Association between Levels of IgA Antibodies to Tissue Transglutaminase and Gliadin-Related Nonapeptides in Dermatitis Herpetiformis

Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is an autoimmunity-driven inflammatory blistering dermatosis associated with a gluten-dependent enteropathy. Tissue transglutaminase (tTG) and nonapeptides of gliadin (npG) are considered in its pathomechanism/diagnostics. Here, the diagnostic accuracy of anti-tTG/anti-npG IgA ELISAs in Slavic DH patients with active skin rash was assessed through creating receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, determining cutoff values, and calculating correlations between levels of anti-tTG/anti-npG IgA in DH, IgA/neutrophil-mediated non-DH patients and healthy persons. Altogether, sera from 80 Slavic individuals were examined. There were negligible differences between cutoff points obtained by the ELISAs manufacturer and those in this study. There were statistically significant correlations between levels of anti-tTG/anti-npG IgA in both DH group and the group of IgA/neutrophil-mediated non-DH dermatoses. There was no such correlation in healthy controls. It seems that IgA autoantibodies to tTG and npG in the IgA/neutrophil-mediated DH are produced in the coordinated way implying their causal relationship

Immunoexpression of IgA receptors (CD89, CD71) in dermatitis herpetiformis

Introduction. The role of IgA receptors in dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) pathogenesis is still unknown. CD89 and CD71 may be associated with immune response during DH development. The purpose of this study was to perform semiquantitative analysis of simultaneous immunoexpression of CD89 and CD71 in DH and IgA/neutrophil-mediated non-DH dermatoses (IgAN) in relation to specific IgA autoantibodies/antibodies (tissue and epidermal transglutaminases, nonapeptides of gliadin — eTG/tTG/npG) as well neutrophil activation via the release of neutrophil elastase (NE). Material and methods. In total, 48 patients were studied. The study was conducted on skin lesions and sera obtained from DH and IgAN patients. DH and IgAN served as mutually positive control groups. We used immunohistochemical technique with semiquantitative digital morphometry and ELISA to measure serum levels of anti-eTG/tTG/npG IgA. Results. CD89 showed a significantly higher expression in DH than in IgAN. CD71 was overexpressed in DH and IgAN. CD89 immunoexpression correlated negatively with CD71 in IgAN. A positive correlation was revealed between CD89 immunoexpression and anti-npG IgA in DH. No statistically significant correlations were found in DH between the CD89/CD71 and NE immunoexpression, between CD71 immunoexpression and anti-tTG/eTG/npG IgA, or between CD89 immunoexpression and anti-eTG/tTG IgA serum levels. Conclusions. CD89 is probably a key IgA Fc receptor in DH development, where it is associated with immune response to gluten. CD71 may be linked with inflammation in DH and IgAN. We suggest that interaction between CD89 and CD71 can modulate the inflammation in IgAN

Hydrodynamic afterburner for the Color Glass Condensate and the parton energy loss

We take hydrodynamic initial conditions in relativistic heavy ion collisions from the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) picture through the kT factorization formula. Gluon distributions produced from the CGC are found to provide good initial conditions for the hydrodynamic simulations in Au + Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energies. We reproduce the centrality, rapidity, and energy dependences of multiplicity within this approach. We also investigate the energy loss of high pT partons in the dense thermalized medium created from colliding two CGC's. We find that our results on the centrality dependence of nuclear modification factors for pions and back-to-back correlation for charged hadrons at midrapidity are consistent with the RHIC data up to semicentral events. Whereas, our approach in which jets are calculated from perturbative QCD 2->2 processes predicts less suppression at forward rapidity region compared to the BRAHMS data in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures(one figure added), some typo corrected, some references added; to be published in Nucl.Phys.

Probing the QCD equation of state with thermal photons in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC

Thermal photon production at mid-rapidity in Au+Au reactions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV is studied in the framework of a 2D+1 hydrodynamical model that describes efficiently the bulk identified hadron spectra at RHIC. The combined thermal plus NLO pQCD photon spectrum is in good agreement with the yields measured by the PHENIX experiment for all Au+Au centralities. Within our model, we demonstrate that the correlation of the thermal photon slopes with the charged hadron multiplicity in each centrality bin provides direct empirical information on the underlying degrees of freedom and on the equation of state, $s(T)/T^3$, of the strongly interacting matter.Comment: Version to appear in EPJ-C (extended discussion and refs. and a few corrections

Analysis of the autoimmune response against BP180 and BP230 in ethnic Poles with neurodegenerative disorders and bullous pemphigoid

Abstract recent studies postulated the association between bullous pemphigoid (BP) and neurodegenerative disorders (nD). the autoantibodies to BP180 and/or BP230 may be present not only in BP, but also in nD as neuronal isoforms of these proteins are identified in the central nervous system. however, there are only scant data about the precise pathogenetic mechanisms interlinking nD and BP as well as the immunologic profile in these patients. the aim is to analyze the serological immunopathological profiles (anti-BP180 igG, anti-BP230 igG) in BP patients with and without nD in order to identify the specific autoantibody(ies) and corresponding antigens responsible for nD development in BP patients. altogether, 82 ethnic Poles with BP and their medical records were examined (62 BP-nD; 20 BP+nD). Levels of serum anti-BP180/BP230 igG in BP patients were evaluated with eLisas. the statistical analyses involved Pearson chi-squared test, Mann-whitney u-test and ranking of autoantibodies. the prevalence of nD among BP patients was 24.4%. there were no statistically significant differences in autoantigens profiles (anti-BP180/anti-BP230 igG) between BP+nD and BP-nD groups. there was no relationship between nD development and anti-BP180/anti-BP230 igG leve

Usefulness of Endoscopic Indices in Determination of Disease Activity in Patients with Crohn’s Disease

Background. Assessment of endoscopic activity of Crohn’s disease (CD) is of growing importance both in clinical practice and in clinical trials. The study aimed to assess which of the endoscopic indices used for evaluation of mucosal changes correlates with the currently used clinical indices for determination of disease activity and with the results of histopathological examination. Study. A group of 71 patients with CD and 52 individuals without a diagnosis of GI tract disease as a control group were investigated, considering clinical and histological severity of the disease and the severity of inflammatory changes in the bowel. Evaluation was conducted with the use of clinical, endoscopic, and histopathological indices. Endoscopic indices were then correlated with different clinical and histopathological indices with the aim of finding the strongest correlations. Results and Conclusions. Correlation between the clinical disease activity and the severity of endoscopic lesions in CD was shown in this study to be poor. The results also indicate that the optimal endoscopic index used in the diagnostic stage and in the assessment of treatment effects in CD is Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn’s Disease (SES-CD)

The Surprising Transparency of the sQGP at LHC

We present parameter-free predictions of the nuclear modification factor, R_{AA}^pi(p_T,s), of high p_T pions produced in Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt{s}_{NN}=2.76 and 5.5 ATeV based on the WHDG/DGLV (radiative+elastic+geometric fluctuation) jet energy loss model. The initial quark gluon plasma (QGP) density at LHC is constrained from a rigorous statistical analysis of PHENIX/RHIC pi^0 quenching data at sqrt{s}_{NN}=0.2 ATeV and the charged particle multiplicity at ALICE/LHC at 2.76 ATeV. Our perturbative QCD tomographic theory predicts significant differences between jet quenching at RHIC and LHC energies, which are qualitatively consistent with the p_T-dependence and normalization---within the large systematic uncertainty---of the first charged hadron nuclear modification factor, R^{ch}_{AA}, data measured by ALICE. However, our constrained prediction of the central to peripheral pion modification, R^pi_{cp}(p_T), for which large systematic uncertainties associated with unmeasured p+p reference data cancel, is found to be over-quenched relative to the charged hadron ALICE R^{ch}_{cp} data in the range 5<p_T<20 GeV/c. The discrepancy challenges the two most basic jet tomographic assumptions: (1) that the energy loss scales linearly with the initial local comoving QGP density, rho_0, and (2) that \rho_0 \propto dN^{ch}(s,C)/dy is proportional to the observed global charged particle multiplicity per unit rapidity as a function of sqrt{s} and centrality class, C. Future LHC identified (h=pi,K,p) hadron R^h_{AA} data (together with precise p+p, p+Pb, and Z boson and direct photon Pb+Pb control data) are needed to assess if the QGP produced at LHC is indeed less opaque to jets than predicted by constrained extrapolations from RHIC.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Modified Kolmogorov Wave Turbulence in QCD matched onto "Bottom-up" Thermalization

We investigate modification of Kolmogorov wave turbulence in QCD calculating gluon spectra as functions of time in the presence of a low energy source which feeds in energy density in the infrared region at a time-dependent rate. Then considering the picture of saturation constraints as has been constructed in the "bottom-up" thermalization approach we revisit that picture for RHIC center-mass energy, $W = 130 {GeV}$, and also extend it to LHC center-mass energy, $W = 5500 {GeV}$, thus for two cases having an opportunity to calculate the equilibration time, $tau_{eq|therm}$, of the gluon system produced in a central heavy ion collision at mid-rapidity region. Thereby, at RHIC and LHC energies we can match the equilibration time, obtained from the late stage gluon spectrum of the modified Kolmogorov wave turbulence, onto that of the "bottom-up" thermalization and other evolutional approaches as well. In addition, from the revised "bottom-up" approach we find the gluon liberation coefficient to be on the average, $c = 0.81 - 1.06$ at RHIC and $c = 0.50 - 0.56$ at LHC. We also present other phenomenological estimates of $tau_{therm}$ which, at QCD realistic couplings, yield $0.45fm - 0.65fm < tau_{therm} < 0.97fm - 2.72fm$ at RHIC and $0.31fm - 0.40fm < tau_{therm} < 0.86fm - 2.04fm$ at LHC, both reflecting the original and modified Kolmogorov wave turbulent scenarios. In the latter case, at certain conditions, taking also into account both very small and realistic couplings we give estimates - $0.65fm < tau_{therm} < 1.29fm$ at RHIC and $0.52fm < tau_{therm} < 1.16fm$ at LHC, as well as at realistic couplings we find $0.53 < tau_{therm} < 0.7fm$ at RHIC and $0.41 < tau_{therm} < 0.65fm$ at LHC.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures and 5 tables: typos were corrected, content changed in Abstract and Conclusions, 2 tables were added in Conclusion