Cervical chondrocutaneous remnants are congenital, benign, and rare neck masses. We present here for the first time the immunohistochemical profile of Pacinian corpuscles present in cervical ...chondrocutaneous remnants, removed, and localized in the territory of the second branchial arch from a 5-year-old girl. We have performed immunohistochemistry to analyze these sensory corpuscles using a battery of antibodies including markers for each corpuscle constituent. The central axon was immunoreactive for neurofilaments, neuron-specific enolase, and neural cell adhesion molecule; the Schwann-related cells forming the inner core displayed immunoreactivity for S100 protein, vimentin, and neural cell adhesion molecule; the outer core and the capsule were positive for vimentin, epithelial membrane antigen, and glucose transporter 1. These results are discussed in topographical differences. Moreover, a brief update about the structure, protein composition, and development of Pacinian corpuscles was performed.
Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) grows in a range of different climates in the southwestern Mediterranean region and the existence of a variety of latitudinal ecotypes or provenances is well ...established. In this study, we have conducted a deep analysis of the transcriptome in needles from two P. pinaster provenances, Leiria (Portugal) and Tamrabta (Morocco), which were grown in northern Spain under the same conditions.
An oligonucleotide microarray (PINARRAY3) and RNA-Seq were used for whole-transcriptome analyses, and we found that 90.95% of the data were concordant between the two platforms. Furthermore, the two methods identified very similar percentages of differentially expressed genes with values of 5.5% for PINARRAY3 and 5.7% for RNA-Seq. In total, 6,023 transcripts were shared and 88 differentially expressed genes overlapped in the two platforms. Among the differentially expressed genes, all transport related genes except aquaporins were expressed at higher levels in Tamrabta than in Leiria. In contrast, genes involved in secondary metabolism were expressed at higher levels in Tamrabta, and photosynthesis-related genes were expressed more highly in Leiria. The genes involved in light sensing in plants were well represented in the differentially expressed groups of genes. In addition, increased levels of hormones such as abscisic acid, gibberellins, jasmonic and salicylic acid were observed in Leiria.
Both transcriptome platforms have proven to be useful resources, showing complementary and reliable results. The results presented here highlight the different abilities of the two maritime pine populations to sense environmental conditions and reveal one type of regulation that can be ascribed to different genetic and epigenetic backgrounds.
The continued availability of products at any store is the major issue in order to provide good customer service. If the store is a drugstore this matter reaches a greater importance, as out of stock ...of a drug when there is high demand causes problems and tensions in the healthcare system. There are numerous studies of the impact this issue has on patients. The lack of any drug in a pharmacy in certain seasons is very common, especially when some external factors proliferate favoring the occurrence of certain diseases. This study focuses on a particular drug consumed in the city of Jaen, southern Andalucia, Spain. Our goal is to determine in advance the
Salbutamol
demand. Advanced data mining techniques have been used with spatial variables. These last have a key role to generate an effective model. In this research we have used the attributes that are associated with
Salbutamol
demand and it has been generated a very accurate prediction model of 5.78% of mean absolute error. This is a very encouraging data considering that the consumption of this drug in Jaen varies 500% from one period to another.
An optimal resource management in health care centers implies the use of an appropriate timetabling scheme to schedule appointments. Timetables of health centers are usually divided into time slots ...whose duration is equal to time required for clinical attendance. However doctors perform a series of tasks that are not always clinical in nature: issuing prescriptions or prescribing sick leave certificates. In this sense the time spent in attending a clinical or an administrative matter is different. This last required less time to attend the patient. This study is focused in the administrative task. A predictive model is generated to provide daily information on how many patients will go to the health center for an administrative issue. The accuracy of the model is less than 4,6 % absolute error and the improvement in scheduling appointments is a time saving of 21,73 %.
Heparan sulfate proteoglycans are pericellular/cell surface molecules involved in somatosensory axon guidance in the peripheral nervous system. However, the distribution of heparan sulfate ...proteoglycans in the extracellular matrix of human cutaneous sensory corpuscles is unknown. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence assays were performed to define the localization of heparan sulfate proteoglycans in human cutaneous Meissner's and Pacinian corpuscles using two anti‐heparan sulfate antibodies together with anti‐S100 protein, anti‐PGP9.5, anti‐CD34 (to immunolabel basement membranes, Schwann cells, axon and the intermediate endoneurial layer of Pacinian corpuscles, respectively), anti‐Type IV collagen, and anti‐chondroitin sulfate antibodies. Heparan sulfate proteoglycans were colocalized with Type IV collagen in Meissner's corpuscles and were located in the outer core lamellae and capsule, but not in the inner core or the intermediate layer, in Pacinian corpuscles. Chondroitin sulfate was observed in the intermediate layer of Pacinian corpuscles but was never colocalized with heparan sulfate proteoglycans. The present results strongly suggest that heparan sulfate proteoglycans are associated with the basement membranes of the lamellar cells in Meissner's corpuscles and with the complex outer core capsule in Pacinian corpuscles. The functional significance of these results, if any, remains to be elucidated.
Meissner corpuscles are rapidly adapting cutaneous mechanoreceptors depending for development on TrkB expressing sensory neurons, but it remains to be established which of the known TrkB ligands, ...BDNF or NT-4, is responsible of this dependence. In this study we analyze Meissner corpuscles in the digital pads of mice with target mutations in the genes encoding for either BDNF or NT-4, using immunohistochemistry and transmission-electron microscopy, and they were identified based on their morphology and expression of S100 protein. All wild-type animals as well as NT-4 −/− animals and BDNF and NT4 heterozygous animals have Meissner corpuscles that are normal in number and size. However, Meissner corpuscles are absent the BDNF −/− mice. These results suggest that BDNF is the only TrkB ligand involved in the development of Meissner corpuscles in murine glabrous skin, and it probably regulates the development of the sensory neurons that innervate Meissner corpuscles.
: Follicular mucinosis can develop as a primary form or associated with other benign or malignant skin conditions. We present a case of primary follicular mucinosis in which complete clinical ...remission was achieved after treatment with topical imiquimod 5%. Primary follicular mucinosis (PFM), also called idiopathic alopecia mucinosa, is considered a distinct entity, the clinical course of which is usually benign, but its pathogenesis remains unclear. There is no standard treatment for PFM, and a wide variety of therapies have been described. There are no previous reports of treatment of PFM with imiquimod.
ABSTRACT
CD38 displays lateral association with the HIV‐1 receptor CD4. This association is potentiated by the HIV‐1 envelope glycoprotein gp120. The aim of this work was to evaluate the CD38 role in ...T cell susceptibility to HIV‐1 infection. Using laboratory X4 HIV‐1 strains and X4 and X4/R5 primary isolates, we found that CD38 expression was negatively correlated to cell susceptibility to infection, evaluated as percentage of infected cells, release of HIV p24 in the supernatants, and cytopathogenicity. This correlation was at first suggested by results obtained in a panel of human CD4+ T cell lines expressing different CD38 levels (MT‐4, MT‐2, C8166, CEMx174, Supt‐1, and H9) and then demonstrated using CD38 transfectants of MT‐4 cells (the line with the lowest CD38 expression). To address whether CD38 affected viral binding, we used mouse T cells that are non‐permissive for productive infection. Gene transfection in mouse SR.D10.CD4~.F1 T cells produced four lines expressing human CD4 and/or CD38. Ability of CD4+CD38+ cells to bind HIV‐1 or purified recombinant gp120 was significantly lower than that of CD4+CD38~ cells. These data suggest that CD38 expression inhibits lymphocyte susceptibility to HIV infection, probably by inhibiting gp120/CD4‐dependent viral binding to target cells.—Savarino, A., Bottarel, F., Calosso, L., Feito, M. J., Bensi, T., Bragardo, M., Rojo, J. M., Pugliese, A., Abbate, I., Capobianchi, M. R., Dianzani, F., Malavasi, F., and Dianzani, U. Effects of the human CD38 glycoprotein on the early stages of the HIV‐1 replication cycle. FASEB J. 13, 2265–2276 (1999)
Introduction. Research on improved methods for the inverse problem in cardiology and electrophysiology is active today. Recently, the use of machine learning methods has been proposed, allowing us to ...consider the biophysical equations of the problem. In this work, we propose to explore improvements in using kernel methods for estimating the inverse problem, with kernel given by the Green's function for the infinite homogeneous potential and with recently proposed cross-validation strategies for least squares estimation. Materials and Methods. Three solvers were implemented: least squares with Zero-Order Tikhonov (ZOT) regularization, Support Vector Regression (SVR), and constrained L2 (CL2) optimization. The study evaluates transmembrane action potential estimation in 1D (fiber) and 2D (tissue) simulations using the Luo-Rudy model. Experiments and results. The ZOT method was the most unstable. The SVR method provided biased results, although intermediate and acceptable accuracy, except at the edges of spatial action potentials. The CL2 method provided better performance under certain conditions of the implemented cross-validation procedure. Conclusions. Kernel methods, with refined algorithmic formulations and cross-validation criteria, offer an alternative for cardiac inverse problem estimation.
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