Cardiac troponin-I on diagnosis predicts early death and refractoriness in acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Experience of the French Thrombotic Microangiopathies Reference Center.

Background: Cardiac involvement is a major cause of mortality in patients with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). However, diagnosis remains underestimated and delayed, owing to subclinical injuries. Cardiac troponin-I measurement (cTnI) on admission could improve the early diagnosis of cardiac involvement and have prognostic value.

Analysis of relationships between peptide/MHC structural features and naive T cell frequency in humans.

The structural rules governing peptide/MHC (pMHC) recognition by T cells remain unclear. To address this question, we performed a structural characterization of several HLA-A2/peptide complexes and assessed in parallel their antigenicity, by analyzing the frequency of the corresponding Ag-specific naive T cells in A2(+) and A2(-) individuals, as well as within CD4(+) and CD8(+) subsets. We were able to find a correlation between specific naive T cell frequency and peptide solvent accessibility and/or mobility for a subset of moderately prominent peptides.

First Dominique Dormont International Conference on "Host-pathogen interactions in chronic infections - viral and host determinants of HCV, HCMV, and HIV infections".

The first Dominique Dormont International Conference on "Viral and host determinantsof HCV, HCMV, and HIV infections "was held in Paris, Val-de-Grâce, on December 3-4, 2004. The following is a summary of the scientific sessions of this meeting (http://www.congres-evenement.

Expression in yeast and purification of functional recombinant human poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP). Comparative pharmacological profile with that of the rat enzyme.

Human poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP) was expressed in the yeast line JEL1 under the control of a GAL promoter. Proteins were extracted and human recombinant PARP purified to apparent homogeneity. The pharmacological profile of this human enzyme was characterised in terms of the effects of known inhibitors of PARP belonging to various chemical families and this was compared with that of the rat enzyme purified from rat testes, using the same purification protocol.