Retroperitoneal abscess complicated with necrotizing fasciitis of the thigh in a patient with sigmoid colon cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Necrotizing fasciitis of the thigh due to the colon cancer, especially during chemotherepy, has not been previously reported.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 67-year-old man admitted to the hospital was diagnosed with sigmoid colon cancer that had spread to the left psoas muscle. Multiple hepatic metastases were also found, and combination chemotherapy with irinotecan and S-1 was administered. Four months after the initiation of chemotherapy, the patient developed gait disturbance and high fever and was therefore admitted to the emergency department of our hospital. Blood examination revealed generalized inflammation with a high C-reactive protein level. Computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis showed gas and fluid collection in the retroperitoneum adjacent to the sigmoid colon cancer. The abscess was locally drained under computed tomographic guidance; however, the infection continued to spread and necrotizing fasciitis developed. Consequently, emergent debridement was performed. The patient recovered well, and the primary tumor was resected after remission of the local inflammation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Necrotizing fasciitis of the thigh due to the spread of sigmoid colon cancer is unusual, but this fatal complication should be considered during chemotherapy for patients with unresectable colorectal cancer.</p

Yeast Methylotrophy and Autophagy in a Methanol-Oscillating Environment on Growing Arabidopsis thaliana Leaves

The yeast Candida boidinii capable of growth on methanol proliferates and survives on the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana. The local methanol concentration at the phyllosphere of growing A. thaliana exhibited daily periodicity, and yeast cells responded by altering both the expression of methanol-inducible genes and peroxisome proliferation. Even under these dynamically changing environmental conditions, yeast cells proliferated 3 to 4 times in 11 days. Among the C1-metabolic enzymes, enzymes in the methanol assimilation pathway, but not formaldehyde dissimilation or anti-oxidizing enzymes, were necessary for yeast proliferation at the phyllosphere. Furthermore, both peroxisome assembly and pexophagy, a selective autophagy pathway that degrades peroxisomes, were necessary for phyllospheric proliferation. Thus, the present study sheds light on the life cycle and physiology of yeast in the natural environment at both the molecular and cellular levels

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Assessment of Border Control Measures and Community Containment Measures Used in Japan during the Early Stages of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009

In the early stages of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, border control measures were taken by quarantine stations to block the entry of infected individuals into Japan and community containment measures were implemented to prevent the spreading. The objectives of this study were to describe these measures and the characteristics of infected individuals, and to assess the measures' effectiveness.Border control and community containment measures implemented from April to June (Period I: April 28-May 21, Period II: May 22-June 18) 2009 were described. Number of individuals identified and disease characteristics were analyzed. For entry screening, a health declaration form and an infrared thermoscanner were used to detect symptomatic passengers. Passengers indicated for the rapid influenza test underwent the test followed by RT-PCR. Patients positive for H1N1 were isolated, and close contacts were quarantined. Entry cards were handed out to all asymptomatic passengers informing them about how to contact a health center in case they developed symptoms. Nine individuals were identified by entry screening and 1 during quarantine to have Pandemic (H1N1) 2009. Health monitoring by health centers was performed in period I for passengers arriving from affected countries and in period II for those who had come into contact with the individuals identified by entry screening. Health monitoring identified 3 infected individuals among 129,546 in Period I and 5 among 746 in Period II. Enhanced surveillance, which included mandatory reporting of details of the infected individuals, identified 812 individuals, 141 (18%) of whom had a history of international travel. Twenty-four of these 141 passengers picked up by enhanced surveillance had been developing symptoms on entry and were missed at screening.Symptomatic passengers were detected by the various entry screening measures put in place. Enhanced surveillance provided data for the improvement of public health measures in future pandemics

Synergistic Antitumor Effects of Novel HDAC Inhibitors and Paclitaxel In Vitro and In Vivo

Preclinical studies support the therapeutic potential of histone deacetylases inhibitors (HDACi) in combination with taxanes. The efficacy of combination has been mainly ascribed to a cooperative effect on microtubule stabilization following tubulin acetylation. In the present study we investigated the effect of paclitaxel in combination with two novel HDACi, ST2782 or ST3595, able to induce p53 and tubulin hyperacetylation. A synergistic effect of the paclitaxel/ST2782 (or ST3595) combination was found in wild-type p53 ovarian carcinoma cells, but not in a p53 mutant subline, in spite of a marked tubulin acetylation. Such a synergistic interaction was confirmed in additional human solid tumor cell lines harboring wild-type p53 but not in those expressing mutant or null p53. In addition, a synergistic cytotoxic effect was found when ST2782 was combined with the depolymerising agent vinorelbine. In contrast to SAHA, which was substantially less effective in sensitizing cells to paclitaxel-induced apoptosis, ST2782 prevented up-regulation of p21WAF1/Cip1 by paclitaxel, which has a protective role in response to taxanes, and caused p53 down-regulation, acetylation and mitochondrial localization of acetylated p53. The synergistic antitumor effects of the paclitaxel/ST3595 combination were confirmed in two tumor xenograft models. Our results support the relevance of p53 modulation as a major determinant of the synergistic interaction observed between paclitaxel and novel HDACi and emphasize the therapeutic interest of this combination

Novel animal models for studying complex brain disorders: BAC-driven miRNA-mediated in vivo silencing of gene expression

In schizophrenia, glutamic acid decarboxylase 1 (GAD1) disturbances are robust, consistently observed, cell-type specific and represent a core feature of the disease. In addition, neuropeptide Y (NPY), which is a phenotypic marker of a sub-population of GAD1-containing interneurons, has shown reduced expression in the prefrontal cortex in subjects with schizophrenia, suggesting that dysfunction of the NPY+ cortical interneuronal sub-population might be a core feature of this devastating disorder. However, modeling gene expression disturbances in schizophrenia in a cell type-specific manner has been extremely challenging. To more closely mimic these molecular and cellular human post-mortem findings, we generated a transgenic mouse in which we downregulated GAD1 mRNA expression specifically in NPY+ neurons. This novel, cell type-specific in vivo system for reducing gene expression uses a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) containing the NPY promoter-enhancer elements, the reporter molecule (eGFP) and a modified intron containing a synthetic microRNA (miRNA) targeted to GAD1. The animals of isogenic strains are generated rapidly, providing a new tool for better understanding the molecular disturbances in the GABAergic system observed in complex neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. In the future, because of the small size of the silencing miRNAs combined with our BAC strategy, this method may be modified to allow generation of mice with simultaneous silencing of multiple genes in the same cells with a single construct, and production of splice-variant-specific knockdown animals

Regulation of Inflammatory Gene Expression in PBMCs by Immunostimulatory Botanicals

Many hundreds of botanicals are used in complementary and alternative medicine for therapeutic use as antimicrobials and immune stimulators. While there exists many centuries of anecdotal evidence and few clinical studies on the activity and efficacy of these botanicals, limited scientific evidence exists on the ability of these botanicals to modulate the immune and inflammatory responses. Using botanogenomics (or herbogenomics), this study provides novel insight into inflammatory genes which are induced in peripheral blood mononuclear cells following treatment with immunomodulatory botanical extracts. These results may suggest putative genes involved in the physiological responses thought to occur following administration of these botanical extracts. Using extracts from immunostimulatory herbs (Astragalus membranaceus, Sambucus cerulea, Andrographis paniculata) and an immunosuppressive herb (Urtica dioica), the data presented supports previous cytokine studies on these herbs as well as identifying additional genes which may be involved in immune cell activation and migration and various inflammatory responses, including wound healing, angiogenesis, and blood pressure modulation. Additionally, we report the presence of lipopolysaccharide in medicinally prepared extracts of these herbs which is theorized to be a natural and active component of the immunostimulatory herbal extracts. The data presented provides a more extensive picture on how these herbs may be mediating their biological effects on the immune and inflammatory responses