Netosis as a bridge between inflammation and liver cell injury

One of programmed cell death types, netosis, discovered in ’96, was first described by Zychlinsky et al. and has gained elevating popularity among many researchers. It is a process occurring in order to catch pathogens into a trap and kill them. This trap is a scaffold somewhat consisting of chromatin and particles with antimicrobial properties such as histones. Extracellular histones are capable of proinflammatory cytokines production and platelets aggregation what accounts for inflammatory response. Unfortunately, these proteins have also a toxic potential which leads to cell injury through Toll like receptors presented by neutrophils. Mentioned neutrophils participate in an oxidative burst which yields to production reactive oxygen species performing a crucial role in the development of hepatocytes injury. Thus, alcohol abuse appears to result in a rapid development of liver cell injury through progression of inflammation induced by netosis. However, controlled NETs forming can be a future therapeutic option

Very late-onset of inflammatory bowel disease. A case report

Introduction Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in most cases is classified into Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). It appears in 25-35 years of age and the second peak is after fifties. It is very rare to recognize it in the elderly. Case presentation We present a case of a 79-year-old female patient who was admitted to the Chair and Department of Gastroenterology with Endoscopic Unit at the Medical University of Lublin in December 2018 with an acute lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage and dyselectrolytemia. Additionally, she suffered from atrial fibrillation. She has been treated with an anticoagulant therapy and has been receiving dabigatran for many years. After 16 days of diagnostic research and intensive treatment the patient was discharged home with no previous symptoms. After the next 12 days at home our patient returned to the hospital with recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding, abdominal pain and after fainting episode. Digital rectal exam was positive and laboratory test showed anemia again. Colonoscopic findings on admission showed proximally to the splenic flexure blood signs, on Bauhin’s valve a flat ulcer. The histopathological report confirmed the inflammatory bowel disease. After diagnosis of IBD, an effective treatment with mesalazine and prednisone was started. Conclusions Despite the newest clinical trials are more and more common in Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, the elderly patients are mostly excluded from them because of the other accompanying diseases and their burdensome side effects. Choosing the right therapy becomes the main problem in these patients after setting a proper diagnosis which can take years and many unnecessary hospitalizations

Dynamical Model of Coherent Pion Production in Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

We study coherent pion production in neutrino-nucleus scattering in the energy region relevant to neutrino oscillation experiments of current interest. Our approach is based on a combined use of the Sato-Lee model of electroweak pion production on a nucleon and the Delta-hole model of pion-nucleus reactions. Thus we develop a model which describes pion-nucleus scattering and electroweak coherent pion production in a unified manner. Numerical calculations are carried out for the case of the 12C target. All the free parameters in our model are fixed by fitting to both total and elastic differential cross sections for pi-12C scattering. Then we demonstrate the reliability of our approach by confronting our prediction for the coherent pion photo-productions with data. Finally, we calculate total and differential cross sections for neutrino-induced coherent pion production, and some of the results are (will be) compared with the recent (forthcoming) data from K2K, SciBooNE and MiniBooNE. We also study effect of the non-locality of the Delta-propagation in the nucleus, and compare the elementary amplitudes used in different microscopic calculations.Comment: 42 pages, 21 figure

Primary sclerosing cholangitis - an insidious enemy of the liver - case report

Background and introduction Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a chronic liver disease with features of cholestasis as a result of inflammation and damage to the bile ducts, which can eventually lead to liver fibrosis and parenchymal failure at an advanced stage. Case Report A 22-year-old man was admitted urgently to the Department of Gastroenterology for complaints of abdominal pain, weakness and tarry stools. A panel of detailed examinations was performed to establish the diagnosis. An abdominal ultrasound scan showed significant enlargement of the liver and spleen. Gastroscopy  revealed variceal columns of II degree in the lower esophagus, which were cauterized. Laboratory tests confirmed anemia, reduced platelet and white blood cell counts, increased activity of ALT, ASP, GTP, ALP and slight elevation of total bilirubin in the blood. Based on the clinical disease manifestation and the results of diagnostic tests, cirrhosis of unknown origin was suspected. Subsequent magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) revealed the presence of multiple strictures in the intra- and extrahepatic bile ducts and gave rise to the diagnosis of PSC. Pharmacological treatment was administered. Currently, the patient remains under the close care of the Transplant Clinic, where he undergoes regular checks of liver function, and endoscopic variceal ligation (EVL) as required. Discussion with conclusions The case presented here shows that the course of PSC can be insidious and asymptomatic. Despite the absence of clinical symptoms, the disease can lead to the development of advanced cirrhosis even in patients of young age and be diagnosed as late as at the decompensated stage, when the only treatment option remains organ transplantation

Dynamic Transcription of Distinct Classes of Endogenous Retroviral Elements Marks Specific Populations of Early Human Embryonic Cells

SummaryAbout half of the human genome consists of highly repetitive elements, most of which are considered dispensable for human life. Here, we report that repetitive elements originating from endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are systematically transcribed during human early embryogenesis in a stage-specific manner. Our analysis highlights that the long terminal repeats (LTRs) of ERVs provide the template for stage-specific transcription initiation, thereby generating hundreds of co-expressed, ERV-derived RNAs. Conversion of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to an epiblast-like state activates blastocyst-specific ERV elements, indicating that their activity dynamically reacts to changes in regulatory networks. In addition to initiating stage-specific transcription, many ERV families contain preserved splice sites that join the ERV segment with non-ERV exons in their genomic vicinity. In summary, we find that ERV expression is a hallmark of cellular identity and cell potency that characterizes the cell populations in early human embryos

Neutrino-nucleus reactions in the delta resonance region

Reliable estimates of neutrino-nucleus reactions in the resonance-excitation region play an important role in many of the on-going and planned neutrino oscillation experiments. We study here neutrino-nucleus reactions in the delta-particle excitation region with the use of neutrino pion-production amplitudes calculated in a formalism in which the resonance contributions and the background amplitudes are treated on the same footing. Our approach leads to the neutrino-nucleus reaction cross sections that are significantly different from those obtained in the conventional approach wherein only the pure resonance amplitudes are taken into account. To assess the reliability of our formalism, we calculate the electron-nucleus scattering cross sections in the same theoretical framework; the calculated cross sections agree reasonably well with the existing data.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures; typo, references and one figure adde

Total neutrino and antineutrino nuclear cross sections around 1 GeV

We investigate neutrino-nucleus interactions at energies around 1 GeV. In this regime, the main contributions to the cross sections come from quasi-elastic and $\Delta$ production processes. Our formalism, based on the Impulse Approximation is well suited to describe both types of interactions. We focus on a series of important nuclear effects in the interaction of electron neutrinos with $^{16}O$, also relevant to future $\beta$-Beams. Our results show that the Fermi gas model, widely used in data analysis of neutrino experiments, overestimates the total cross sections by as much as 20 %.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figure