Publications by authors named "Chiara Bella"

Purpose: High-accuracy diagnostic screening tests for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection are required, primarily to detect patients with latent infections (LTBIs) in order to avoid their progression to active tuberculosis disease. The performance of the novel IGRA LIOFeron®TB/LTBI was evaluated in children. The originality of this test is the new MTB antigen contained (L-alanine dehydrogenase), identified as a tool to differentiate active TB from LTBI infection.

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Introduction: We studied the cellular immune response in a patient infected since 10 months (along with other 51 people) during a trichinellosis outbreak caused by Trichinella spp.

Methods: A 46 years old female resulted serologically positive for trichinellosis. We isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and incubated them with excretory/secretory antigens (ESA) of Trichinella spiralis (T1) or Trichinella pseudospiralis (T4) to produce antigen specific T cell lines and clones, analysed for the phenotype (T helper or cytotoxic cells), for their T4 or T1 antigens specificity and for their cytokine profile (IFNγ, IL-17A, IL-4) by flow cytometry, thymidine incorporation assay and ELISpot.

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Atherosclerotic disease of the carotid arteries is a crucial risk factor in predicting the likelihood of future stroke events. In addition, emerging studies suggest that carotid stenosis may also be an indicator of plaque load on coronary arteries and thus have a correlation with the risk of acute cardiovascular events. Furthermore, although in symptomatic patients the degree of stenosis is the main morphological parameter studied, recent evidence suggests, especially in asymptomatic patients, that plaque vulnerability should also be evaluated as an emerging and significant imaging parameter.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics and gastric tumor risk in patients with autoimmune gastritis (AIG) across eight Italian hospitals, focusing on those with and without Helicobacter pylori infection.
  • A total of 1,598 AIG patients were assessed; findings indicated that those who were H. pylori-naive had a higher tendency for certain autoimmune conditions and significant family health history.
  • The overall incidence of gastric adenocarcinoma was low, but a notable percentage developed type 1 gastric neuroendocrine neoplasm (gNEN), especially in patients presenting with vitamin B12/iron deficiencies, suggesting these individuals should receive closer monitoring.
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In diploid organisms, biallelic gene expression enables the production of adequate levels of mRNA. This is essential for haploinsufficient genes, which require biallelic expression for optimal function to prevent the onset of developmental disorders. Whether and how a biallelic or monoallelic state is determined in a cell-type-specific manner at individual loci remains unclear.

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In the early stages of carcinogenesis, the transformed cells become "invisible" to the immune system. From this moment on, the evolution of the tumor depends essentially on the genotype of the primitive cancer cells and their subsequent genetic drift. The role of the immune system in blocking tumor progression from the earliest stages is largely underestimated because by the time tumors are clinically detectable, the immune system has already completely failed its task.

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Behçet's syndrome (BS) is a rare systemic vasculitis characterized by different clinical manifestations. As no specific laboratory tests exist, the diagnosis relies on clinical criteria, and the differential diagnosis with other inflammatory diseases can be challenging. Indeed, in a relatively small proportion of patients, BS symptoms include only mucocutaneous, articular, gastrointestinal, and non-typical ocular manifestations, which are frequently found also in psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

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Atherosclerotic plaque in the carotid artery is the main cause of ischemic stroke, with a high incidence rate among people over 65 years. A timely and precise diagnosis can help to prevent the ischemic event and decide patient management, such as follow up, medical, or surgical treatment. Presently, diagnostic imaging techniques available include color-Doppler ultrasound, as a first evaluation technique, computed tomography angiography, which, however, uses ionizing radiation, magnetic resonance angiography, still not in widespread use, and cerebral angiography, which is an invasively procedure reserved for therapeutically purposes.

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Background: We aimed to assess whether clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) can be differentiated from renal oncocytoma (RO) on a contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS).

Methods: Between January 2021 and October 2022, we retrospectively queried and analyzed our prospectively maintained dataset. Renal mass features were scrutinized with conventional ultrasound imaging (CUS) and CEUS.

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Background: the aim of this study was to describe the ultrasound appearance of topical hemostatics after thyroidectomy.

Methods: we enrolled 84 patients who were undergoing thyroid surgery and were treated with two types of topical hemostats, 49 with an absorbable hemostat of oxidized regenerated cellulose (Oxitamp) and 35 with a fibrin glue-based hemostat (Tisseel). All patients were examined using B-mode ultrasound.

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infection is characterized by an inflammatory infiltrate that might be an important antecedent of gastric cancer. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether interleukin (IL)-17 inflammation is elicited by gastric T cells in patients with gastric intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia (IM/DYS). We also investigated the serum IL-17A levels in patients with gastric intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia, and patients with non-atrophic gastritis (NAG).

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Neuroblastoma (NB) is a heterogeneous extracranial tumor occurring in childhood. A distinctive feature of NB tumors is their neuroendocrine ability to secrete catecholamines, which in turn, via β-adrenergic receptors ligation, may affect different signaling pathways in tumor microenvironment (TME). It was previously demonstrated that specific antagonism of β3-adrenergic receptor (β3-AR) on NB tumor cells affected tumor growth and progression.

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Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is a systemic autoimmune disorder characterized by recurrent vascular thrombosis and miscarriages in the absence of known causes. Antibodies against phospholipid-binding proteins (aPL) are pathogenic players in both clotting and pregnancy APS manifestations. There is sound evidence that antibodies specific for beta2 glycoprotein I (β2GPI) trigger thrombotic and pregnancy complications by interacting with the molecule on the membranes of different cell types of the coagulation cascade, and in placenta tissues.

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Psoriasis is a multisystemic inflammatory disorder mainly involving the skin and joints, whose etiopathogenesis is still not completely understood. An association with streptococcal throat infection has been suggested. We aim to investigate a correlation between IL-17A and IFN-γ production by T cells infiltrating skin lesions and PASI in 313 patients with psoriasis, compared with that in 252 healthy controls.

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Forkhead box G1 (FOXG1) has important functions in neuronal differentiation and balances excitatory/inhibitory network activity. Thus far, molecular processes underlying FOXG1 function are largely unexplored. Here, we present a multiomics data set exploring how FOXG1 impacts neuronal maturation at the chromatin level in the mouse hippocampus.

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Background: Adipocytokines are signaling molecules secreted by adipose tissue contributing to the control of body fat, energy expenditure and secretion of insulin and cytokines. They have been related to the development of obesity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Diet and physical activity (PA) may have beneficial effects on their level.

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Obesity and insulin resistance (IR), the key features of metabolic syndrome, are closely associated with a state of chronic, low-grade inflammation. Bariatric surgery leads to a considerable reduction in the adipose tissue mass and systemic inflammation along with a reduction of IR, with a whole-body metabolic improvement. However, a sizable portion of people experience an IR relapse within few years of remission.

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CTL-mediated killing of virally infected or malignant cells is orchestrated at the immune synapse (IS). We hypothesized that SARS-CoV-2 may target lytic IS assembly to escape elimination. We show that human CD8+ T cells upregulate the expression of ACE2, the Spike receptor, during differentiation to CTLs.

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Human gastric autoimmunity [autoimmune gastritis (AIG)] is characterized by inflammation of the gastric mucosa and parietal cell loss. The gastric parietal cell proton pump H/K-adenosine triphosphatase (H/K-ATPase) is the major autoantigen in AIG. Our work aimed to investigate the gastric H/K-ATPase-specific T helper 17 (Th17) responses in AIG and serum interleukin (IL)-17 cytokine subfamily in AIG patients, in healthy subjects [healthy controls (HCs)], and in patients with iron deficiency anemia (IDA) without AIG.

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Pernicious anemia (PA) is a megaloblastic anemia consisting of hematological, gastric and immunological alterations. The immunopathogenesis of PA is sustained by both autoantibodies (e.g.

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Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are major components of the tumor microenvironment. In colorectal cancer (CRC), a strong infiltration of TAMs is accompanied by a decrease in effector T cells and an increase in the metastatic potential of CRC. We investigated the functional profile of TAMs infiltrating CRC tissue by immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, ELISA, and qRT-PCR and their involvement in impairing the activation of effector T cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates whether the CagY antigen plays a role in the proliferation of malignant B cells in low-grade gastric MALT lymphoma.
  • Researchers compared T cell clones from patients with MALT lymphoma to those with chronic gastritis, focusing on their response to CagY and their ability to help B cell proliferation.
  • Findings reveal that CagY significantly stimulates B cell proliferation and activates T cells in MALT lymphomas, suggesting its importance in this type of cancer.
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The Jurkat E6.1 clone has been extensively used as a powerful tool for the genetic and biochemical dissection of the TCR signaling pathway. More recently, these cells have been exploited in imaging studies to identify key players in immunological synapse (IS) assembly in superantigen-specific conjugates and to track the dynamics of signaling molecules on glass surfaces coated with activating anti-CD3 antibodies.

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Ciliogenesis proteins orchestrate vesicular trafficking pathways that regulate immune synapse (IS) assembly in the non-ciliated T-cells. We hypothesized that ciliogenesis-related genes might be disease candidates for common variable immunodeficiency with impaired T-cell function (T-CVID). We identified a heterozygous, predicted pathogenic variant in the ciliogenesis protein CCDC28B present with increased frequency in a large CVID cohort.

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The persistence of Helicobacter pylori in the human gastric mucosa implies that the immune response fails to clear the infection. We found that H. pylori compromises the antigen presentation ability of macrophages, because of the decline of the presenting molecules HLA-II.

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