Viral escape and T-cell immunity during ganciclovir treatment of cytomegalovirus infection: case report of a pancreatico-renal transplant recipient.

Background: Pancreas-kidney transplant recipients are at high risk for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease despite prophylactic ganciclovir therapy. Because the impact of antiviral therapy on anti-CMV immune reactions is unknown, CMV-specific T-cell subsets in primary and recurrent CMV infection were analyzed in a pancreas-kidney transplant case study.

Methods: Major histocompatibility complex class I tetramers were used to detect peripheral CMV pp65-specific CD8 T cells.

[Cerebral angiitis and Goodpasture's syndrome].

Goodpasture's syndrome is a form of rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis with pulmonary hemorrhage in the presence of antiglomerular basement membrane antibodies. Concomittant central nervous system manifestations are exceptionally reported. We report such a case of an 55-year-old woman who developed fluctuant neurobehavioral manifestations over a 9 months period.

Deep vein thrombosis and heterotopic ossification in spinal cord injury: a 3 year experience at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre Nottwil.

Study Design: Retrospective review of patient data.

Objectives: (i) To determine the incidence and time of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) under low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) prophylaxis in spinal cord injury (SCI), (ii) to determine the incidence and time of heterotopic ossification (HO) and (iii) to assess a possible aetiologic relationship in the pathogenesis of DVT and HO.

Setting: Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil.

[Coronary artery disease observed in general hospitals: ETTIC study. Comparison between trimetazidine and mononitrate isosorbide for patients receiving betablockers].

The extended use of interventional surgery of revascularisation has modified the prognosis and the evolution of ischaemic heart diseases. However, both coronary artery bypass graft and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty failed to make the symptomatic or subclinical ischaemic manifestations of chronic coronary insufficiency disappear. The interest of using betablockers as a first-line therapy was widely demonstrated.

[First epileptic seizure in the elderly: electroclinical and etiological data in 341 patients].

This study included 341 subjects aged over 60 years, 174 females and 167 males, (mean age 72-years), who experienced their first epileptic seizure and fulfilled all inclusion criteria over an 8-year period. Data were available from the physical examination, EEG, laboratory tests and CT scan or MRI for all patients. The international classification of epileptic seizures was applied, 41 p.

Potentiation of glucocorticoid receptor transcriptional activity by sumoylation.

The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a transcription factor, subject to several types of posttranslational modifications including phosphorylation and ubiquitination. We showed that the GR is covalently modified by the small ubiquitin-related modifier-1 (SUMO-1) peptide in mammalian cells. We demonstrated that GR sumoylation is not dependent on the presence of the ligand and regulates the stability of the protein as well as its transcriptional activity.

Role of the human herpesvirus 6 u69-encoded kinase in the phosphorylation of ganciclovir.

The human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) U69 gene product (pU69) is the presumed functional homolog of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL97-encoded kinase (pUL97), which converts ganciclovir to its monophosphate metabolite in HCMV-infected cells. It has been reported that insertion of U69 into baculovirus confers sensitivity to ganciclovir in insect cells (J Virol 73:3284-3291, 1999). Our metabolic studies in HHV-6-infected human T-lymphoblast cells indicated that the efficiency of ganciclovir phosphorylation induced by HHV-6 was relatively poor.

Effects of quinine and quinidine on the transient outward and on the L-type Ca(2+) current in rat ventricular cardiomyocytes.

The effects of the enantiomers quinine and quinidine on the transient outward current (I(to)) and on the L-type Ca(2+) current (I(ca)) were investigated in rat ventricular cardiomyocytes using the patch-clamp technique. At a stimulation frequency of 2 Hz, both quinine and quinidine depressed the magnitude of I(to) and I(Ca); the half-maximal effects on I(to) were achieved at 11 and 15 micromol/l, respectively, and those on I(Ca) at 14 and 10 micromol/l, respectively. At 0.

The importance of posture on the isokinetic assessment of spasticity.

Objective: To measure spasticity of the knee flexors and extensor muscles in two different hip positions.

Setting: Swiss Paraplegic Center Nottwil, Switzerland.

Methods: Twenty spinal cord injured (SCI) patients with complete lesions were tested with a torque-velocity dynamometer in the following positions: (1) supine with a hip angle of 0 degrees; (2) sitting with a hip angle of 90 degrees.

Nontraumatic pancreatitis in spinal cord injury.

Study Design: A retrospective analysis of 10 patients with pancreatitis after traumatic spinal cord injury.

Objectives: To determine the conditions leading to nontraumatic pancreatitis in spinal cord injury.

Summary Of Background Data: Little is known in the literature about pancreatitis after spinal cord injury.

[A patient with white matter involvement and superficial hemosiderosis of the central nervous system].

We present a patient with a superficial siderosis and a white matter involvement on MRI and a demyelinating pattern on visual evoked potentials. White matter involvement is supposed to be secondary to vascular modifications induced by superficial siderosis.

hINADl/PATJ, a homolog of discs lost, interacts with crumbs and localizes to tight junctions in human epithelial cells.

dCrumbs is an apical organizer crucial for the maintenance of epithelial polarity in Drosophila (1). It is known that dCrumbs interacts with Discs lost (Dlt), a protein with four PDZ (PSD95/Discs Large/ZO-1) domains (2), and Stardust (Sdt), a protein of the MAGUK (membrane-associated guanylate kinase) family (3, 4). We have searched for potential homologs of Dlt in human epithelial cells and characterized one of them in intestinal epithelial cells.

Mutations in the UL97 ORF of ganciclovir-resistant clinical cytomegalovirus isolates differentially affect GCV phosphorylation as determined in a recombinant vaccinia virus system.

Mutations in the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL97 phosphotransferase have been associated with ganciclovir (GCV) resistance due to an impairment of GCV monophosphorylation. Vaccinia virus recombinants (rVV) were generated that encoded different HCMV UL97 proteins (pUL97) with mutations previously detected in resistant HCMV clinical isolates at codons 460, 520, 592, 594, 595, 598 and 607. These rVVs allowed quantification of GCV phosphorylation catalyzed by the different mutated pUL97s.

Spin-lattice relaxation enhancement in liquid gallium confined within nanoporous matrices.

Nuclear spin relaxation for liquid gallium embedded into nanoporous matrices was found to accelerate remarkably compared to the bulk melt. NMR measurements on two gallium isotopes showed that the dominant mechanism of relaxation was changed from magnetic to quadrupolar and the relation rate depended on the Larmor frequency. The correlation time of electric field gradient fluctuations was estimated using data for quadrupolar relaxation contribution and was found to increase drastically compared to bulk, which corresponded to slowing down mobility in confined liquid gallium.

Objective tinnitus associated with essential laryngeal myoclonus: report of two cases.

We report on two patients with an objective tinnitus. In the first one, the objective tinnitus was unique as it was due to bilateral rhythmic contractions of the vocal cords. In the second, the objective tinnitus arose from Eustachian tube contractions and was associated with up and down movements of the larynx.

Paraneoplastic peripheral neuropathy associated with anti-Hu antibodies. A clinical and electrophysiological study of 20 patients.

Although paraneoplastic subacute sensory neuronopathy is the most frequent presentation of peripheral neuropathy in patients with anti-Hu antibodies, other neuropathies have been reported. In order to investigate the clinical and electrophysiological manifestations of neuropathies associated with anti-Hu antibodies, we conducted a retrospective study of 20 patients. For the electrophysiological study, each nerve was classified as normal, demyelinating, axonal/neuronal or axonal/demyelinating.

[MRI in spinal injuries].

The improvement of preclinical emergency medicine has increased the long-term survival of patients which sustained severe injuries of the spinal cord. However, the incidence of late complications has been increased due to the long-term survival. With the increasing use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in this patient group the diagnosis of typical late complications of the spinal cord has improved.

GCV resistance due to the mutation A594P in the cytomegalovirus protein UL97 is partially reconstituted by a second mutation at D605E.

A ganciclovir (GCV)-resistant human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) was isolated from an AIDS patient. Molecular analysis of the HCMV UL97 gene revealed two point mutations, A594P and D605E, respectively. In order to evaluate quantitatively the impact of the individual mutations on GCV phosphorylation, recombinant vaccinia viruses (rVVs) were generated carrying either the two mutations (rVV-594/605) or only one mutation (rVV-594 or rVV-605, respectively).

Dihydroxylation of Polyenes Using Narasaka's Modification of the Upjohn Procedure.

Dihydroxylation of a variety of commercially available polyenes has been investigated using phenylboronic acid, N-methylmorpholine N-oxide (NMO), and osmium tetroxide in anhydrous solvent. The diastereoselectivity of multiple oxidation steps is in some cases affected by the in situ protection of the intermediate ene-diols as phenyboronic esters, affording polyols not available from the standard Upjohn dihydroxylation procedure. A convenient oxidative deprotection of the phenylboronic esters is also described.

Urinary bladder biopsies in spinal cord injured patients.

Study Design: A series of 94 urinary bladder biopsies in spinal cord injured (SCI) patients were histopathologically and statistically analysed.

Objectives: The following hypotheses were examined: (1) The number of clinical bladder infections per year in each patient does not influence the histopathological type of inflammation of the urinary bladder; (2) The duration of the spinal cord lesion does not have a strong effect on the type of inflammation; (3) The different neurological levels (upper and lower motor neuron lesions) do not relate to a specific histopathology.

Settings: All patients received their treatment at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre in Nottwil, near Lucerne (Switzerland).

17O NMR studies of low silicate zeolites.

Multiple-quantum magic-angle spinning and double-rotation NMR techniques were applied in the high field of 17.6 T to the study of oxygen-17-enriched zeolites A and LSX with the ratio Si/Al = 1. A monotonic correlation between the isotropic value of the chemical shift and the Si-O-Al bond angle alpha (taken from X-ray data) could be found.

Aciclovir selects for ganciclovir-cross-resistance of human cytomegalovirus in vitro that is only in part explained by known mutations in the UL97 protein.

Phenotypically, ganciclovir-resistant human cytomegalovirus strains could be selected by aciclovir as effectively as by ganciclovir in vitro. Three clinical human cytomegalovirus isolates with different sensitivities against ganciclovir, aciclovir, foscarnet, and cidofovir, but without any mutation in the viral UL97 protein known to confer ganciclovir resistance, were propagated each in duplicate in the presence of ganciclovir or aciclovir. After drug selection, all 12 strains were less susceptible to ganciclovir (increase of 50% focus reduction dose between 2.