Wheat-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis Scherf, K. A.; Brockow, K.; Biedermann, T. ...
Clinical and experimental allergy,
January 2016, Letnik:
46, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Summary
Wheat‐dependent exercise‐induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA) is a rare, but potentially severe food allergy exclusively occurring when wheat ingestion is accompanied by augmenting cofactors. It is ...clinically characterized by anaphylactic reactions ranging from urticaria and angioedema to dyspnoea, hypotension, collapse, and shock. WDEIA usually develops after ingestion of wheat products followed by physical exercise. Other cofactors are acetylsalicylic acid and other non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs, alcohol, and infections. The precise mechanisms of WDEIA remain unclear; exercise and other cofactors might increase gastrointestinal allergen permeability and osmolality, redistribute blood flow, or lower the threshold for IgE‐mediated mast cell degranulation. Among wheat proteins, ω5‐gliadin and high‐molecular‐weight glutenin subunits have been reported to be the major allergens. In some patients, WDEIA has been discussed to be caused by epicutaneous sensitization with hydrolysed wheat gluten included in cosmetics. Diagnosis is made based on the patient's history in combination with allergy skin testing, determination of wheat‐specific IgE serum antibodies, basophil activation test, histamine release test, and/or exercise challenge test. Acute treatment includes application of adrenaline or antihistamines. The most reliable prophylaxis of WDEIA is a gluten‐free diet. In less severe cases, a strict limitation of wheat ingestion before exercise and avoidance of other cofactors may be sufficient.
Hygroscopicity and cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) activity were measured for three mineral dust samples: one from the Canary Islands, representing North African dust transported across the ...Atlantic; one from outside Cairo, representing North African dust transported to the eastern Mediterranean; and Arizona Test Dust, representing dust in the southwestern United States. To reaerosolize bulk samples, dust samples were either suspended in high purity water and particles generated by atomization, or samples were resuspended in dry air using a fluidized bed. Only the Canary Island sample generated from aqueous suspension showed appreciable hygroscopic growth at subsaturated conditions; all other samples exhibited diameter growth factors of less than 1.1 for relative humidities ≤90%. Despite their low hygroscopicities at subsaturated conditions, all samples activated as cloud droplets at supersaturations lower than required for insoluble particles. We suggest that the CCN activity of these mineral dusts are well‐represented using the hygroscopicity parameter 0.01 ≤ κ ≤ 0.08.
Objectives
To quantify the proportion of fat within the skeletal muscle as a measure of muscle quality using dual-energy CT (DECT) and to validate this methodology with MRI.
Methods
Twenty-one ...patients with abdominal contrast-enhanced DECT scans (100 kV/Sn 150 kV) underwent abdominal 3-T MRI. The fat fraction (DECT-FF), determined by material decomposition, and HU values on virtual non-contrast-enhanced (VNC) DECT images were measured in 126 regions of interest (≥ 6 cm
2
) within the posterior paraspinal muscle. For validation, the MR-based fat fraction (MR-FF) was assessed by chemical shift relaxometry. Patients were categorized into groups of high or low skeletal muscle mean radiation attenuation (SMRA) and classified as either sarcopenic or non-sarcopenic, according to the skeletal muscle index (SMI) and cut-off values from non-contrast-enhanced single-energy CT. Spearman’s and intraclass correlation, Bland-Altman analysis, and mixed linear models were employed.
Results
The correlation was excellent between DECT-FF and MR-FF (
r
= 0.91), DECT VNC HU and MR-FF (
r
= - 0.90), and DECT-FF and DECT VNC HU (
r
= − 0.98). Intraclass correlation between DECT-FF and MR-FF was good (
r
= 0.83 95% CI 0.71–0.90), with a mean difference of - 0.15% (SD 3.32 95% CI 6.35 to − 6.66). Categorization using the SMRA yielded an eightfold difference in DECT VNC HU values between both groups (5 HU 95% CI 23–11, 42 HU 95% CI 33–56,
p
= 0.05). No significant relationship between DECT-FF and SMI-based classifications was observed.
Conclusions
Fat quantification within the skeletal muscle using DECT is both feasible and reliable. DECT muscle analysis offers a new approach to determine muscle quality, which is important for the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of sarcopenia, as a comorbidity associated with poor clinical outcome.
Key Points
• Dual-energy CT (DECT) material decomposition and virtual non-contrast-enhanced DECT HU values assess muscle fat reliably.
• Virtual non-contrast-enhanced dual-energy CT HU values allow to differentiate between high and low native skeletal muscle mean radiation attenuation in contrast-enhanced DECT scans.
• Measuring muscle fat by dual-energy computed tomography is a new approach for the determination of muscle quality, an important parameter for the diagnostic confirmation of sarcopenia as a comorbidity associated with poor clinical outcome.
Metastatic disease is largely resistant to therapy and accounts for almost all cancer deaths. Myeloid cell leukemia-1 (MCL-1) is an important regulator of cell survival and chemo-resistance in a wide ...range of malignancies, and thus its inhibition may prove to be therapeutically useful.
To examine whether targeting MCL-1 may provide an effective treatment for breast cancer, we constructed inducible models of BIMs2A expression (a specific MCL-1 inhibitor) in MDA-MB-468 (MDA-MB-468-2A) and MDA-MB-231 (MDA-MB-231-2A) cells.
MCL-1 inhibition caused apoptosis of basal-like MDA-MB-468-2A cells grown as monolayers, and sensitized them to the BCL-2/BCL-XL inhibitor ABT-263, demonstrating that MCL-1 regulated cell survival. In MDA-MB-231-2A cells, grown in an organotypic model, induction of BIMs2A produced an almost complete suppression of invasion. Apoptosis was induced in such a small proportion of these cells that it could not account for the large decrease in invasion, suggesting that MCL-1 was operating via a previously undetected mechanism. MCL-1 antagonism also suppressed local invasion and distant metastasis to the lung in mouse mammary intraductal xenografts. Kinomic profiling revealed that MCL-1 antagonism modulated Src family kinases and their targets, which suggested that MCL-1 might act as an upstream modulator of invasion via this pathway. Inhibition of MCL-1 in combination with dasatinib suppressed invasion in 3D models of invasion and inhibited the establishment of tumors in vivo.
These data provide the first evidence that MCL-1 drives breast cancer cell invasion and suggests that MCL-1 antagonists could be used alone or in combination with drugs targeting Src kinases such as dasatinib to suppress metastasis.
Ultrawide‐bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors, with bandgaps significantly wider than the 3.4 eV of GaN, represent an exciting and challenging new area of research in semiconductor materials, physics, ...devices, and applications. Because many figures‐of‐merit for device performance scale nonlinearly with bandgap, these semiconductors have long been known to have compelling potential advantages over their narrower‐bandgap cousins in high‐power and RF electronics, as well as in deep‐UV optoelectronics, quantum information, and extreme‐environment applications. Only recently, however, have the UWBG semiconductor materials, such as high Al‐content AlGaN, diamond and Ga2O3, advanced in maturity to the point where realizing some of their tantalizing advantages is a relatively near‐term possibility. In this article, the materials, physics, device and application research opportunities and challenges for advancing their state of the art are surveyed.
Ultrawide‐bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors, with bandgaps significantly wider than the 3.4 eV of GaN, represent an exciting and challenging new area of research in semiconductor materials, physics, devices and applications. This article surveys and presents an enumerated list of the materials, physics, device and associated application research opportunities and challenges important for advancing the state of their science and technology.
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