Does human bocavirus infection depend on helper viruses? A challenging case report

A case of severe diarrhoea associated with synergistic human bocavirus type 1 (HBoV) and human herpes virus type 6 (HHV6) is reported. The case supports the hypotheses that HBoV infection under clinical conditions may depend on helper viruses, or that HBoV replicates by a mechanism that is atypical for parvoviruses, or that HBoV infection can be specifically treated with cidofovir

Human Bocavirus – Insights into a Newly Identified Respiratory Virus

Human Bocavirus (HBoV) was discovered in 2005 using a molecular virus screening technique. It is often found in respiratory samples and is a likely cause for respiratory diseases in children. HBoV is distributed worldwide and has been found not only in respiratory samples, but also in feces, urine and serum. HBoV infections are mostly found in young children and coinfections with other respiratory viruses are often found, exacerbating the efforts to link HBoV to specific symptoms. The purpose of this review is to give an overview of recent HBoV research, highlighting some recent findings

Detection of Head-to-Tail DNA Sequences of Human Bocavirus in Clinical Samples

Parvoviruses are single stranded DNA viruses that replicate in a so called “rolling-hairpin” mechanism, a variant of the rolling circle replication known for bacteriophages like ϕX174. The replication intermediates of parvoviruses thus are concatemers of head-to-head or tail-to-tail structure. Surprisingly, in case of the novel human bocavirus, neither head-to-head nor tail-to-tail DNA sequences were detected in clinical isolates; in contrast head-to-tail DNA sequences were identified by PCR and sequencing. Thereby, the head-to-tail sequences were linked by a novel sequence of 54 bp of which 20 bp also occur as conserved structures of the palindromic ends of parvovirus MVC which in turn is a close relative to human bocavirus

Respiratory Infections by HMPV and RSV Are Clinically Indistinguishable but Induce Different Host Response in Aged Individuals

Background: Human metapneumovirus and respiratory syncytial virus can cause severe respiratory diseases, especially in infants, young children, and the elderly. So far it remains unclear why infections in the elderly become life threatening despite the presence of neutralizing antibodies in the serum, and to which extent double infections worsen the clinical course. Methods: Young and aged BALB/c-mice were infected with RSV or/and HMPV. Appearance of the mice was observed during course of infection. On day 5 p.i. animals were dispatched by cervical dislocation and levels of TNF-a and NF-kB were determined. Results: The observation of activity, weight and appearance of the different mice showed no differences among the tested groups. Despite this, the immunologic response depends on the animals ’ age and the virus they were infected with. In young animals, NF-kB levels were elevated if infected with HMPV and HMPV/RSV but remained low in RSV infections, whereas in aged animals the opposite was observed: solely RSV-infected animals showed elevated levels of NF-kB. TNF-a was slightly elevated in HMPV-infected young and old animals, but only in young animals this elevation was significant. Conclusions: Contrary to other studies, no weight loss or change in activity despite productive lung infection with the different viruses were observed. This may be due to the weaker anaesthesia or the lesser volume of virus solution used

NGS-dataset of putative driver mutations associated with benign peritoneal strumosis

A rare case of benign peritoneal strumosis was screened for driver mutations in genes relevant to currently approved cancer therapies. Therefore, three formalin fixed paraffin embedded issue sections were screened with the GeneReader Actionable Insights NGS panel (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) for the occurrence of driver mutations. Several mutations were identified in drug-targetable genes, such as ALK, EGFR, and BRAF. The majority of identified mutations were single nucleotide variant, but also a insertion/deletion mutation was identified. The presented dataset is the first NGS dataset available from a patient with benign peritoneal strumosis

Low Titer Pneumocystis jirovecii Infections: More than Just Colonization?

Non-pneumonia Pneumocystis jirovecii colonization is thought to occur frequently in immunocompetent individuals. The aim was to analyze if P. jirovecii low-titer detections have more impact than just colonization. From our total cohort of patients for which P. jirovecii testing by qPCR was requested, we selected exclusively those that were fully immunocompetent. Patients were defined as fully immunocompetent if they did not receive immunosuppressive therapy, displayed regular antibody titers, and did not suffer from acquired, inherited or autoimmune diseases. Only those patients with complete medical records available were included. A retrospective analysis identified patients with P. jirovecii colonization and successful antibiotic therapy in response to laboratory pathogen detection. We identified 30 fully immunocompetent patients with P. jirovecii colonization suspected to suffer from infection with the pathogen, but with milder symptoms than pneumonia. All patients were successfully treated with cotrimoxazole against P. jirovecii and resolved from chronic cough and recurrent pulmonary infections. The fact that all patients displayed recovery from their clinical symptoms gives raise to the hypothesis that P. jirovecii infections may also occur in immunocompetent patients but with milder symptoms

Особые экономические зоны - перспективный инструмент привлечения инвестиций в российскую экономику (на примере АО «ОЭЗ ТВТ «Томск»)

Выпускная квалификационная работа 78 с., 1 рис., 5 табл., 45 источников. Ключевые слова: свободные (особые) экономические зоны, территории опережающего социально-экономического развития, резиденты, преференции, инвестиции. Объектом исследования являются особые экономические зоны, как инструмент привлечения инвестиций в российскую экономику. Цель работы - рассмотреть особые экономические зоны с точки зрения перспективного инструмента привлечения инвестиций в российскую экономику, на примере ОЭЗ ТВТ «Томск». В процессе исследования проводились: • Изучение мирового опыта создания свободных экономических зон (СЭЗ), определение целей их создания; • Определение успешного опыта создания и функционирования СЭЗ в КНР; • Выявление проблем, связанных с созданием и эффективным функционированиемFinal qualifying work 78 p., 1 fig., 5 tab., 45 sources. Tags: free (special) economic zones, territories of advancing social and economic development, residents, preferences, investment. The object of the study are the special economic zones as a tool to attract investment into the Russian economy. Purpose - to address the special economic zones in terms of long-term instrument of attracting investments into the Russian economy, on the example of SEZ "Tomsk". The study carried out: • International experience of creation of free economic zones (SEZs), the definition of the purpose of their creation; • Identify successful experiences of the establishment and functioning of SEZ in China; • Identification of problems related to the establishment and effective functioning of SEZ in the Russian Federation; • Analysis of a new mechanism to attract investment, as the area of ??advancing social and economic development; • Analysis and evaluation of the SEZ in Russia. The study identified measures for the effective functioning of special economic zones. TIZ analyzed the activity of the "Tomsk" for 10 years of its existence. Cost-effectiveness / value of the work is to use the theoretical conclusions, methodological approaches and practical recommendations in the special economic zones in the Russian Federation and SEZ "Tomsk". In the future, the writing of a thesis within a given theme

Are Microsatellite Patterns Specific for Tumor Types? A Pilot Investigation

Microsatellite testing is an emerging field of molecular pathology, as microsatellite instability (MSI) appears to be a predictive biomarker for some cancers. Although multiple studies on microsatellites have been published, recent observations suggest that the microsatellites that define instability differ between tumor entities. This assumption is confirmed by the present study that compared different MSI assays validated for colorectal cancer. Whilst all assays deliver the same MSI/MSS status for colorectal cancers, they differ for tonsillar tumors, leading to the hypothesis that MSI patterns are tumor-type specific