290 research outputs found

    Paget's disease of the breast in a male with lymphomatoid papulosis: a case report

    Get PDF
    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Paget's disease is an eczematous skin change of the nipple that is usually associated with an underlying breast malignancy. Male breast cancer represents only 1-3% of all breast malignancies and Paget's disease remains very rare.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present the case of a 67-year-old Caucasian man with lymphomatoid papulosis who was diagnosed with Paget's disease of the nipple and who was treated successfully with surgery alone. We discuss the presentation, investigations, management and pathogenesis of Paget's disease of the nipple.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The case highlights the need to be vigilant when new skin lesions arise in the context of an underlying chronic skin disorder.</p

    The fully differential hadronic production of a Higgs boson via bottom quark fusion at NNLO

    Full text link
    The fully differential computation of the hadronic production cross section of a Higgs boson via bottom quarks is presented at NNLO in QCD. Several differential distributions with their corresponding scale uncertainties are presented for the 8 TeV LHC. This is the first application of the method of non-linear mappings for NNLO differential calculations at hadron colliders.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 1 lego plo

    Metastatic breast carcinoma mimicking a sebaceous gland neoplasm: a case report

    Get PDF
    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Breast cancer is common in women and its metastases involve the skin in approximately one quarter of patients. Accordingly, metastatic breast cancer shown to be cutaneous through histology must be distinguished from a wide variety of other neoplasms as well as the diverse morphologic variants of breast cancer itself.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 61-year-old Caucasian woman with cutaneous metastases of a bilateral ductal breast carcinoma that in histopathological examination mimicked an adnexal neoplasm with sebaceous differentiation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Against the background of metastatic breast carcinoma, dermatopathological considerations of sebaceous differentiation of skin lesions are presented and discussed focusing on the rare differential diagnosis of sebaceous carcinoma of the breast.</p

    Protective Efficacy of BCG Overexpressing an L,D-Transpeptidase against M. tuberculosis Infection

    Get PDF
    Background: M. bovis Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), currently the only available vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), fails to adequately protect individuals from active and latent TB infection. New vaccines are desperately needed to decrease the worldwide burden of TB. Methods and Findings: We created a recombinant strain of BCG that overproduces an L,D-transpeptidase in order to alter the bacterial peptidoglycan layer and consequently increase the ability of this immunogen to protect against virulent M. tuberculosis (Mtb). We demonstrate that this novel recombinant BCG protects mice against virulent Mtb at least as well as control BCG, as measured by its ability to reduce bacterial burden in lungs and spleen, reduce lung histopathology, and prolong survival. A nutrient starved recombinant BCG preparation, while offering comparable protection, elicited a response characterized by elevated levels of select Th1 cytokines. Conclusions: Recombinant BCG overexpressing a L,D-transpeptidase that is nutrient starved elicits a stronger Th1 type response and is at least as protective as parent BCG. Results from this study suggest that nutrient starvation treatment of live BCG vaccines should be further investigated as a way to increase host induction of Th-1 related cytokines in the development of experimental anti-TB vaccines

    Exact beta-functions in softly-broken N=2 Chern-Simons matter theories

    Full text link
    We present exact results for the beta-functions for the soft-breaking parameters in softly-broken N=2 Chern-Simons matter theories in terms of the anomalous dimension in the unbroken theory. We check our results explicitly up to the two loop level.Comment: 11 pages; 3 figures; references adde

    A biclustering algorithm based on a Bicluster Enumeration Tree: application to DNA microarray data

    Get PDF
    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In a number of domains, like in DNA microarray data analysis, we need to cluster simultaneously rows (genes) and columns (conditions) of a data matrix to identify groups of rows coherent with groups of columns. This kind of clustering is called <it>biclustering</it>. Biclustering algorithms are extensively used in DNA microarray data analysis. More effective biclustering algorithms are highly desirable and needed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We introduce <it>BiMine</it>, a new enumeration algorithm for biclustering of DNA microarray data. The proposed algorithm is based on three original features. First, <it>BiMine </it>relies on a new evaluation function called <it>Average Spearman's rho </it>(ASR). Second, <it>BiMine </it>uses a new tree structure, called <it>Bicluster Enumeration Tree </it>(BET), to represent the different biclusters discovered during the enumeration process. Third, to avoid the combinatorial explosion of the search tree, <it>BiMine </it>introduces a parametric rule that allows the enumeration process to cut tree branches that cannot lead to good biclusters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed using both synthetic and real DNA microarray data. The experimental results show that <it>BiMine </it>competes well with several other biclustering methods. Moreover, we test the biological significance using a gene annotation web-tool to show that our proposed method is able to produce biologically relevant biclusters. The software is available upon request from the authors to academic users.</p

    Synthetic RGDS peptide attenuates lipopolysaccharide-induced pulmonary inflammation by inhibiting integrin signaled MAP kinase pathways

    Get PDF
    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Synthetic peptides containing the RGD sequence inhibit integrin-related functions in different cell systems. Here, we investigated the effects of synthetic Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser (RGDS) peptide on key inflammatory responses to intratracheal (<it>i.t.</it>) lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment and on the integrin signaled mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway during the development of acute lung injury.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Saline or LPS (1.5 mg/kg) was administered <it>i.t. </it>with or without a single dose of RGDS (1, 2.5, or 5 mg/kg, i.p.), anti-α<sub>v </sub>or anti-β<sub>3 </sub>mAb (5 mg/kg, i.p.). Mice were sacrificed 4 or 24 h post-LPS.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A pretreatment with RGDS inhibited LPS-induced increases in neutrophil and macrophage numbers, total protein levels and TNF-α and MIP-2 levels, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 activity in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid at 4 or 24 h post-LPS treatment. RGDS inhibited LPS-induced phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase and MAP kinases, including ERK, JNK, and p38 MAP kinase, in lung tissue. Importantly, the inhibition of the inflammatory responses and the kinase pathways were still evident when this peptide was administered 2 h after LPS treatment. Similarly, a blocking antibody against integrin α<sub>v </sub>significantly inhibited LPS-induced inflammatory cell migration into the lung, protein accumulation and proinflammatory mediator production in BAL fluid, at 4 or 24 h post-LPS. Anti-β<sub>3 </sub>also inhibited all LPS-induced inflammatory responses, except the accumulation of BAL protein at 24 h post-LPS.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that RGDS with high specificity for α<sub>v</sub>integrins attenuates inflammatory cascade during LPS-induced development of acute lung injury.</p

    Deficiency of G1 regulators P53, P21Cip1 and/or pRb decreases hepatocyte sensitivity to TGFβ cell cycle arrest

    Get PDF
    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>TGFβ is critical to control hepatocyte proliferation by inducing G1-growth arrest through multiple pathways leading to inhibition of E2F transcription activity. The retinoblastoma protein pRb is a key controller of E2F activity and G1/S transition which can be inhibited in viral hepatitis. It is not known whether the impairment of pRb would alter the growth inhibitory potential of TGFβ in disease. We asked how <it>Rb</it>-deficiency would affect responses to TGFβ-induced cell cycle arrest.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Primary hepatocytes isolated from <it>Rb-floxed </it>mice were infected with an adenovirus expressing CRE-recombinase to delete the <it>Rb </it>gene. In control cells treatment with TGFβ prevented cells to enter S phase via decreased cMYC activity, activation of P16<sup>INK4A </sup>and P21<sup>Cip </sup>and reduction of E2F activity. In <it>Rb</it>-null hepatocytes, cMYC activity decreased slightly but P16<sup>INK4A </sup>was not activated and the great majority of cells continued cycling. <it>Rb </it>is therefore central to TGFβ-induced cell cycle arrest in hepatocytes. However some <it>Rb</it>-null hepatocytes remained sensitive to TGFβ-induced cell cycle arrest. As these hepatocytes expressed very high levels of P21<sup>Cip1 </sup>and P53 we investigated whether these proteins regulate pRb-independent signaling to cell cycle arrest by evaluating the consequences of disruption of <it>p53 </it>and <it>p21</it><sup><it>Cip1</it></sup>. Hepatocytes deficient in <it>p53 or p21</it><sup><it>Cip1 </it></sup>showed diminished growth inhibition by TGFβ. Double deficiency had a similar impact showing that in cells containing functional pRb; P21<sup>Cip </sup>and P53 work through the same pathway to regulate G1/S in response to TGFβ. In <it>Rb</it>-deficient cells however, <it>p53 </it>but not <it>p21</it><sup><it>Cip </it></sup>deficiency had an additive effect highlighting a pRb-independent-P53-dependent effector pathway of inhibition of E2F activity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present results show that otherwise genetically normal hepatocytes with disabled <it>p53</it>, <it>p21</it><sup><it>Cip1 </it></sup>or <it>Rb </it>genes respond less well to the antiproliferative effects of TGFβ. As the function of these critical cellular proteins can be impaired by common causes of chronic liver disease and HCC, including viral hepatitis B and C proteins, we suggest that disruption of pRb function, and to a lesser extend P21<sup>Cip1 </sup>and P53 in hepatocytes may represent an additional new mechanism of escape from TGFβ-growth-inhibition in the inflammatory milieu of chronic liver disease and contribute to cancer development.</p
    corecore