MedWorm: Allergy & Immunology Top 20

Immunology in clinic review series; focus on autoinflammatory diseases: update on monogenic autoinflammatory diseases: the role of interleukin (IL)-1 and an emerging role for cytokines beyond IL-1.

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:27:15 +0100

Authors: Goldbach-Mansky R Abstract OTHER THEMES PUBLISHED IN THIS IMMUNOLOGY IN THE CLINIC REVIEW SERIES Allergy, Host Responses, Cancer, Type 1 diabetes and viruses, Metabolic diseases. SUMMARY: The disease-based discovery of the molecular basis for autoinflammatory diseases has led not only to a rapidly growing number of clinically and genetically identifiable disorders, but has unmantled key inflammatory pathways such as the potent role of the alarm cytokine interleukin (IL)-1 in human disease. Following its initial failures in the treatment of sepsis and the moderate success in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, IL-1 blocking therapies had a renaissance in the treatment of a number of autoinflammatory conditions, and IL-1 blocking therapies have been Food and Drug Administ...

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Antimalarial Effects of Iranian Flora Artemisia sieberi on Plasmodium berghei In Vivo in Mice and Phytochemistry Analysis of Its Herbal Extracts

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:22:21 +0100

The aim of this study is pharmacochemistry of Iranian flora Artemisia sieberi and its antimalarial effects on Plasmodium berghei in vivo. This is the first application of A. sieberi for treatment of murine malaria. A. sieberi were collected at flowering stage from the Khorassan and Semnan provinces of Iran; the aerial parts were air-dried at room temperature and then powdered. The powder was macerated in methanol, filtered with Bokhner hopper and solvent was separated in rotary evaporator. Total herbal extract was subsequently processed for ether and chloroform extracts preparation. The toxicity of herbal extract was assessed on naive NMRI mice with high, average and low doses; then pathophysiological signs were assessed. Finally, the antimalarial efficacy was investigated on two groups of...

Immunology in clinic review series; focus on autoinflammatory diseases: inflammasomes: mechanisms of activation.

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:27:37 +0100

Authors: Mankan AK, Kubarenko A, Hornung V Abstract OTHER THEMES PUBLISHED IN THIS IMMUNOLOGY IN THE CLINIC REVIEW SERIES Allergy, Host Responses, Cancer, Type 1 diabetes and viruses, Metabolic diseases. SUMMARY: Initiation of a successful immune response requires a working set of sensors that detect any noxious agent within the cellular microenvironment and molecular platforms that process this signal to trigger an appropriate effector response. Pattern recognition receptors can engage different signalling cascades that lead to proinflammatory gene expression. At the same time, transcription-independent events such as activation of proteases and/or phagocytosis are also initiated. The inflammasome pathway constitutes a signalling platform that leads to the activation of so-called ...

Renal Pelviceal Keratinizing Squamous Metaplasia with Sparing of Pyramidal Zones

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:22:23 +0100

We report the case of a 74-year-old female patient who presented with a history of chronic renal disease and acute pyohydronephrosis. The patient underwent a nephroureterectomy which revealed keratinizing desquamative squamous metaplasia throughout the renal pelvis and upper urinary tract with abrupt termination of metaplasia at the junction of the renal pelvis and the minor calyx (pyramidal zone). Immunohistochemical evaluation documents metaplastic urothelium stained positive for CK5, before converting sharply to simple cuboidal epithelium in the minor calyx (pyramidal zones) which stained positive CK7. At the junction of the metaplastic components and low cuboidal lined minor calyceal surfaces, the underlying stroma showed loss of ureteral muscularis mucosa with transition to renal pare...

Capsaicin not homeopathic.

Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Authors: Smith WB, Mullins RJ PMID: 22289738 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology)

Cutaneous Silicone Granuloma Mimicking Breast Cancer after Ruptured Breast Implant

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:22:23 +0100

We describe a case of cutaneous silicone granuloma in the breast exhibiting unusual growth mimicking breast cancer after a ruptured implant. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

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Combination of Nifedipine and Subtherapeutic Dose of Cyclosporine Additively Suppress Mononuclear Cells Activation of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Normal Individuals via Ca2+‐Calcineurin‐ NFAT pathway

Clinical and Experimental Immunology — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:16:14 +0100

In conclusion, we found that L‐type Ca2+ channel blocker and subtherapeutic dose of cyclosporine act additively to suppress Ca2+‐calcineurin‐NFAT signaling pathway leading to inhibition of T‐cell activities. We purpose that this combination may become a potential treatment of RA. (Source: Clinical and Experimental Immunology)

Maxillomandibular Advancement in the Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:22:18 +0100

Maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) is a surgical option for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). MMA involves forward-fixing the maxilla and mandible approximately 10 mm via Le Fort I maxillary and sagittal split mandibular osteotomies. We retrospectively reviewed outcomes from 24 consecutive OSA patients who underwent MMA at our institution. MMA resulted in an 83% reduction in the group mean apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) per polysomnography an average of 6.7 months after surgery. Forty-two percent of patients achieved a post-MMA AHI of less than 5 events/hour sleep and 71% achieved an AHI less than or equal to 10 events/hour sleep. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale score decreased by an average of 5 post-surgery. No parameters predictive of cure for OSA by MMA were identified. (Source: Clinica...

Normality Criteria of Meromorphic Functions That Share a Holomorphic Function

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:21:46 +0100

Let F be a family of meromorphic functions defined in D, let ψ(≢0), a0,a1,...,ak-1 be holomorphic functions in D, and let k be a positive integer. Suppose that, for every function f∈F, f≠0, P(f)=f(k)+ak-1f(k-1)+⋯+a1f'+a0f≠0 and, for every pair functions (f,g)∈F, P(f), P(g) share ψ, then F is normal in D. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

Study of the Effects of Total Flavonoids of Astragalus on Atherosclerosis Formation and Potential Mechanisms

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:22:18 +0100

In conclusion, TFA was the active component of Astragalus mongholicus Bunge, which benefits cardiovascular disease attributing to the potent antioxidant activity to improve the atherosclerosis profile. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

Up‐regulation of small intestinal interleukin‐17 immunity in untreated coeliac disease but not in potential coeliac disease or in type 1 diabetes

Clinical and Experimental Immunology — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:17:28 +0100

SummaryUp‐regulation of interleukin (IL)‐17 in small intestinal mucosa has been reported in coeliac disease (CD) and in peripheral blood in type 1 diabetes (T1D). We explored mucosal IL‐17 immunity in different stages of CD, including transglutaminase antibody (TGA)‐positive children with potential CD, children with untreated and gluten‐free diet‐treated CD and in children with T1D. Immunohistochemistry was used for identification of IL‐17 and forkhead box protein 3 (FoxP3)‐positive cells and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for IL‐17, FoxP3, retinoic acid‐related orphan receptor (ROR)c and interferon (IFN)‐γ transcripts. IL‐1β, IL‐6 and IL‐17 were studied in supernatants from biopsy cultures. Expression of the apoptotic markers BAX and bcl‐2 wa...

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Reflux Drugs No Help for Children With Asthma (CME/CE, with video)

MedPage Today Allergy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:13:00 +0100

(MedPage Today) -- Proton pump inhibitor treatment doesn't ease asthma for children without gastroesophageal reflux symptoms, even for those with a positive pH test, a randomized trial determined. (Source: MedPage Today Allergy)

Application of Integer and Fractional Models in Electrochemical Systems

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:23:44 +0100

This paper describes the use of integer and fractional electrical elements, for modelling two electrochemical systems. A first type of system consists of botanical elements and a second type is implemented by electrolyte processes with fractal electrodes. Experimental results are analyzed in the frequency domain, and the pros and cons of adopting fractional-order electrical components for modelling these systems are compared. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

Medicinal Plants Used by Various Tribes of Bangladesh for Treatment of Malaria

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:22:21 +0100

The objective of the present study was to conduct an ethnomedicinal survey among various tribes of Bangladesh to identify the plants that they use for treatment of the disease. Surveys were conducted among seven tribes, namely, Bawm, Chak, Chakma, Garo, Marma, Murong, and Tripura, who inhabit the southeastern or northcentral forested regions of Bangladesh. Interviews conducted with the various tribal medicinal practitioners indicated that a total of eleven plants distributed into 10 families were used for treatment of malaria and accompanying symptoms like fever, anemia, ache, vomiting, and chills. Leaves constituted 35.7% of total uses followed by roots at 21.4%. Other plant parts used for treatment included barks, seeds, fruits, and flowers. A review of the published scientific l...

An Empirical Investigation on System and Statement Level Parallelism Strategies for Accelerating Scatter Search Using Handel-C and Impulse-C

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:21:45 +0100

Scatter Search is an effective and established population-based metaheuristic that has been used to solve a variety of hard optimization problems. However, the time required to find high-quality solutions can become prohibitive as problem sizes grow. In this paper, we present a hardware implementation of Scatter Search on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Our objective is to improve the run time of Scatter Search by exploiting the potentially massive performance benefits that are available through the native parallelism in hardware. When implementing Scatter Search we employ two different high-level languages (HLLs): Handel-C and Impulse-C. Our empirical results show that by effectively exploiting source-code optimizations, data parallelism, and pipelining, a 28x speed up over softwa...

Structure, Expression, and Function of ICAM-5

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:22:21 +0100

Cell adhesion is of utmost importance in normal development and cellular functions. ICAM-5 (intercellular adhesion molecule-5, telencephalin, TLN) is a member of the ICAM family of adhesion proteins. As a novel cell adhesion molecule, ICAM-5 shares many structural similarities with the other members of IgSF, especially the ICAM subgroup; however, ICAM-5 has several unique properties compared to the other ICAMs. With its nine extracellular Ig domains, ICAM-5 is the largest member of ICAM subgroup identified so far. Therefore, it is much more complex than the other ICAMs. The expression of ICAM-5 is confined to the telencephalic neurons of the central nervous system whereas all the other ICAM members are expressed mostly by cells in the immune and blood systems. The developmental appearance ...

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Some New Refined General Boas-Type Inequalities

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:22:21 +0100

We state and prove a new refined Boas-type inequality in a setting with a topological space and general σ-finite and finite Borel measures. As a consequence of the result obtained, we derive a new class of Hardy- and Pólya-Knopp-type inequalities related to balls in ℝn and prove that constant factors involved in their right-hand sides are the best possible. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

Expression of natural killer cell activating receptors in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

Immunology — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:21:23 +0100

(Source: Immunology)

Myasthenia Gravis in Pregnancy: A Case Report

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:22:23 +0100

Conclusion. Myasthenia gravis especially when associated with pregnancy is a high-risk disease. As this disease predominantly occurs in women of reproductive age, it is important to be aware of this condition in obstetrics and its interdisciplinary diagnostic and therapeutic management. (Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology)

Purpura Fulminans Secondary to Streptococcus pneumoniae Meningitis

Clinical and Developmental Immunology — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:22:23 +0100

Purpura fulminans (PF) is a rare skin disorder with extensive areas of blueblack hemorrhagic necrosis. Patients manifest typical laboratory signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Our case describes a 37-year-old previously healthy man who presented with 3 days of generalized malaise, headache, vomiting, photophobia, and an ecchymotic skin rash. Initial laboratory workup revealed DIC without obvious infectious trigger including unremarkable cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biochemical analysis. There was further progression of the skin ecchymosis and multiorgan damage consistent with PF. Final CSF cultures revealed Streptococcus pneumoniae. Despite normal initial CSF biochemical analysis, bacterial meningitis should always be considered in patients with otherwise unexplained DIC as...