Fringe-dependent separation of dorsal and ventral cells in the Drosophila wing.

The separation of cells into populations that do not intermix, termed compartments, is a fundamental organizing principle during development. Dorsal-ventral compartmentalization of the Drosophila wing is regulated downstream of the apterous (ap) gene, which encodes a transcription factor that specifies dorsal wing fate. fringe (fng) is normally expressed by dorsal cells downstream of ap; here we show that fng plays a key role in dorsal-ventral compartmentalization.

[The Sézary syndrome].

Sézary syndrome is a form of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and, like mycosis fungoides, results from the malignant proliferation of mature post-thymic T-cell lymphocytes. The main features are the presence of abnormal mononuclear cells (Sezary cells) in the peripheral blood and exfoliative erythroderma. The authors present of a 70-year-old woman admitted to our clinic due to the case pruriginous and exfoliative erythroderma, subcutaneous nodes and lymphadenopathy.

Evidence for an ergot alkaloid gene cluster in Claviceps purpurea.

A gene (cpd1) coding for the dimethylallyltryptophan synthase (DMATS) that catalyzes the first specific step in the biosynthesis of ergot alkaloids, was cloned from a strain of Claviceps purpurea that produces alkaloids in axenic culture. The derived gene product (CPD1) shows only 70% similarity to the corresponding gene previously isolated from Claviceps strain ATCC 26245, which is likely to be an isolate of C. fusiformis.

Successful treatment of Grover's disease with calcipotriol.

We report the case of an 84-year-old man with clinical, histological and electron-microscopic features of a Darier-like pattern of Grover's disease. The lesions had a persistent course, with a 5-month history before diagnosis and a clinical onset 2 years after the surgical removal of a cholangiocarcinoma. A significant clinical improvement was observed after a three-week course of calcipotriol ointment applied as a monotherapy regimen.

[Quality assurance in liaison psychiatry. European Consultation-Liaison Workgroup].

As far as we know, there is no experience of quality management in mental health care in Portugal. This study fills a gap in the area of consultation-liaison psychiatry. Due to its multidisciplinarity and to the complexity of the problems it deals with, consultation-liaison psychiatry seems a privileged field for the development of this kind of programme.

Contact allergy to gold sodium thiosulfate. A comparative study.

During 1995, we added gold sodium thiosulfate and potassium dicyanoaurate to the patch test standard series. Our purpose was to compare the reactivity of the gold salts, to determine the frequency of contact allergy to gold in our country, to compare our results with those of the Malmö group and, finally to try to clarify the clinical relevance 2853 patients were routinely tested and 168 patients answered a questionnaire similar to that used by the Malmö group. Contact allergy to gold was found in 23 patients, all women: 22 to gold sodium thiosulfate (0.

Patch testing in children: a study of 562 schoolchildren.

562 schoolchildren from Oporto were patch tested with the standard series of the Portuguese Contact Dermatitis Group (GPEDC). 13.3% of the children had positive reactions, the most common being to neomycin, thimerosal, para-tertiary-butylphenol-formaldehyde (PTBPF) resin and fragrance-mix.