Clinical significance of circulating dendritic cells in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Dendritic cells are a complex group of mainly bone-marrow-derived leukocytes that play a role in autoimmune diseases. The total number of circulating dendritic cells (tDC), and their plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) and myeloid dendritic cell (mDC1 and mDC2) subpopulations were assessed using flow cytometry. The number of tDC and their subsets were significantly lower in systemic lupus erythematosus patients than in the control group. The count of tDC and their subsets correlated with the number of T cells. The number of tDC and pDC subpopulation were lower in the patients with lymphopenia and leukopenia than in the patients without these symptoms. Our data suggest that fluctuations in blood dendritic cell count in systemic lupus erythematosus patients are much more significant in pDC than in mDC, what may be caused by their migration to the sites of inflammation including skin lesions. Positive correlation between dendritic cell number and TCD4+, TCD8+ and CD19+ B cells, testify of their interactions and influence on SLE pathogenesis. The association between dendritic cell number and clinical features seems to be less clear

The influence of 2- chlorodeoxyadenosine in combination with tumour necrosis factor-α or its mutein on murine leukaemias L1210 and P388

We investigated the influence of 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine (2-CdA) in combination with tumour necrosis factor-α (TNFα) or its mutein VI, which differs from the native molecule by N-terminal amino acid composition, on the survival time of mice inoculated with leukaemia L1210 or P388. Groups of mice with leukaemia L1210 and P388 receiving 2-CdA combined with TNFα had shorter survival times than animals treated with these agents separately. In contrast, the administration of 2-CdA in conjunction with mutein VI, prolonged the survival of mice inoculated with these leukaemias as compared with animals receiving these agents separately. The results of the present study emphasize the importance of the biological activity of the TNFα molecule N-terminus

A comparison of the Antileukaemic Effects of Recombinant Human Tumour Necrosis Factor-α and its Muteins on Leukaemia L1210 and Leukaemia P388 in Mice

We investigated the influence of recombinant human tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and its derivatives termed muteins III, V, VI—in which the first 3 to 7 amino acids of native TNF-α have been replaced—on the survival time of mice inoculated with leukaemia L1210 or leukaemia P338. TNF-α prolonged the survival of mice with leukaemia L1210 but did not have any therapeutic activity in leukaemia P388-bearing mice. Muteins-treated mice with leukaemia P388 lived longer than animals receiving TNF-α, while those inoculated with leukaemia L1210 did not show any significant prolongation of life compared with the TNF-α treated group. The results presented in this report indicate that the antileukaemic activity of TNF-α is governed at least in part by the nature of the N-terminal amino acids

Serum levels of IL-6 type cytokines and soluble IL-6 receptors in active B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia and in cladribine induced remission.

We have investigated the serum concentrations of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and two IL-6 family cytokines-oncostatin M (OSM) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF)-in 63 patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) and 17 healthy controls using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Simultaneously, we measured the serum levels of the soluble forms of two subunits of the IL-6 receptor complex-ligand binding glycoprotein 80 (sIL-6R) and glycoprotein 130 (sgp130). The cytokines and receptors were evaluated in 25 untreated patients and 38 patients treated with cladribine (2-CdA), as well as in 17 healthy controls. We have correlated the serum levels of these proteins with Rai's clinical stage of the disease, the response to 2-CdA treatment and some hematological parameters. We have also evaluated the correlation of the IL-6 serum level with the concentration of OSM and IL-6 soluble receptors. IL-6 was measurable in 62/63 (98.4%), OSM in 20/25 (80%) of untreated and 14/38 (37.8%) of the treated patients. sIL-6R and sgp130 were detectable in all 63 patients and LIF in none of the CLL patients. IL-6 serum level in untreated patients was not significantly different as compared to its concentration in the control group (P>0.05). However, in the patients treated with 2-CdA the IL-6 level was significantly lower (P<0.02), and the lowest concentration was found in the patients with complete remission (CR; median 1.4pg/ml; P<0.02). The concentration of sIL-6R was significantly higher in untreated (median 61.8 ng/ml) and treated (median 50.1 ng/ml) CLL patients when compared to normal persons (median 41.2 ng/ml; P=0.04; P<0.001, respectively). There was no difference between the sIL-6R levels in the patients with CR and the healthy controls. In non-responders sIL-6R concentration was the highest and similar to its level in the untreated patients. OSM level was higher in the untreated patients (median 1.8pg/ml) than in the normal controls (median 0.0pg/ml; P<0.001) and in the CR patients (median 0.0pg/ml; P<0.03). The serum concentration of sgp130 was similar in the untreated (median 480 pg/ml) and treated (median 470 pg/ml) patients, as well as in the healthy persons (median 420 pg/ml; P>0.05). We have found significant positive correlation between the levels of sIL-6R and the lymphocytes count in CLL patients (p=0.423; P<0.001). In addition, sIL-6R and OSM serum concentrations correlated also with CLL Rai stage. In conclusion, the serum level of IL-6, OSM and sIL-6R, but not LIF and sgp130, are useful indicators of CLL activity

Gene expression of INPP5F as an independent prognostic marker in fludarabine-based therapy of chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a heterogeneous disease. Various disease-related and patient-related factors have been shown to influence the course of the disease. The aim of this study was to identify novel biomarkers of significant clinical relevance. Pretreatment CD19-separated lymphocytes (n = 237;discovery set) and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (n = 92;validation set) from the REACH trial, a randomized phase III trial in relapsed CLL comparing rituximab plus fludarabine plus cyclophosphamide with fludarabine plus cyclophosphamide alone, underwent gene expression profiling. By using Cox regression survival analysis on the discovery set, we identified inositol polyphosphate-5-phosphatase F (INPP5F) as a prognostic factor for progression-free survival (P<0.001;hazard ratio (HR),1.63;95% confidence interval (CI),1.35-1.98) and overall survival (Po0.001;HR, 1.47;95% CI, 1.18-1.84),regardless of adjusting for known prognostic factors. These findings were confirmed on the validation set, suggesting that INPP5F may serve as a novel, easy-to-assess future prognostic biomarker for fludarabine-based therapy in CLL

Panics and Principles: A History of Drug Education Policy in New South Wales 1965-1999

When the problem of young people using illegal drugs for recreation emerged in New South Wales in the 1960s drug education was promoted by governments and experts as a humane alternative to policing. It developed during the 1970s and 1980s as the main hope for preventing drug problems amongst young people in the future. By the 1990s drug policy experts, like their temperance forbears, had become disillusioned with drug education, turning to legislative action for the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems. However, politicians and the community still believed that education was the best solution. Education Departments, reluctant to expose schools to public controversy, met minimal requirements. This thesis examines the ideas about drugs, education and youth that influenced the construction and implementation of policies about drug education in New South Wales between 1965 and 1999. It also explores the processes that resulted in the defining of drug problems and beliefs about solutions, identifying their contribution to policy and the way in which this policy was implemented. The thesis argues that the development of drug education over the last fifty years has been marked by three main cycles of moral panic about youth drug use. It finds that each panic was triggered by the discovery of the use of a new illegal substance by a youth subculture. Panics continued, however, because of the tension between two competing notions of young people’s drug use. In the traditional dominant view ‘drug’ meant illegal drugs, young people’s recreational drug use was considered to be qualitatively different to that of adults, and illegal drugs were the most serious and concerning problem. In the newer alternative ‘public health’ view which began developing in the 1960s, illicit drug use was constructed as part of normal experimentation, alcohol, tobacco and prescribed medicines were all drugs, and those who developed problems with their use were sick, not bad. These public health principles were formulated in policy documents on many occasions. The cycles of drug panic were often an expression of anxiety about the new approach and they had the effect of reasserting the dominant view. The thesis also finds that the most significant difference between the two discourses lies in the way that alcohol is defined, either as a relatively harmless beverage or as a drug that is a major cause of harm. Public health experts have concluded that alcohol poses a much greater threat to the health and safety of young people than illegal drugs. However, parents, many politicians and members of the general community have believed for the last fifty years that alcohol is relatively safe. Successive governments have been influenced by the economic power of the alcohol industry to support the latter view. Thus the role of alcohol and its importance to the economy in Australian society is a significant hindrance in reconciling opposing views of the drug problem and developing effective drug education. The thesis concludes that well justified drug education programs have not been implemented fully because the rational approaches to drug education developed by experts have not been supported by the dominant discourse about the drug problem. Politicians have used drug education as a populist strategy to placate fear but the actual programs that have been developed attempt to inform young people and the community about the harms and benefits of all drugs. When young people take up the use of a new mood altering drug, the rational approach developed by public health experts provokes intense anxiety in the community and the idea that legal substances such as alcohol, tobacco and prescribed drugs can cause serious harm to young people is rejected in favour of an approach that emphasizes the danger of illegal drug use