The Role of Vascular Lesions in Diabetes Across a Spectrum of Clinical Kidney Disease.

Introduction: The clinical-histologic correlation in diabetic nephropathy is not completely known.

Methods: We analyzed nephrectomy specimens from 90 patients with diabetes and diverse degrees of proteinuria and glomerular filtration rate (GFR).

Results: Thirty-six (40%) subjects had normoalbuminuria, 33 (37%) microalbuminuria, and 21 (23%) non-nephrotic proteinuria.

Cd34+ Stromal Cells/Telocytes in Normal and Pathological Skin.

We studied CD34+ stromal cells/telocytes (CD34+SCs/TCs) in pathologic skin, after briefly examining them in normal conditions. We confirm previous studies by other authors in the normal dermis regarding CD34+SC/TC characteristics and distribution around vessels, nerves and cutaneous annexes, highlighting their practical absence in the papillary dermis and presence in the bulge region of perifollicular groups of very small CD34+ stromal cells. In non-tumoral skin pathology, we studied examples of the principal histologic patterns in which CD34+SCs/TCs have (1) a fundamental pathophysiological role, including (a) fibrosing/sclerosing diseases, such as systemic sclerosis, with loss of CD34+SCs/TCs and presence of stromal cells co-expressing CD34 and αSMA, and (b) metabolic degenerative processes, including basophilic degeneration of collagen, with stromal cells/telocytes in close association with degenerative fibrils, and cutaneous myxoid cysts with spindle-shaped, stellate and bulky vacuolated CD34+ stromal cells, and (2) a secondary reactive role, encompassing dermatitis-e.

The Iberian pig fed with high-fat diet: a model of renal disease in obesity and metabolic syndrome.

Background: The pathogenesis of renal disease in the context of overweight/obesity, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance is not completely understood. This may be due to the lack of a definitive animal model of disease, which limits our understanding of obesity-induced renal damage. We evaluated the changes in renal histology and lipid deposits induced by obesity in a model of insulin resistance: the Iberian swine fed with fat-enriched food.

Facial self-induced paraffinoma in an elderly woman.

A 72-year-old Caucasian woman without remarkable medical history presented with an asymptomatic bilateral periocular swelling, which had been present for 2 months. Physical examination showed symmetric indurated periocular erythematous plaques (Figure 1). Biopsy of a skin lesion revealed aggregates of vacuoles of different sizes (Figure 2) surrounded by a prominent inflammatory infiltrate constituted by macrophages, lymphocytes, neutrophils, and granulomatous foreign body reaction throughout the reticular dermis and hypodermis.

The neurotrophic effect of oleic acid includes dendritic differentiation and the expression of the neuronal basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor NeuroD2.

We have shown recently that the presence of albumin in astrocytes triggers the synthesis and release of oleic acid, which behaves as a neurotrophic factor for neurons. Thus, oleic acid promotes axonal growth together with the expression of the axonal growth-associated protein, GAP-43. Here we attempted to elucidate whether the neurotrophic effect of oleic acid includes dendritic differentiation.