Viruses exacerbating chronic pulmonary disease: the role of immune modulation

Chronic pulmonary diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality and their impact is expected to increase in the future. Respiratory viruses are the most common cause of acute respiratory infections and it is increasingly recognized that respiratory viruses are a major cause of acute exacerbations of chronic pulmonary diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. There is now increasing evidence that the host response to virus infection is dysregulated in these diseases and a better understanding of the mechanisms of abnormal immune responses has the potential to lead to the development of new therapies for virus-induced exacerbations. The aim of this article is to review the current knowledge regarding the role of viruses and immune modulation in chronic pulmonary diseases and discuss avenues for future research and therapeutic implications

Contact Metamorphism of Precambrian Gneiss by the Skaergaard Intrusion

The Tertiary Skaergaard intrusion, East Greenland, intruded at the shallow crustal unconformity between Precambrian amphibolite-facies gneisses and overlying Tertiary Plateau Basalts. Maximum contact metamorphic temperatures in quartzo-feldspathic gneisses were determined in two sample traverses across the aureole on the western contact of the intrusion using a combination of microstructural observations (both optical and cathodoluminescence) and the titanium-in-quartz (TitaniQ) thermometer. The onset of recrystallization of the quartz in the gneisses occurred between 390 and 340 m from the contact whereas H2O-fluxed melting occurred in gneisses closer than 130 m from the contact (where T > ∼ 675°C). The maximum temperature recorded by quartz at the contact is ∼865 ± 70°C. Melt fractions reach 50–60 vol. % in some samples although the melt is heterogeneously distributed on all scales. Minor bands of amphibolite-facies mafic gneiss are extensively reacted to an anhydrous pyroxene-bearing hornfels close to the contact, whereas those further than ∼130 m are overprinted by a greenschist-facies assemblage. Discrepancies between the expected temperature for the amphibolite- to greenschist-facies reaction and temperatures obtained from adjacent quartzo-feldspathic gneisses are consistent with the formation of the anhydrous pyroxene hornfels directly from the mafic gneiss, with the lower-grade greenschist-facies assemblage forming on the retrograde path after the establishment of limited hydrothermal activity. It is unlikely that devolatilization reactions in the gneiss produced sufficient H2O to account for the pegmatitic features formed in the Marginal Border Series in the intrusion. A simple one-dimensional thermal model, neglecting any advection of heat by hydrothermal circulation, was fitted to the profile of maximum temperature through the aureole. The generally lower temperatures seen in the gneiss compared with those previously reported for the contact metamorphosed basalts higher up the walls of the intrusion are consistent with a heterogeneous release of latent heat of crystallization