Levels of soluble VCAM-1, soluble ICAM-1, and soluble E-selectin in patients with tuberculous pleuritis

Tuberculosis is characterized by the presence of activated mononuclear cells both in the peripheral circulation and in pleural fluid. Expression and up-regulation of adhesion molecules is the basis of cell-cell adhesion in granuloma formation and in leukocyte migration to the inflammatory site. Soluble isoforms of adhesion molecules have been described, and their expression at high levels indicated an activated state. The purpose of this study was to evaluate levels of soluble adhesion molecules in serum and pleural fluid from patients with tuberculous pleural effusions, compared with non-tuberculous pleural effusions. We analysed levels of soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (s.VCAM-1), soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (s.ICAM-1), and soluble E-selectin (sE-selectin) in serum and pleural fluid from patients with tuberculous pleuritis, by sandwich ELISA. Serum levels of s.ICAM-1 and s.VCAM-1 in patients with tuberculosis were higher than those in healthy controls (p < 0.001). Levels of sE-selectin levels were in the normal range compared with control groups. In pleural fluid, levels of s.VCAM-1 and s.ICAM-1 were increased in pleural effusions. Patients with tuberculous pleural effusion exhibited high levels of s.ICAM-1 compared with patients with neoplastic pleural involvement. Up-regulation of s.VCAM-1 and s.ICAM-1 in serum, along with increased levels of sE-selectin in pleural effusions from tuberculous patients, may result in transmigration of activated inflammatory cells inducing pleural damage, which may contribute to the pathological processes involved

Expression of Bcl-2 in inflammatory sites from patients with active Behçet's disease.

Behçet's disease (BD) is a current systemic vasculitis of unknown aetiology. Eyes, skin, joints, the oral cavity, genital system, blood vessels, central nervous system and lung are usually involved. Defective regulation of programmed cell death (apoptosis) may play a role in the development of (BD), and the proto-oncogene Bcl-2 is involved in the control of apoptosis in immunocompetent cells. We therefore wished to investigate the expression of Bcl-2 in the peripheral lymphocytes and in two inflammatory sites of patients with active BD: bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) lymphocytes. Levels of Bcl-2 expression in the lymphocytes of patients with BD and, for comparison, in the lymphocytes of healthy controls and non-inflammatory neurological diseases (NIND), were studied by two-colour cytofluorography and RNA analysis. In BD patients, a significant proportion of T cells expressed increased amounts of Bcl-2 protein, both in peripheral blood and in inflammatory sites. Mononuclear cells of patients with BD showed increased amount of Bcl-2 messenger RNA. The in vitro incubation of T lymphocytes with IL-10, significantly increased the Bcl-2 expression, specifically in T lymphocytes from inflammatory sites. In active BD, stimulation of HSV-1 T lymphocytes slightly increased Bcl-2 expression, not significantly different from unstimulated HSV-1 T cells. The occurrence of circulating T lymphocytes with abnormally high Bcl-2 expression in peripheral circulation and in inflammatory sites may be explained in part by the increased in vivo activation levels, and by aetiopathological agent(s): our findings seem to indicate an important role in the chronic inflammation in BD

Circulating intercellular adhesion molecules in blood and bronchoalveolar lavage in Behçet's disease

The aim of this study was to evaluate circulating intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (cICAM-1) in serum and in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), as a marker for the inflammatory process in patients with active Behçet's disease (BD). Circulating ICAM-1 was tested by an enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay in serum and in BAL of patients with BD. These values were compared to those of patients with tuberculosis and to healthy controls. Increased levels of circulating ICAM-1 were found in serum from patients with active BD compared to healthy controls (p < 0.01). Similar levels of serum cICAM-1 were found in BD and tuberculosis. Additionally, both BD and tuberculosis patients exhibited high levels of cICAM-1 in BAL fluid, suggesting that this increase may be a result of the immune system activation in inflammatory sites. Circulating ICAM-1 seemed to have a good discriminative power in identifying active BD, being elevated in all active stages (p < 0.01) compared to remission BD stage. No differences were found in active BD patients depending upon the clinical manifestations. These results suggest that cICAM-1 may be involved in leucocyte adhesion and migration into the vessel wall of the lung. Circulating forms are derived from molecules expressed on the surface of activated cells, as a result of an inflammatory process

Elevation of serum soluble E-selectin and VCAM-1 in severe asthma.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the significance of circulating adhesion molecules associated with leucocyte-endothelial cell interactions in asthma, serum levels of soluble E (sE)-selectin, soluble P (sP)-selectin, soluble L (sL)-selectin, and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) were measured in mild, moderate and severe asthma. METHOD: Serum levels of sE-selectin, sP-selectin, sL-selectin, and sVCAM-1 were measured in 32 women with asthma and 30 healthy donors using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Twenty patients were suffering from severe asthma, and 12 from mild/moderate asthma. RESULTS: Serum sE-selectin and sVCAM-1 levels from patients with asthma were significantly higher than those observed in healthy donors (p < 0.01). The levels of sP-selectin were the same as those of controls. The level of sE-selectin exhibited an important increase in the severe asthmatic patients compared with mild/moderate asthma (p < 0.01). The sVCAM-1 level was increased in severe asthma when compared with healthy controls. There was no correlation between the levels of soluble selectins and the age of the patients. A significant correlation was found between sE-selectin and sVCAM-1 levels. CONCLUSION: These data indicate that circulating soluble forms of the selectins may have different kinetics during the clinical course of asthma, suggesting that they may reflect different inflammatory pathways in severe asthma. Both sVCAM-1 and sE-selectin may be useful immunological markers for monitoring disease activity in asthma

Sequence crystallization during isotherm evaporation of southern Algeria chott Baghdad natural brine

Southern Algerian's natural brine sampled from chott Baghdad may be a source of mineral salts with a high economic value. These salts are recoverable by simple solar evaporation. Indeed, during isothermal solar evaporation, it is possible to recover mineral salts and to determine the precipitation sequences of different salts as a function of the chemical composition and the density of the brine. In this study, the variation of ionic composition of concentrated brine during isothermal evaporation was measured; then the experimental pathway of the point representing its composition on the oceanic fivefold diagram Na+, K+, Mg2+, Cl-, SO4 2-//H2O was plotted. In order to follow the precipitation sequences of mineral salts, during solar evaporation at 35°C, X-Ray diffraction was performed on the precipitated and removed salts from the brine during evaporation.Keywords: seawater quinary diagram, Jänecke projection, isothermal evaporation, mineral salts, chott Baghdad brin

Enhancenig OLSR routing protocol using K-means clustering in MANETs

The design of robust routing protocol schemes for MANETs is quite complex, due to the characteristics and structural constraints of this network. A numerous variety of protocol schemes have been proposed in literature. Most of them are based on traditional method of routing, which doesn’t guarantee basic levels of Qos, when the network becomes larger, denser and dynamic. To solve this problem we use one of the most popular methods named clustering. In this work we try to improve the Qos in MANETs. We propose an algorithm of clustering based in the new mobility metric and K-Means method to distribute the nodes into several clusters; it is implemented to standard OLSR protocol giving birth a new protocol named OLSR Kmeans-SDE. The simulations showed that the results obtained by OLSR Kmeans-SDE exceed those obtained by standard OLSR Kmeans and OLSR Kmed+ in terms of, traffic Control, delay and packet delivery ratio

Novel Clustering Method Based on K-Medoids and Mobility Metric

The structure and constraint of MANETS influence negatively the performance of QoS, moreover the main routing protocols proposed generally operate in flat routing. Hence, this structure gives the bad results of QoS when the network becomes larger and denser. To solve this problem we use one of the most popular methods named clustering. The present paper comes within the frameworks of research to improve the QoS in MANETs. In this paper we propose a new algorithm of clustering based on the new mobility metric and K-Medoid to distribute the nodes into several clusters. Intuitively our algorithm can give good results in terms of stability of the cluster, and can also extend life time of cluster head

Epidémiologie Du Néphroblastome dans le Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire de Tizi Ouzou

Objectif : est de donner les éléments fondamentaux de l’épidémiologie descriptiveconcernant le néphroblastome.Matériel et méthode : Nous avons réalisé une étude rétrospective à visée descriptive sur une période de 4 ans, et nous avons récences 13 cas.Résultats : On avait répertorié 15 cas de néphroblastome. L’âge médian était de 4 ans. Le Sexe ratio était de 1,7. Le délai au diagnostic s’étendait entre 3 à 20 jours.Le motif de découverte le plus fréquent était une masse abdominale, suivi de la douleur abdominale dans 18% des cas. La plupart des cas n’étaient pas métastatiques au diagnostic. Les tumeurs de risque intermédiaire étaient les seules retrouvés dans notre étude et aucun cas de tumeur de haut risque et de bas risque. La majorité des cas étaient au stade III au diagnostic et aucun stade I n’a été répertorié. Conclusion : Le néphroblastome est la tumeur rénale maligne la plus fréquente, le mode de découverte reste le même quel que soit le contexte, il reste néanmoins certaine divergence avec les données de la littérature, tel que les stade diagnostics et les types histologique