Helicobacter pylori genotypes in Lithuanian patients with chronic gastritis and duodenal ulcer.

Objective: Clinical outcome of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection might be associated with specific virulence-associated bacterial genotypes. The distribution of different bacterial genotypes varies geographically.

Immune system alterations in patients with inflammatory bowel disease during remission.

Objective: Perturbed immune homeostasis elicited by misbalanced production of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines is characteristic of inflammatory bowel disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate cytokine profile in patients with different forms of inflammatory bowel disease - ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease - during clinical remission phase.

Material And Methods: Production of proinflammatory Th1 cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma)) and anti-inflammatory Th2 cytokines (interleukin-10 (IL-10) and interleukin-13 (IL-13)) was analyzed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (9 with ulcerative colitis and 9 with Crohn's disease) and control subjects (n=11) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (two-site ELISA).

[Peptides regulating food intake and body weight].

Regulation of food intake and body weight depends on direct and feedback signals from adipose tissue, alimentary canal and pancreas to the hypothalamus nuclei, where hunger and satiety centers are. During the last decade a few signaling molecules of peptide origin were discovered, which play an important role in the regulation of energy intake and energy expenditure as well as in obesity. So, adipocytes synthesize and express leptin, the product of Ob gene, a regulator of long-term food intake, in amounts proportional to the fat amount, while alimentary canal hormones are regulators of short-term food intake (from meal to meal).