Common bile duct dilation after bariatric surgery.

Background: Biliary dilation suggests obstruction and prompts further work up. Our experience with endoscopic ultrasound and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography in the symptomatic post-bariatric surgery population revealed many patients with radiographically dilated bile ducts, but endoscopically normal studies. It is unclear if this finding is phenomenological or an effect of surgery.

Engaging Ly-6A/Sca-1 triggers lipid raft-dependent and -independent responses in CD4 T-cell lines.

Introduction: The lymphocyte antigen 6 (Ly-6) supergene family encodes proteins of 12-14 kda in molecular mass that are either secreted or anchored to the plasma membrane through a glycosyl-phosphatidylinisotol (GPI) lipid anchor at the carboxy-terminus. The lipidated GPI-anchor allows localization of Ly-6 proteins to the 10-100 nm cholesterol-rich nano-domains on the membrane, also known as lipid rafts. Ly-6A/Sca-1, a member of Ly-6 gene family is known to transduce signals despite the absence of transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains.

Altered Maturation Status and Possible Immune Exhaustion of CD8 T Lymphocytes in the Peripheral Blood of Patients Presenting With Acute Coronary Syndromes.

Objective: Inflammation in response to oxidized lipoproteins is thought to play a key role in acute coronary syndromes (ACS), but the pattern of immune activation has not been fully characterized. We sought to perform detailed phenotypic and functional analysis of CD8 T lymphocytes from patients presenting with ACS to determine activation patterns and potential immunologic correlates of ACS.

Approach And Results: We used polychromatic flow cytometry to analyze the cytokine production profiles of naïve, effector, and memory CD8 T cells in patients with ACS compared with control subjects with stable coronary artery disease.