23 research outputs found
Aggressive natural killer-cell leukemia with jaundice and spontaneous splenic rupture: a case report and review of the literature
Effect of Dietary Zinc Oxide on Morphological Characteristics, Mucin Composition and Gene Expression in the Colon of Weaned Piglets
The trace element zinc is often used in the diet of weaned piglets, as high
doses have resulted in positive effects on intestinal health. However, the
majority of previous studies evaluated zinc supplementations for a short
period only and focused on the small intestine. The hypothesis of the present
study was that low, medium and high levels of dietary zinc (57, 164 and 2,425
mg Zn/kg from zinc oxide) would affect colonic morphology and innate host
defense mechanisms across 4 weeks post-weaning. Histological examinations were
conducted regarding the colonic morphology and neutral, acidic, sialylated and
sulphated mucins. The mRNA expression levels of mucin (MUC) 1, 2, 13, 20,
toll-like receptor (TLR) 2, 4, interleukin (IL)-1β, 8, 10, interferon-γ
(IFN-γ) and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) were also measured. The
colonic crypt area increased in an age-depending manner, and the greatest area
was found with medium concentration of dietary zinc. With the high
concentration of dietary zinc, the number of goblet cells containing mixed
neutral-acidic mucins and total mucins increased. Sialomucin containing goblet
cells increased age-dependently. The expression of MUC2 increased with age and
reached the highest level at 47 days of age. The expression levels of TLR2 and
4 decreased with age. The mRNA expression of TLR4 and the pro-inflammatory
cytokine IL-8 were down-regulated with high dietary zinc treatment, while
piglets fed with medium dietary zinc had the highest expression. It is
concluded that dietary zinc level had a clear impact on colonic morphology,
mucin profiles and immunological traits in piglets after weaning. Those
changes might support local defense mechanisms and affect colonic physiology
and contribute to the reported reduction of post-weaning diarrhea
Human malarial disease: a consequence of inflammatory cytokine release
Malaria causes an acute systemic human disease that bears many similarities, both clinically and mechanistically, to those caused by bacteria, rickettsia, and viruses. Over the past few decades, a literature has emerged that argues for most of the pathology seen in all of these infectious diseases being explained by activation of the inflammatory system, with the balance between the pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines being tipped towards the onset of systemic inflammation. Although not often expressed in energy terms, there is, when reduced to biochemical essentials, wide agreement that infection with falciparum malaria is often fatal because mitochondria are unable to generate enough ATP to maintain normal cellular function. Most, however, would contend that this largely occurs because sequestered parasitized red cells prevent sufficient oxygen getting to where it is needed. This review considers the evidence that an equally or more important way ATP deficency arises in malaria, as well as these other infectious diseases, is an inability of mitochondria, through the effects of inflammatory cytokines on their function, to utilise available oxygen. This activity of these cytokines, plus their capacity to control the pathways through which oxygen supply to mitochondria are restricted (particularly through directing sequestration and driving anaemia), combine to make falciparum malaria primarily an inflammatory cytokine-driven disease
A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)
Meeting abstrac
Surface structure of amorphous polystyrene: Comparison of SFM imaging and lattice chain simulations
We identify and characterize surface features on the length scale 1-100 nm on a free equilibrated surface of amorphous polystyrene (in contact with air), from a combination of scanning force microscopy and coarse-grained polymer simulation techniques. By carrying out a lateral autocorrelation analysis of the experimental and simulated surface height profiles, we find characteristic length scales of structural organization of polymer chains depending on their molecular mass in the range 3.9 kg/mol to 9 Mg/mol. The lateral autocorrelation functions exhibit an initial exponential decay, which corresponds to a correlated arrangement of several monomer segments at the surface of the amorphous polymer, followed by one or more peaks. The same autocorrelation analysis of the surface height data is applied to the simulated data created for the same system with a lattice chain model. By combining evidence of simulation and experiment results, we deduce that a characteristic feature in the surface autocorrelation function has a length scale close to the radius of gyration over several decades of molecular weight. This study therefore opens up new ways of characterizing polymer surfaces and even observing the polymer radius of gyration directly