Tailoring follow-up endoscopy in patients with severe oesophagitis.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the clinical utility of follow-up oesophagogastroduodenoscopy (OGD2) in patients with severe oesophagitis (Los Angeles grades C or D) through evaluating the yield of Barrett's oesophagus (BO), cancer, dysplasia and strictures. Second, we aimed to determine if the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) may be used to identify patients to undergo OGD2s.

Design/method: Patients in NHS Lothian with an index OGD (OGD1) diagnosis of severe oesophagitis between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2015 were identified.

Pax3 stimulates p53 ubiquitination and degradation independent of transcription.

Background: Pax3 is a developmental transcription factor that is required for neural tube and neural crest development. We previously showed that inactivating the p53 tumor suppressor protein prevents neural tube and cardiac neural crest defects in Pax3-mutant mouse embryos. This demonstrates that Pax3 regulates these processes by blocking p53 function.

Positional specification in a neural stem cell line involves modulation of Musashi1 expression.

In this study, we have used an in vitro co-culture system to investigate the competency of a conditionally immortalized multipotential neural progenitor cell line (MHP36) to adopt "dorsal" or "striatal" telencephalic fates. We report that MHP36 cells, unlike primary fetal neural progenitors cells, do not express either dorsal or ventral telencephalic positional specification genes; at both the mRNA and protein levels, but that they quickly turn on expression of the appropriate set of proteins when cultured in either a dorsal (cortical) or a ventral (striatal) environment. This control has 2 components: transcriptional activation of positional specification genes, and translational control whereby only the appropriate set of mRNAs appears as immunoreactive protein.

Cardiac outflow tract septation failure in Pax3-deficient embryos is due to p53-dependent regulation of migrating cardiac neural crest.

During neural tube closure, Pax3 is required to inhibit p53-dependent apoptosis. Pax3 is also required for migration of cardiac neural crest (CNC) from the neural tube to the heart and septation of the primitive single cardiac outflow tract into the aorta and pulmonary arteries. Whether Pax3 is required for CNC migration and outflow tract septation by inhibiting p53-dependent apoptosis is not known.

Oxidative stress during diabetic pregnancy disrupts cardiac neural crest migration and causes outflow tract defects.

Background: Maternal diabetes increases risk for congenital malformations, particularly cardiac outflow tract defects. Maternal diabetes inhibits expression of Pax3 in neuroepithelium through hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress. The neuroepithelium gives rise to the neural crest, and Pax3 expression in cardiac neural crest (CNC) is required for CNC migration to the heart and for outflow tract septation.

The in vitro effects of a bimodal contrast agent on cellular functions and relaxometry.

The in vivo monitoring of cell survival and migration will be essential to the translation of cell-based therapies from the laboratory to clinical studies. The pre-labeling of cells with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents renders them visible in vivo for serial cellular imaging. However, little is known about the impact of the presence of these metal particles inside transplanted cells.

Microglia release activators of neuronal proliferation mediated by activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/Akt and delta-Notch signalling cascades.

Microglia, the resident macrophage of the brain, can release substances that aid neuronal development, differentiation and survival. We have investigated the effects of non-activated microglia on the survival of cultured rat cerebellar granule neurones. Microglial-conditioned medium, collected from primary rat microglial cultures, was used to treat 7-day-in-vitro neurones, and neuronal viability and proliferation was assessed following a further 1 or 7 days in culture.