Thromboelastographic phenotypes of fibrinogen and its variants: clinical and non-clinical implications.

Introduction: Thromboelastography (TEG), a widely used clinical point of care coagulation test, is poorly understood. To investigate its fibrin determinants we used normal and variant fibrinogen isolates.

Materials And Methods: We focused mainly on the TEG maximum signal amplitude (MA), a shear modulus and clot stiffness indicator.

TREM-1 as a potential therapeutic target in psoriasis.

Our group recently described a population of antigen-presenting cells that appear to be critical in psoriasis pathogenesis, termed inflammatory myeloid dendritic cells (CD11c(+)/blood dendritic cell (DC) antigen 1(-)). Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells type-1 (TREM-1) signaling was a major canonical pathway in the published transcriptome of these cells. TREM-1 is a member of the Ig superfamily, active through the DAP12 signaling pathway, with an unknown ligand.

Post-therapeutic relapse of psoriasis after CD11a blockade is associated with T cells and inflammatory myeloid DCs.

Unlabelled: To understand the development of new psoriasis lesions, we studied a group of moderate-to-severe psoriasis patients who experienced a relapse after ceasing efalizumab (anti-CD11a, Raptiva, Genentech). There were increased CD3(+) T cells, neutrophils, CD11c(+) and CD83(+) myeloid dendritic cells (DCs), but no increase in CD1c(+) resident myeloid DCs. In relapsed lesions, there were many CD11c(+)CD1c(-), inflammatory myeloid DCs identified by TNFSF10/TRAIL, TNF, and iNOS.