Serum S100B levels after meningioma surgery: A comparison of two laboratory assays

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>S100B protein is a potential biomarker of central nervous system insult. This study quantitatively compared two methods for assessing serum concentration of S100B.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prospective, observational study performed in a single tertiary medical center. Included were fifty two consecutive adult patients undergoing surgery for meningioma that provided blood samples for determination of S100B concentrations. Eighty samples (40 pre-operative and 40 postoperative) were randomly selected for batch testing. Each sample was divided into two aliquots. These were analyzed by ELISA (Sangtec) and a commercial kit (Roche Elecsys^®) for S100B concentrations. Statistical analysis included regression modelling and Bland-Altman analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A parsimonious linear model best described the prediction of commercial kit values by those determined by ELISA (y = 0.045 + 0.277*x, x = ELISA value, R²= 0.732). ELISA measurements tended to be higher than commercial kit measurements. This discrepancy increased linearly with increasing S100B concentrations. At concentrations above 0.7 μg/L the paired measurements were consistently outside the limits of agreement in the Bland-Altman display. Similar to other studies that used alternative measurement methods, sex and age related differences in serum S100B levels were not detected using the Elecsys^®(p = 0.643 and 0.728 respectively).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although a generally linear relationship exists between serum S100B concentrations measured by ELISA and a commercially available kit, ELISA values tended to be higher than commercial kit measurements particularly at concentrations over 0.7 μg/L, which are suggestive of brain injury. International standardization of commercial kits is required before the predictive validity of S100B for brain damage can be effectively assessed in clinical practice.</p

Weird exoskeletons: propositional politics and the making of home in underground Bucharest

The article explores the politics of life underground in Bucharest, Romania. It focuses on a tunnel passing under Bucharest's central train station, where a community of drug users and so‐called ‘homeless’ have made a long‐standing home, using a space that many others considered uninhabitable. Relying on extensive ethnographic observations and interviews undertaken within the tunnels, the article traces and illustrates the socio‐material entanglements characterizing life underground. It frames this assemblage of bodies, veins, syringes, substances and various relationships of power and affect, as a ‘propositional politics’ of home and life at the margins. Such a politics speaks of drug addiction and extreme marginalization, but also of a sense of belonging, reciprocal trust and care. In tracing such a politics, the article does not aim to romanticize the status of home in the underground or to treat it as the marginal antithesis of normative homeliness, but to reveal the ways in which an affirmative, self‐grounding politics of home emerges from the immanence of tunnel life within the fabric of the city. As such, the article contributes to debates around homing practices in conditions of uninhabitability and proposes a radical approach to the politics of life at the margins in the contemporary urban

Propionibacterium acnes CAMP Factor and Host Acid Sphingomyelinase Contribute to Bacterial Virulence: Potential Targets for Inflammatory Acne Treatment

) permits the bacteria to spread and become in contact with various skin and immune cells.-induced inflammation. CAMP factor may hijack host ASMase to amplify bacterial virulence to degrade and invade host cells. This work has identified both CAMP factor and ASMase as potential molecular targets for the development of drugs and vaccines against acne vulgaris

Joining S100 proteins and migration:for better or for worse, in sickness and in health

The vast diversity of S100 proteins has demonstrated a multitude of biological correlations with cell growth, cell differentiation and cell survival in numerous physiological and pathological conditions in all cells of the body. This review summarises some of the reported regulatory functions of S100 proteins (namely S100A1, S100A2, S100A4, S100A6, S100A7, S100A8/S100A9, S100A10, S100A11, S100A12, S100B and S100P) on cellular migration and invasion, established in both culture and animal model systems and the possible mechanisms that have been proposed to be responsible. These mechanisms involve intracellular events and components of the cytoskeletal organisation (actin/myosin filaments, intermediate filaments and microtubules) as well as extracellular signalling at different cell surface receptors (RAGE and integrins). Finally, we shall attempt to demonstrate how aberrant expression of the S100 proteins may lead to pathological events and human disorders and furthermore provide a rationale to possibly explain why the expression of some of the S100 proteins (mainly S100A4 and S100P) has led to conflicting results on motility, depending on the cells used. © 2013 Springer Basel

High-Anxious Individuals Show Increased Chronic Stress Burden, Decreased Protective Immunity, and Increased Cancer Progression in a Mouse Model of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

In spite of widespread anecdotal and scientific evidence much remains to be understood about the long-suspected connection between psychological factors and susceptibility to cancer. The skin is the most common site of cancer, accounting for nearly half of all cancers in the US, with approximately 2–3 million cases of non-melanoma cancers occurring each year worldwide. We hypothesized that a high-anxious, stress-prone behavioral phenotype would result in a higher chronic stress burden, lower protective-immunity, and increased progression of the immuno-responsive skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma. SKH1 mice were phenotyped as high- or low-anxious at baseline, and subsequently exposed to ultraviolet-B light (1 minimal erythemal dose (MED), 3 times/week, 10-weeks). The significant strengths of this cancer model are that it uses a normal, immunocompetent, outbred strain, without surgery/injection of exogenous tumor cells/cell lines, and produces lesions that resemble human tumors. Tumors were counted weekly (primary outcome), and tissues collected during early and late phases of tumor development. Chemokine/cytokine gene-expression was quantified by PCR, tumor-infiltrating helper (Th), cytolytic (CTL), and regulatory (Treg) T cells by immunohistochemistry, lymph node T and B cells by flow cytometry, adrenal and plasma corticosterone and tissue vascular-endothelial-growth-factor (VEGF) by ELISA. High-anxious mice showed a higher tumor burden during all phases of tumor development. They also showed: higher corticosterone levels (indicating greater chronic stress burden), increased CCL22 expression and Treg infiltration (increased tumor-recruited immuno-suppression), lower CTACK/CCL27, IL-12, and IFN-γ gene-expression and lower numbers of tumor infiltrating Th and CTLs (suppressed protective immunity), and higher VEGF concentrations (increased tumor angiogenesis/invasion/metastasis). These results suggest that the deleterious effects of high trait anxiety could be: exacerbated by life-stressors, accentuated by the stress of cancer diagnosis/treatment, and mediate increased tumor progression and/or metastasis. Therefore, it may be beneficial to investigate the use of chemotherapy-compatible anxiolytic treatments immediately following cancer diagnosis, and during cancer treatment/survivorship