Missed diagnosis of an unusual case of impacted esophageal foreign body

Accidental foreign body or food particle impaction in the esophagus causing partial or complete obstruction of the esophageal lumen is not uncommon. Most of this presents with remarkable history and acute or related symptoms that lead to diagnosis. Here, we present an unusual clinically misleading case of impacted food object in the esophageal lumen causing partial obstruction that mimic the diagnosis of esophageal and other associated pathologies

SOX18-enforced expression diverts hemogenic endothelium-derived progenitors from T towards NK lymphoid pathways

Summary: Hemogenic endothelium (HE) is the main source of blood cells in the embryo. To improve blood manufacturing from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), it is essential to define the molecular determinants that enhance HE specification and promote development of the desired blood lineage from HE. Here, using SOX18-inducible hPSCs, we revealed that SOX18 forced expression at the mesodermal stage, in contrast to its homolog SOX17, has minimal effects on arterial specification of HE, expression of HOXA genes and lymphoid differentiation. However, forced expression of SOX18 in HE during endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT) greatly increases NK versus T cell lineage commitment of hematopoietic progenitors (HPs) arising from HE predominantly expanding CD34+CD43+CD235a/CD41a−CD45− multipotent HPs and altering the expression of genes related to T cell and Toll-like receptor signaling. These studies improve our understanding of lymphoid cell specification during EHT and provide a new tool for enhancing NK cell production from hPSCs for immunotherapies