Keratin 19 marks poor differentiation and a more aggressive behaviour in canine and human hepatocellular tumours

Keratin 19 marks poor differentiation and a more aggressive behaviour in canine and human hepatocellular tumours Renee GHM van Sprundel1, Ted SGAM van den Ingh2, Valeer J Desmet3, Azeam Katoonizadeh3, Louis C Penning1, Jan Rothuizen1, Tania Roskams3 and Bart Spee13* * Corresponding author: Bart Spee [email protected] Author Affiliations 1 Department of Clinical Sciences of Companion Animals, Faculty of Veterinary medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 TCCI Consultancy BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands 3 Department of Morphology and Molecular Pathology, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium For all author emails, please log on. Comparative Hepatology 2010, 9:4 doi:10.1186/1476-5926-9-4 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.comparative-hepatology.com/content/9/1/4 Received: 23 November 2009 Accepted: 18 February 2010 Published: 18 February 2010 © 2010 van Sprundel et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Detection of Helicobacter pylori in bile of cats

Lymphocytic cholangitis (LC) in cats is a biliary disease of unknown etiology. Helicobacter spp. were recently implicated in human primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). Because of the similarities between PSC/PBC with LC, we hypothesized that Helicobacter spp. are involved in feline LC. A PCR with Helicobacter genus-specific 16S rRNA primers was performed on DNA isolated from feline bile samples. Four of the 15 (26%) LC samples were positive, whereas only 8/51 (16%) of non-LC samples were PCR positive (p=0.44). Sequence analysis of the amplicons revealed a 100% identity with the Helicobacter pylori specific DNA fragments. Our data suggest an etiological role of H. pylori in feline LC and that cats are a potential zoonotic reservoir

Congenital cystic disease of the liver in seven dogs

Seven canine cases of cystic disease of the liver are described. They included 3 cases with solitary cysts, 3 with the adult type of polycystic disease of the liver and one with congenital dilatation of the bile ducts type V, i.e. fusiform dilatation of the intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts. These findings are discussed with respect to the morphology and classification of human cases of cystic liver disease

Association between liver copper concentration and subclinical hepatitis in Doberman Pinchers

The prevalence of subclinical hepatitis was investigated in a group of 106 randomly selected 3‐year‐old Doberman Pinschers. Histopathologic examination of liver samples from 65 dogs (52 dogs with high bile acids, alkaline phosphatase activity, or alanine aminotransferase activity or with copper granules in hepatocytes in a liver aspirate and 13 normal dogs) revealed subclinical hepatitis in 22 dogs (19 females and 3 males). Liver copper concentrations measured by instrumental neutron activation analysis was significantly higher (mean ± SD; 419 ± 414 μg/g dry matter) in dogs with hepatitis than those without liver disease (197 ± 113 μg/g; P= .0008). At 2.6 ± 0.6 years hepatitis persisted in 5 of 16 dogs available for examination. One dog with a high copper concentration but normal liver subsequently developed subclinical hepatitis after 3 years. During the follow‐up period, the average copper concentration of the 6 dogs with persistent subclinical hepatitis was 939 ± 299 μg/g and had continued to rise significantly (P= .02). The hepatitis in these dogs was associated with apoptotic hepatocytes and copper‐laden Kupffer cells in centrolobular regions. The results of this study suggest that there is a relationship among copper storage, hepatocellular damage, and hepatitis in Doberman Pinschers