Conditions in subjects with rheumatic diseases: pulmonary manifestations of vasculitides

Pulmonary involvement is a common complication of vasculitides, especially small vessel vasculitides. This review provides an overview of vasculitic manifestations of the lung as well as of other organs involved in vasculitides. Furthermore, it provides the diagnostic procedures required to asses a patient with vasculitic lung involvement and gives an overview of current treatment strategies

Genetic Variability of RXRB, PPARA, and PPARG in Wegener's Granulomatosis

A major genomic region involved in Wegener's granulomatosis includes the gene for retinoid receptor beta (RXRB) which forms heterodimers with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). It is unclear whether this association directly arises from the RXRB allele(s) or via a linked variation. In order to reveal any hitherto unknown and potentially disease-relevant variation of the RXRB gene, we have genotyped four tagging SNPs of this genomic region and have directly sequenced selected WG patients and controls representing disease-associated haplotypes. Additionally, we have genotyped 2 SNPs each in the genes for PPARα and PPARγ (PPARA and PPARG). Hence, we confirmed the strong association of the RXRB locus with WG but could not reveal any novel variation in RXRB. None of the PPARA and PPARG SNPs showed association with WG. Moreover, no epistatic effect was seen between RXRB and PPARA/PPARG alleles. These results do not support an etiopathological role of PPAR in WG. Analyses of further genes functionally linked to RXRB may provide additional data useful to evaluate the RXRB association found in WG

The Photon Dispersion as an Indicator for New Physics ?

We first comment on the search for a deviation from the linear photon dispersion relation, in particular based on cosmic photons from Gamma Ray Bursts. Then we consider the non-commutative space as a theoretical concept that could lead to such a deviation, which would be a manifestation of Lorentz Invariance Violation. In particular we review a numerical study of pure U(1) gauge theory in a 4d non-commutative space. Starting from a finite lattice, we explore the phase diagram and the extrapolation to the continuum and infinite volume. These simultaneous limits - taken at fixed non-commutativity - lead to a phase of broken Poincare symmetry, where the photon appears to be IR stable, despite a negative IR divergence to one loop.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, talk presented at the VI International Workshop on the Dark Side of the Universe, Leon (Mexico), June 1-6, 2010. References adde

Gauge Theory on Fuzzy S^2 x S^2 and Regularization on Noncommutative R^4

We define U(n) gauge theory on fuzzy S^2_N x S^2_N as a multi-matrix model, which reduces to ordinary Yang-Mills theory on S^2 x S^2 in the commutative limit N -> infinity. The model can be used as a regularization of gauge theory on noncommutative R^4_\theta in a particular scaling limit, which is studied in detail. We also find topologically non-trivial U(1) solutions, which reduce to the known "fluxon" solutions in the limit of R^4_\theta, reproducing their full moduli space. Other solutions which can be interpreted as 2-dimensional branes are also found. The quantization of the model is defined non-perturbatively in terms of a path integral which is finite. A gauge-fixed BRST-invariant action is given as well. Fermions in the fundamental representation of the gauge group are included using a formulation based on SO(6), by defining a fuzzy Dirac operator which reduces to the standard Dirac operator on S^2 x S^2 in the commutative limit. The chirality operator and Weyl spinors are also introduced.Comment: 39 pages. V2-4: References added, typos fixe

TREATMENT OF WEGENER'S GRANULOMATOSIS

Treatment of Wegener's granulomatosis, often a life-threatening disease, has greatly improved, considering that before corticosteroids and immunosuppressives were available, the average survival time of patients amounted to no more than 5 months. The management of Wegener's granulomatosis can be divided in two stages: induction of remission and maintenance of remission. The standard regimen for the induction of remission consists of cyclophosphamide, 2 mg/kg/day orally, in combination with prednisone, 1mg/Kg/day orally, with a gradual tapering once remission has been obtained. To lower the overall cumulative dose, monthly intravenous pulses of cyclophosphamide have been evaluated. Other alternative treatments as high doses of corticosteroids, methotrexate, or plasmapheresis have been proposed, together as prophylaxis with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. To minimize toxicity, for maintenance therapy other drugs are also used such as methotrexate, azathioprine, cyclosporine. Frequent therapeutic changes are needed due to the great variability of the disease; while important aspects are the recognition and treatment of relapse, and include not only the management of resistant disease, but also some particular aspects such as disease in chronic dialysis, renal transplant, pregnancy. Other cytotoxic drugs like leflunomide or mycofenolic mofetil appear to be promising, while new efforts to identify more effective and less toxic therapies include biologic products, such as high-dose immunoglobulin, TNF antagonists and other monoclonal antibodies. Many different kind of clinical trials are going on to better evaluate the real efficacy and safety of these treatments in Wegener's granulomatosis

Size Matters: Origin of Binomial Scaling in Nuclear Fragmentation Experiments

The relationship between measured transverse energy, total charge recovered in the detector, and size of the emitting system is investigated. Using only very simple assumptions, we are able to reproduce the observed binomial emission probabilities and their dependences on the transverse energy.Comment: 14 pages, including 4 figure

An adolescent with both Wegener's Granulomatosis and chronic blastomycosis

We report a case of Wegener's Granulomatosis (WG) associated with blastomycosis. This appears to be the first case report of WG co-existing with a tissue proven blastomycosis infection. The temporal correlation of the two conditions suggests that blastomycosis infection (and therefore possibly other fungal infections), may trigger the systemic granulomatous vasculitis in a predisposed individual; a provocative supposition warranting further study

Dimensional Reduction of Fermions in Brane Worlds of the Gross-Neveu Model

We study the dimensional reduction of fermions, both in the symmetric and in the broken phase of the 3-d Gross-Neveu model at large N. In particular, in the broken phase we construct an exact solution for a stable brane world consisting of a domain wall and an anti-wall. A left-handed 2-d fermion localized on the domain wall and a right-handed fermion localized on the anti-wall communicate with each other through the 3-d bulk. In this way they are bound together to form a Dirac fermion of mass m. As a consequence of asymptotic freedom of the 2-d Gross-Neveu model, the 2-d correlation length \xi = 1/m increases exponentially with the brane separation. Hence, from the low-energy point of view of a 2-d observer, the separation of the branes appears very small and the world becomes indistinguishable from a 2-d space-time. Our toy model provides a mechanism for brane stabilization: branes made of fermions may be stable due to their baryon asymmetry. Ironically, our brane world is stable only if it has an extreme baryon asymmetry with all states in this ``world'' being completely filled.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure

Immunotherapeutic targeting of membrane Hsp70-expressing tumors using recombinant human granzyme B

Background: We have previously reported that human recombinant granzyme B (grB) mediates apoptosis in membrane heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70)-positive tumor cells in a perforin-independent manner