Unilateral striae distensae affecting the right axilla in a 16-year-old boy: brief report.

Striae distensae or stretch marks are a common skin condition that occurs frequently in association with adolescent growth spurts and pregnancy. They are characterized by linear symmetrical asymptomatic smooth bands of atrophic-appearing skin on the thighs, buttocks, and breasts in girls and on the shoulders, outer thighs, and lumbosacral areas in boys. We present a rare case of unilateral striae distensae affecting the right axilla in a 16-year-old boy.

Hyperhomocysteinemia and lower extremity wounds.

Chronic lower extremity wounds include ulceration of the leg and foot. The underlying pathology that causes these conditions includes venous insufficiency, arterial disease, diabetes, and other less common disorders. Since the introduction of the homocysteine theory more than 30 years ago, considerable evidence has demonstrated hyperhomocysteinemia to be an independent risk factor for venous and arterial thrombosis, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.

Foreign body granuloma formation secondary to silicone injection.

Injectable silicone has been used extensively over the last 40 years for soft tissue augmentation. Although considered biologically inert, this material has been implicated in a variety of adverse reactions including granulomas, disfiguring nodules, and lymphedema, sometimes with latent periods of decades. Often these complications are a result of the use of industrial grade products injected by unlicensed or unskilled practitioners.

Pyoderma Gangrenosum in a Patient with Bruton's X-linked Agammaglobulinemia: Shared Pathogenesis of Altered Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha?

Individuals with Bruton's X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) inherit a defect in the Btk gene, critical for B-cell differentiation. As a result, there is an absence of mature B-cells in the peripheral circulation with a marked reduction in serum levels of all immunoglobulin subtypes, predisposing patients with XLA to recurrent bacterial infections. Btk also functions in myeloid and dendritic cells, specifically in Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling.

Differential recruitment of the splicing machinery during transcription predicts genome-wide patterns of mRNA splicing.

The splicing machinery associates with genes to facilitate efficient cotranscriptional mRNA processing. We have mapped these associations by genome localization analysis to ascertain how splicing is achieved and regulated on a system-wide scale. Our data show that factors important for intron recognition sample nascent mRNAs and are retained specifically at intron-containing genes via RNA-dependent interactions.

Effects of systematic variation of amino acid sequence on the mechanical properties of a self-assembling, oligopeptide biomaterial.

In order to elucidate design principles for biocompatible materials that can be created by in situ transformation from self-assembling oligopeptides, we investigate a class of oligopeptides that can self-assemble in salt solutions to form three-dimensional matrices. This class of peptides possesses a repeated sequence of amino acid residues with the type: hydrophobic/negatively-charged/hydrophobic/positively-charged. We systematically vary three chief aspects of this sequence type: (1) the hydrophobic side chains; (2) the charged side chains; and (3) the number of repeats.

A conserved intronic response element mediates direct p53-dependent transcriptional activation of both the human and murine bax genes.

Both the human and the mouse bax promoters contain p53 binding sites which are sufficient to confer p53-dependent transcriptional activation in a heterologous setting. Nevertheless in the context of the bax promoter, these sites do not mediate a p53-dependent response, suggesting that bax may not be a direct transcriptional target of p53. Here, data are presented identifying a conserved p53 response element in the first intron of both the human and the murine bax genes.

Control of self-assembling oligopeptide matrix formation through systematic variation of amino acid sequence.

In order to elucidate design principles for biocompatible materials that can be created by in situ transformation from self-assembling oligopeptides, we investigate a class of oligopeptides that can self-assemble in salt solutions to form three-dimensional matrices. This class of peptides possesses a repeated sequence of amino acid residues with the type: hydrophobic/negatively-charged/hydrophobic/positively-charged. We systematically vary three chief aspects of this sequence type: (1) the hydrophobic side chains: (2) the charged side-chains: and (3) the number of repeats.