Galanin and galanin receptor expression in neuroblastic tumours: correlation with their differentiation status

Neuroblastoma and its benign differentiated counterpart, ganglioneuroma, are paediatric neuroblastic tumours arising in the sympathetic nervous system. Their broad spectrum of clinical virulence is mainly related to heterogeneous biologic background and tumour differentiation. Neuroblastic tumours synthesize various neuropeptides acting as neuromodulators. Previous studies suggested that galanin plays a role in sympathetic tissue where it could be involved in differentiation and development. We investigated the expression and distribution of galanin and its three known receptors (Gal-R1, Gal-R2, Gal-R3) in 19 samples of neuroblastic tumours tissue by immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization and fluorescent-ligand binding. This study provides clear evidence for galanin and galanin receptor expression in human neuroblastic tumours. The messengers coding for galanin, Gal-R1 and -R3 were highly expressed in neuroblastoma and their amount dramatically decreased in ganglioneuroma. In contrast, Gal-R2 levels remained unchanged. Double labelling studies showed that galanin was mainly co-expressed with its receptors whatever the differentiation stage. In neuroblastic tumours, galanin might promote cell-survival or counteract neuronal differentiation through the different signalling pathways mediated by galanin receptors. Finally, our results suggest that galanin influences neuroblastoma growth and development as an autocrine/paracrine modulator. These findings suggest potential critical implications for galanin in neuroblastic tumours development

Travelers With Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Cured Without Systemic Therapy

Guidelines recommend wound care and/or local therapy as first-line treatment for cutaneous leishmaniasis. An analysis of a referral treatment program in 135 travelers showed that this approach was feasible in 62% of patients, with positive outcome in 83% of evaluable patient

Sur de nouvelles applications de la règle de parité en émission ionique secondaire

We first show that the results of recent experiments confirm the idea that the emission intensities for the SIMS molecular ions (or for ions produced by other techniques discussed in the paper) reflect the physical properties of the emitted clusters and that they are little influenced by the initial arrangement of atoms at the surface. Using this conclusion we analyse three recent experimental results on Au+n, I+ n and XnY+p ions (where X is an halogen and Y an alcalin atom) and show that they satisfy the parity rule which predict that the intensities are the largest when the number of valence electrons in the neutral corresponding cluster is odd.Nous montrons d'abord que les résultats d'expériences récentes confirment l'idée selon laquelle les intensités d'émission des ions moléculaires produits par émission ionique secondaire (ou par d'autres techniques précisées dans l'article) renseignent essentiellement sur les propriétés physiques des amas émis et que, par contre, elles sont assez peu influencées par la disposition des atomes en surfaces. Utilisant cette constatation, nous analysons les résultats de trois expériences récentes sur les Au +n, les I+n et les X nY+p (où X est un halogène, Y un alcalin) et montrons qu'ils satisfont tous la règle de parité qui prévoit que l'intensité est plus forte quand le nombre total d'électrons de valence dans l'amas neutre correspondant est impair

Lingots de plomb antique trouvés dans les eaux de Corse du Sud

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