Oral HPV infection and MHC class II deficiency (A study of two cases with atypical outcome)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Major histocompatibility complex class II deficiency, also referred to as bare lymphocyte syndrome is a rare primary Immunodeficiency disorder characterized by a profondly deficient human leukocyte antigen class II expression and a lack of cellular and humoral immune responses to foreign antigens. Clinical manifestations include extreme susceptibility to viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. The infections begin in the first year of life and involve usually the respiratory system and the gastrointestinal tract. Severe malabsorption with failure to thrive ensues, often leading to death in early childhood. Bone marrow transplantation is the curative treatment.</p> <p>Case reports</p> <p>Here we report two cases with a late outcome MHC class II deficiency. They had a long term history of recurrent bronchopulmonary and gastrointestinal infections. Bone marrow transplantation could not be performed because no compatible donor had been identified. At the age of 12 years, they developed oral papillomatous lesions related to HPV (human papillomavirus). The diagnosis of HPV infection was done by histological examination. HPV typing performed on the tissue obtained at biopsy showed HPV type 6. The lesions were partially removed after two months of laser treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Viral infections are common in patients with MHC class II and remain the main cause of death. Besides warts caused by HPV infection do not exhibit a propensity for malignant transformation; they can cause great psychosocial morbidity.</p

An elitist quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm for the flexible job-shop scheduling problem

The flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is vital to manufacturers especially in today’s constantly changing environment. It is a strongly NP-hard problem and therefore metaheuristics or heuristics are usually pursued to solve it. Most of the existing metaheuristics and heuristics, however, have low efficiency in convergence speed. To overcome this drawback, this paper develops an elitist quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm. The algorithm aims to minimise the maximum completion time (makespan). It performs a global search with the quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm and a local search with a method that is inspired by the motion mechanism of the electrons around an atomic nucleus. Three novel algorithms are proposed and their effect on the whole search is discussed. The elitist strategy is adopted to prevent the optimal solution from being destroyed during the evolutionary process. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the best-known algorithms for FJSPs on most of the FJSP benchmarks

Patients with primary immunodeficiencies are a reservoir of poliovirus and a risk to polio eradication

ABSTARCT: Immunodeficiency-associated vaccine-derived polioviruses (iVDPVs) have been isolated from primary immunodeficiency (PID) patients exposed to oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). Patients may excrete poliovirus strains for months or years; the excreted viruses are frequently highly divergent from the parental OPV and have been shown to be as neurovirulent as wild virus. Thus, these patients represent a potential reservoir for transmission of neurovirulent polioviruses in the post-eradication era. In support of WHO recommendations to better estimate the prevalence of poliovirus excreters among PIDs and characterize genetic evolution of these strains, 635 patients including 570 with primary antibody deficiencies and 65 combined immunodeficiencies were studied from 13 OPV-using countries. Two stool samples were collected over 4 days, tested for enterovirus, and the poliovirus positive samples were sequenced. Thirteen patients (2%) excreted polioviruses, most for less than 2 months following identification of infection. Five (0.8%) were classified as iVDPVs (only in combined immunodeficiencies and mostly poliovirus serotype 2). Non-polio enteroviruses were detected in 30 patients (4.7%). Patients with combined immunodeficiencies had increased risk of delayed poliovirus clearance compared to primary antibody deficiencies. Usually, iVDPV was detected in subjects with combined immunodeficiencies in a short period of time after OPV exposure, most for less than 6 months. Surveillance for poliovirus excretion among PID patients should be reinforced until polio eradication is certified and the use of OPV is stopped. Survival rates among PID patients are improving in lower and middle income countries, and iVDPV excreters are identified more frequently. Antivirals or enhanced immunotherapies presently in development represent the only potential means to manage the treatment of prolonged excreters and the risk they present to the polio endgame. Keywords: Poliovirus eradication, Immunodeficiency-associated vaccine-derived polioviruses, Oral poliovirus vaccine, Humoral immunodeficiency, Combined immunodeficiency, Primary immunodeficienc

An enigma in the genetic responses of plants to salt stresses

Soil salinity is one of the main factors restricting crop production throughout the world. Various salt tolerance traits and the genes controlling these traits are responsible for coping with salinity stress in plants. These coping mechanisms include osmotic tolerance, ion exclusion, and tissue tolerance. Plants exposed to salinity stress sense the stress conditions, convey specific stimuli signals, and initiate responses against stress through the activation of tolerance mechanisms that include multiple genes and pathways. Advances in our understanding of the genetic responses of plants to salinity and their connections with yield improvement are essential for attaining sustainable agriculture. Although a wide range of studies have been conducted that demonstrate genetic variations in response to salinity stress, numerous questions need to be answered to fully understand plant tolerance to salt stress. This chapter provides an overview of previous studies on the genetic control of salinity stress in plants, including signaling, tolerance mechanisms, and the genes, pathways, and epigenetic regulators necessary for plant salinity tolerance

Prise en charge des abces prostatiques: A propos de 47 observations

No Abstract. African Journal of Urology Vol. 12 (3) 2006: 146-15

Short- and long-term follow-up of living kidney donors

Living-donor kidney transplantation is a well-established treatment of end-stage renal disease in Tunisia. Over the years, concerns have increased about the harmlessness of kidney donation. This longitudinal single center study was carried out to evaluate the safety of nephrectomy as well as further medical and surgical outcomes among donors. We collected and analyzed clinical, biological, biochemical and kidney size data at the time of nephrectomy and at M1, M3, M6, Y1, Y2, and Y4 after donation measured by ultrasound. All donor nephrectomies performed in the nephrology and transplantation unit of Sahloul Hospital of Sousse since October 2006 were included. Criteria of exclusion were lost to follow-up or lack of complete data. Of the 106 donors (66 females and 40 males), 92 donors were included in the follow-up analysis after following exclusion criteria. The mean age at the time of nephrectomy was 42.8 ± 10 years with the sex ratio 0.6. and 27% of our donors were mothers. Twenty-two percent of the donors were obese and 4% were hypertensive. The median initial glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was 105 mL/min/1.73 m2. The surgical approach was costal lumbotomy in 96% of cases and laparoscopy for four cases. The kidneys were removed from the left side in 93% of cases. Postoperative mortality was zero and early postoperative morbidity was low. The median duration of hospital stay was nine days. During follow-up, 14% attended all recommended visits. The median follow-up duration was 26 months. After two years post donation, the prevalence of HTN was 28% and obesity was 26%. The prevalence of GFR decline (50–59 mL/min) was 14% using formula by modification of diet in renal disease. None of our donors reached stage 4 or 5 CKD. Twelve had proteinuria and one donor had diabetes, a comparable prevalence of morbidities to the general population

Eosinophilic Cystitis with Eosinophilic Cholecystitis: A Rare Association

We describe a rare case of eosinophilic cystitis associated with eosinophilic cholecystitis in a 30-year-old patient who underwent bladder biopsy for irritative voiding symptoms and routine elective cholecystectomy for gallstones. Diagnosis was confirmed by histopathological examination. The rarity of this condition prompted us to report this entity in which no specific cause could be found