A Patient with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Herpes Simplex Esophagitis: A Case Report and Literature Review.

Acute herpes simplex esophagitis (HSE) is common in immunocompromised patients. Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is characterized by immune-mediated eosinophil-predominant esophageal inflammation. We report a patient with human immunodeficiency virus infection who presented with dysphagia and odynophagia and was found to have HSE and EoE.

Post-developmental extracellular proteoglycan maintenance in attractin-deficient mice.

Objective: Neurodegeneration and hair pigmentation alterations in mice occur consequent to aberrations at the Atrn locus coding for the transmembrane form of attractin. Earlier results pointed to a possible involvement in intracellular trafficking/export of secretory vesicles containing proteoglycan. Here we examined kidney and liver, both heavily dependent upon proteoglycan, of attractin-deficient mice to determine whether abnormalities were observed in these tissues.

Breast lymphoma complicating anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy in rheumatoid arthritis.

The relationship between anti-TNF therapy and development of lymphoma in Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients is controversial. However lymphomas of unusual types and sites have been reported among RA patients receiving anti-TNF therapy. Primary lymphoma of the breast is a rare entity and has never been reported to occur among RA patients taking anti-TNF therapy.

Hepatic colorectal cancer metastases: imaging initial steps of formation in mice.

Purpose: To prospectively use optical imaging to study the cell-specific mechanisms of entrapment and subsequent growth of two human colon cancer cell lines differing in their propensity to form hepatic metastases.

Materials And Methods: In this Animal Care Committee-approved study, intravital optical imaging was performed in exteriorized livers of three groups of mice after intrasplenic inoculation of human colon cancer cells. Group 1 mice (control group; n=12) received a cell-maintaining solution only.

Juvenile-onset loss of lipid-raft domains in attractin-deficient mice.

Mutations at the attractin (Atrn) locus in mice result in altered pigmentation on an agouti background, higher basal metabolic rate and juvenile-onset hypomyelination leading to neurodegeneration, while studies on human immune cells indicate a chemotaxis regulatory function. The underlying biochemical defect remains elusive. In this report we identify a role for attractin in plasma membrane maintenance.

Immunoinflammatory responses and fibrogenesis.

In response to injury, tissues adjacent to the damaged area initiate a cascade of inflammatory and matrix remodeling events that are necessary to restore tissue integrity and function. The typical features of such healing effects in adult mammals are deposition of matrix proteins, which mature to scar tissues. In general, the wound healing response demonstrates certain commonalities across organs, but there are also organ-specific mechanisms.

Attractin: cautionary tales for therapeutic intervention in molecules with pleiotropic functionality.

First discovered as a circulating secreted molecule expressed by activated T lymphocytes, attractin was examined as a potential marker of immune activity. The discovery that a transmembrane form not only controls neuropeptide regulation of hair pigmentation in animals but also affects basal metabolism led to proposals that attractin may also be an extracellular target amenable for the development of obesity-regulating drugs. Examination of several animal mutants used as models ofjuvenile-onset neurodegeneration revealed mutations at the attractin locus as the cause, and the reassessment of earlier attractin mutants demonstrated that neurodegeneration, alterations in pigmentation regulation, and basal metabolic rate were common to all the allelic variants.

SKAP-55 regulates integrin adhesion and formation of T cell-APC conjugates.

Src kinase-associated phosphoprotein of 55 kDa (SKAP-55; encoded by SCAP1) is a T cell adaptor protein of unknown function that contains a pleckstrin homology and an SH3 domain. Here we show that SKAP-55 regulates integrin-mediated adhesion and conjugate formation between T cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). SKAP-55 enhances adhesion to fibronectin and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), colocalizes with actin at the T cell-APC synapse and promotes the clustering of lymphocyte-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1).