Abundant heterogeneous immune cells infiltrate lesions in chronic inflammatory diseases and characterization of these cells is needed to distinguish disease-promoting from bystander immune cells. ...Here, we investigate the landscape of non-communicable inflammatory skin diseases (ncISD) by spatial transcriptomics resulting in a large repository of 62,000 spatially defined human cutaneous transcriptomes from 31 patients. Despite the expected immune cell infiltration, we observe rather low numbers of pathogenic disease promoting cytokine transcripts (IFNG, IL13 and IL17A), i.e. >125 times less compared to the mean expression of all other genes over lesional skin sections. Nevertheless, cytokine expression is limited to lesional skin and presented in a disease-specific pattern. Leveraging a density-based spatial clustering method, we identify specific responder gene signatures in direct proximity of cytokines, and confirm that detected cytokine transcripts initiate amplification cascades of up to thousands of specific responder transcripts forming localized epidermal clusters. Thus, within the abundant and heterogeneous infiltrates of ncISD, only a low number of cytokine transcripts and their translated proteins promote disease by initiating an inflammatory amplification cascade in their local microenvironment.
Addictions in patients with atopic dermatitis: a cross‐sectional pilot study in Germany Pilz, A.C.; Durner, V.; Schielein, M.C. ...
JEADV. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology/Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology,
January 2022, 2022-Jan, 2022-01-00, 20220101, 2022, Letnik:
36, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Background
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic inflammatory skin disease worldwide and displays many atopic, but also non‐atopic comorbidities. Among the latter, mental health disorders ...such as depression have been extensively studied. However, data on addictions are still rare.
Objectives
The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of different kinds of addictions in adult AD patients using a single‐centre approach.
Methods
This non‐interventional cross‐sectional study was performed from 03/2020 to 05/2020 at the Department of Dermatology of a large German university hospital. Participants with a diagnosis of AD confirmed by a dermatologist answered questions about disease severity (patient‐oriented eczema measure, POEM), quality of life (Dermatology Life Quality Index, DLQI) and smoking habits. They were screened for problematic alcohol consumption, drug abuse, internet addiction and pathological gambling using internationally established and validated questionnaires.
Results
157 patients (56.1% female; mean age of 49.9 ± 20.4) with an average POEM of 13.7 ± 7.5 and DLQI of 6.1 ± 5.4 were evaluated. 14.1% were identified as regular smokers, 12.1% screened positive for alcohol dependency, 6.4% for drug use disorders, 4.5% for Internet addiction and 3.2% for pathological gambling. Co‐occurrences of different addictions were observed, and a positive correlation was noted between DLQI scores and smoking.
Conclusions
In summary, this study hints at elevated positive screening rates for problematic alcohol consumption, drug use disorders, Internet addiction and problem gambling compared with the general population. Screening routinely for addictions may improve patient‐centred health care of AD patients.
Field studies were conducted in southern Hungary over two field seasons to assess potential non‐target effects of entomopathogenic nematodes (Heterorhabditis bacteriophora), entomopathogenic fungi ...(Metarhizium anisopliae), clothianidin‐coated seeds and tefluthrin granules applied into the soil against larvae of the chrysomelid Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, one of the major North American and European maize pests. From field gauze cages set up over groups of maize plants, 1944 specimens of non‐target ground‐dwelling or emerging arthropods from 22 taxa were collected. The most abundant taxa belonged to the Diptera, Araneae and Hemiptera. Multivariate statistics revealed significant effects of soil conditions, year and treatments on non‐target species composition. Soil parameters explained 10.5% of the overall variability in species composition. The application of biological control agents or insecticides for the control of Diabrotica larvae, together only slightly but significantly influenced non‐target species composition, explaining 5.6% of the data variability. When pairwise comparisons were conducted, no significant effects on non‐target compositions were detected for the entomopathogenic nematode, the entomopathogenic fungus, tefluthrin or clothianidin. However, clothianidin treatments tended to reduce densities of the beneficial arthropod taxa Coccinellidae, Hymenoptera, Araneae, and particularly Staphylinidae and Chrysopidae, whilst tefluthrin tended to reduce the Coleopteran families. No such trends were apparent for the two biological control agent treatments. Reasons for the small treatment effects on non‐targets may be the generally poor arthropod diversity in soils of intensive field crops such as maize, as well as the application of all agents into relatively narrow soil areas close to maize plants.
Objective
The diagnosis of oral lesions is often challenging for primary healthcare providers, which explains the high number of referrals to specialist care. This favors increases in waiting lines ...and delays in diagnosis, contributing to high mortality rates from oral cancer. This study aimed to summarize the experience of the EstomatoNet, a telediagnosis program catering to primary care dentists and physicians from southern Brazil.
Study design
This exploratory study included all queries received by EstomatoNet from June 2015 to December 2016. Health providers (71 dentists and 18 physicians from primary care) submitted requests including clinical information and photographs of oral lesions by means of a cloud‐based platform. Specialized oral medicine teleconsultants received the data, conveyed a diagnostic hypothesis, and conveyed management recommendations.
Results
Actinic cheilitis (n = 41, 15.8%), squamous cell carcinoma (n = 22, 8.5%), and inflammatory hyperplasia (21, 8.1%) were the most frequent diagnoses. Teleconsultants recommended referral to specialists in 42.9% of the cases, total biopsy in 23.6%, and follow‐up in 16.2%. After the EstomatoNet use, the intention to refer the patients to face‐to‐face consultation reduced from 96.9% to 35.1%.
Conclusion
Telediagnosis for oral lesions is feasible and has potential to improve the quality of primary health care by bridging the gap between primary and specialized health care.
Biomimetic composites consisting of polymer and mineral components, resembling bone in structure and composition, were produced using a rapid prototyping technique for bone tissue engineering ...applications. Solid freeform fabrication, known as rapid prototyping (RP) technology, allows scaffolds to be designed with pre-defined and controlled external and internal architecture. Using the indirect RP technique, a three-component scaffold with a woodpile structure, consisting of poly-
l-lactic acid (PLLA), chitosan and hydroxyapatite (HA) microspheres, was produced that had a macroporosity of more than 50% together with micropores induced by lyophilization. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the preparation and construction of the composite scaffold did not affect the phase composition of the HA. The compressive strength and elastic modulus (
E) for the PLLA composites are 0.42 and 1.46
MPa, respectively, which are much higher than those of chitosan/HA composites and resemble the properties of cellular structure. These scaffolds showed excellent biocompatibility and ability for three-dimensional tissue growth of MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblastic cells. The pre-osteoblastic cells cultured on these scaffolds formed a network on the HA microspheres and proliferated not only in the macropore channels but also in the micropores, as seen from the histological analysis and electron microscopy. The proliferating cells formed an extracellular matrix network and also differentiated into mature osteoblasts, as indicated by alkaline phosphatase enzyme activity. The properties of these scaffolds indicate that they can be used for non-load-bearing applications.
Bubbles rising in viscoelastic liquids may exhibit a jump discontinuity of the rise velocity as a critical bubble volume is exceeded. We carried out detailed experiments to investigate the occurrence ...of this discontinuity with single air bubble rising in various polymer solutions without influence of surfactants. The polymer solutions were characterized thoroughly by means of shear and elongational rheometry, as well as tensiometry. The experiments showed that a jump discontinuity can exist only if the non-dimensional group
λ
E(
g
3
ρ
1/
σ)
1/4, found by dimensional analysis, exceeds a critical value. A universal correlation of non-dimensional numbers for the non-dimensional critical bubble volume at the jump discontinuity was found. The non-dimensional numbers represent the relevant rheological and dynamic liquid properties. This is the first time that the prediction of the critical bubble volume as well as the potential of the solution to exhibit a bubble rise velocity discontinuity becomes possible based on liquid properties only. In the correlation found, the relaxation time of the polymer solutions in elongational flow of the viscoelastic liquid was found to play a key role.
The entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae (Metsch.) Sorokin (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) was applied in maize fields to control the Western Corn Rootworm Diabrotica virgifera virgifera Le ...Conte (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). Establishment and persistence of two strains of M. anisopliae were investigated after application as ‘fungal colonized barley kernels’ (FCBK) into the soil and as a spore suspension on maize leaves and on the soil surface in 2006 and 2007 at two locations in Hungary.
The applied fungal strains were able to establish at both locations and a long‐term persistence of at least 15 months could be recorded in the soil. A positive correlation between density of colony forming units (CFU) in the soil and the soil inhabiting stages of the host insect D. v. virgifera could be found. M. anisopliae spores applied on maize leaves were able to survive for no longer than 3 days after application, whereas on the soil surface a noticeably increase of fungus densities were found after treatments. Molecular markers were used to identify the applied M. anisopliae strains before and after application of FCBK into the soil of the maize field.
In this work, the effects of Zr additions on the microstructure and phase stability of the initially annealed Cu-9Al-10Mn-3Ag alloy were studied using optical microscopy (OM), differential thermal ...analysis (DTA), microhardness measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and magnetization measurements as a function of temperature and applied field. The results showed that the increase in Zr concentration decreased the α-Cu phase grain size and increased the alloys microhardness. The Curie temperature of the alloy was not modified by the Zr additions. Moreover, the precipitation of Ag-rich phase occurred preferentially at the intergranular region and the addition of 5%Zr increased the melting temperature of the Cu-9Al-10Mn-3Ag alloy and contributed for the formation of the Cu2ZrAl phase. A mechanism was proposed for the Cu2ZrAl phase formation in the Cu-9Al-10Mn-3Ag-5Zr alloy.
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•– Zr decreased the α phase grain size in the Cu-9Al-10Mn-3Ag alloy.•– Curie temperature was not changed with Zr additions.•– Addition of 5%Zr prevented the T3-Cu3Mn2Al phase formation.•– Zirconium produced the Cu2ZrAl phase in the Cu-9Al-10Mn-3Ag-5Zr alloy.
The entomoparasitic nematode (EPN) Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae) is a promising candidate for the biological control of larvae of the maize pest Western Corn Rootworm, ...Diabrotica virgifera virgifera (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). An easily applicable and economically feasible method is the inundative release of EPNs together with sowing of maize in spring. At that time, however, D. v. virgifera eggs are still diapausing and larval hatch will only start about four to 6 weeks after EPN application, depending on climatic conditions. Efficacy of the nematode application against the targeted pest species therefore depends on the ability of the biocontrol agent to persist in the pest's environment, at least until emergence of the first larvae. To address this key issue, 18 field trials were carried out at six locations in Germany, Austria and Hungary between 2010 and 2011. Fields differed in their soil type and in the presence or absence of a host. Nematodes were either applied as fluid stream (suspended in water) or as microgranules (without water) into the soil during the sowing process. Persistence of the nematodes was determined by examining soil samples, using larvae of Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) as a bait. Results showed that EPNs, either applied as a suspension or as microgranules, were able to persist in the soil of all field sites. EPNs could be detected for at least 6 weeks in the soil. Persistence levels were higher in sandy soil types than in clay or silty soils. The applied EPN formulation had no effect on the persistence level of EPNs in the soil, and the presence or absence of the host insects had a minor effect. It can be concluded that EPNs applied with sowing of maize persist long enough to potentially control the later hatching larvae of the maize pest D. v. virgifera.
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