Increased ERK and JNK activation and decreased ERK/JNK ratio are associated with long-term organ damage in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objective: The activities of two mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), correlate with disease severity in SLE patients. Whether they are also associated with long-term organ damage is unknown. The aim of the present work was to determine whether impaired expression and activity of ERK and JNK correlate with long-term damage in SLE.

Constitutive abnormal expression of RasGRP-1 isoforms and low expression of PARP-1 in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objective: Defective expression of Ras guanil releasing protein-1 (RasGRP-1) and increased apoptosis have been reported in lymphocytes from SLE patients. Whether these aberrations are correlated and linked to disease activity has not been elucidated.

Methods: Expression of normal 90 kDa RasGRP-1, its most prevalent 86 kDa isoform and full PARP-1 116 kDa and its cleavage fragment 84 kDa were determined in whole protein lysates of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in correlation with mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) activity and SLE clinical status in a large group of SLE patients during 1 year follow-up.

Increased ERK and JNK activities correlate with disease activity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Background: Aberrant signalling along the p21ras/MAP kinase pathway has been demonstrated in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Objective: To determine whether expression and activity of the MAP kinases ERK and JNK reflect disease activity in patients with SLE.

Methods: Blood samples of 42 outpatients with SLE were prospectively collected during four consecutive visits.

Schistosomiasis, helminth infection and health education in Tanzania: achieving behaviour change in primary schools.

Over a period of one school year a study was carried out into the feasibility and effectiveness of introducing active teaching methods into primary schools in Tanzania with a view to enhancing health education. The Lushoto Enhanced Health Education Project had as a focus personal hygiene with reference to the control of schistosomiasis and helminth infections. When a randomly selected group of children were compared with a comparison group there was evidence of changes in both knowledge and health-seeking behaviour.

Heavy schistosomiasis associated with poor short-term memory and slower reaction times in Tanzanian schoolchildren.

Cross-sectional studies of the relationship between helminth infection and cognitive function can be informative in ways that treatment studies cannot. However, interpretation of results of many previous studies has been complicated by the failure to control for many potentially confounding variables. We gave Tanzanian schoolchildren aged 9-14 a battery of 11 cognitive and three educational tests and assessed their level of helminth infection.