TOpic: rare and special cases, the real "Strange cases"

Introduction: The bladder hernia represents approximately 1-3% of all inguinal hernias, where patients aged more than 50 years have a higher incidence (10%). Many factors contribute to the development of a bladder hernia, including the presence of a urinary outlet obstruction causing chronic bladder distention, the loss of bladder tone, pericystitis, the perivesical bladder fat protrusion and the obesity

Co-Inoculation with Rhizobia and AMF Inhibited Soybean Red Crown Rot: From Field Study to Plant Defense-Related Gene Expression Analysis

Background: Soybean red crown rot is a major soil-borne disease all over the world, which severely affects soybean production. Efficient and sustainable methods are strongly desired to control the soil-borne diseases. Principal Findings: We firstly investigated the disease incidence and index of soybean red crown rot under different phosphorus (P) additions in field and found that the natural inoculation of rhizobia and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) could affect soybean red crown rot, particularly without P addition. Further studies in sand culture experiments showed that inoculation with rhizobia or AMF significantly decreased severity and incidence of soybean red crown rot, especially for coinoculation with rhizobia and AMF at low P. The root colony forming unit (CFU) decreased over 50 % when inoculated by rhizobia and/or AMF at low P. However, P addition only enhanced CFU when inoculated with AMF. Furthermore, root exudates of soybean inoculated with rhizobia and/or AMF significantly inhibited pathogen growth and reproduction. Quantitative RT-PCR results indicated that the transcripts of the most tested pathogen defense-related (PR) genes in roots were significantly increased by rhizobium and/or AMF inoculation. Among them, PR2, PR3, PR4 and PR10 reached the highest level with co-inoculation of rhizobium and AMF. Conclusions: Our results indicated that inoculation with rhizobia and AMF could directly inhibit pathogen growth and reproduction, and activate the plant overall defense system through increasing PR gene expressions. Combined wit

PD-L1 Expression is Associated with Poor Prognosis in Renal Cell Carcinoma

Programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a protein which, when interacting with its receptor programmed death 1, acts as a negative regulator of the antitumor T-cell-mediated immune response. The prognostic value of PD-L1 expression in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has been controversial. In this study, the prognostic value of PD-L1 expression in RCC was evaluated by analyzing PD-L1 immunoreactivity in tumor cells and tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) in 346 RCC patients with long-term follow-up. PD-L1 positivity in tumor cells was associated with higher World Health Organization nucleolar grade (P<0.001), recurrence (P=0.011), and death due to RCC (P=0.031). PD-L1 positivity in TIICs was associated with higher nucleolar grade (P<0.001), higher T-stage (P=0.031), higher N-stage (P=0.01), recurrence (P=0.007), and death due to RCC (P=0.001). A significant positive association of time to cancer-specific death with both PD-L1-positive tumor cells and TIICs were also found. The data indicate that RCC patients with PD-L1-positive tumor cells and TIICs are at significant risk for cancer progression and the expression may be used as a complementary prognostic factor in the management of RCC patients

Proceedings Third International Workshop on Computational Models for Cell Processes

This volume contains the final versions of the papers presented at the 3rd International Workshop on Computational Models for Cell Processes (CompMod 2011). The workshop took place on September 10, 2011 at the University of Aachen, Germany, in conjunction with CONCUR 2011. The first edition of the workshop (2008) took place in Turku, Finland, in conjunction with Formal Methods 2008 and the second edition (2009) took place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, as well in conjunction with Formal Methods 2009. The goal of the CompMod workshop series is to bring together researchers in Computer Science (especially in Formal Methods) and Mathematics (both discrete and continuous), interested in the opportunities and the challenges of Systems Biology