be controlled by its two-dimensional grey relational grade adaptively. The experiment results show that the algorithm cannot only achieve satisfactory invisibility and robustness, but also improve the payload of the cover image, and meanwhile solve the problem that the small capacity of traditional algorithms in transform domain efficiently. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.