For over a century after their discovery astrocytes were regarded merely as cells located among other brain cells to hold and give support to neurons. Astrocytes activation, "astrocytosis" or A1 functional state, was considered a detrimental mechanism against neuronal survival. Recently, the scientific view on astrocytes has changed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAppl Immunohistochem Mol Morphol
September 2024
Background/objectives: Perineural invasion (PNI), classified according to its presence or absence in tumor specimens, is recognized as a poor prognostic factor in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients. Herein, we identified five histological features of PNI and investigated their impact on survival outcomes of PDAC resected patients.
Methods: Five histopathological features of PNI (diameter, number, site, sheath involvement, and mitotic figures within perineural invasion) were combined in an additional final score (ranging from 0 to 8), and clinical data of PDAC patients were retrospectively analyzed.
Tumor microenvironment plays a crucial role in primary cutaneous melanoma (CM) progression. Although the role of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) density has been known for a long time, its spatial distribution and impact with or without tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) remain controversial. Herein, we investigated spatial proximity between tumor cells and immune cells in 113 primary CM and its correlation with disease-free (DFS) and overall survival (OS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is associated with a favorable prognosis of primary melanoma (PM). Recently, artificial intelligence (AI)-based approach in digital pathology was proposed for the standardized assessment of TILs on hematoxylin and eosin-stained whole slide images (WSIs). Herein, the study applied a new convolution neural network (CNN) analysis of PM WSIs to automatically assess the infiltration of TILs and extract a TIL score.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The clinical value of an expert pathological review in patients with an atypical melanocytic lesion diagnosis remains unclear. Herein, we evaluate its impact in a prospective clinical study.
Methods: Patients with newly diagnosed or suspected atypical melanocytic proliferations and challenging skin tumours were reviewed prospectively by a specialised dermatopathologist through the nationwide 'Second Opinion Platform' of the Italian Melanoma Intergroup (IMI) network.
Nursery cultivation practices can be modified to increase resistance to water stress in forest seedlings following field establishment, which may be increasingly important under climate change. We evaluated the morphological (survival, growth) and physiological (chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf water potential) responses to water stress for three ecologically diverse species (, , and ) with varying traits resulting from the combination of growing media (peat, coir) and fertilization (standard, P-enriched, K-enriched). For all species under water stress, seedlings grown in coir had generally higher growth than those grown in peat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFATM germline pathogenic variants were recently found enriched in high-risk melanoma patients. However, ATM loss of heterozygosity (LOH) has never been investigated in melanoma and, therefore, a causal association with melanoma development has not been established yet. The purpose of this study was to functionally characterize 13 germline ATM variants found in high-risk melanoma patients-and classified by in silico tools as pathogenic, uncertain significance, or benign-using multiple assays evaluating ATM/pATM expression and/or LOH in melanoma tissues and cell lines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough it is a disease that occurs mainly in the Caucasian population, uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary intraocular tumor in adults. Here, we used digital pathology and image analysis for the diagnosis of UM and the prediction of the prognosis. Our retrospective study included a total of 404 histopathological slides from 101 patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I subunit expression level in primary and metastatic lesions has been characterized in many cancer types utilizing formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue sections as substrates in immunohistochemical reactions. The evaluation of the results of these studies has been hampered by the scant information about HLA class I subunit expression level in normal tissues. To address this unmet need, we have analyzed the HLA class I subunit expression level in FFPE sections of normal tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in melanoma development, progression and response to treatment. As many of the most relevant TME cell phenotypes are defined by the simultaneous detection of more than two markers, the bright-field (BF) multiplex immunohistochemistry (IHC) technique has been introduced for the quantitative assessment and evaluation of the relative spatial distances between immune cells and melanoma cells. In the current study, we aimed to validate BF multiplex IHC techniques in the Ventana Discovery Ultra Immunostainer to be applied to the evaluation of the TME in variably pigmented melanoma tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCOVID-19 has had economic, social and environmental impacts worldwide. Governments have adopted containment measures to limit the spread of the virus. Urban green spaces (UGSs) were included among the non-essential activities and were consequently closed during the lockdown periods in some countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigated perceptions and behavioral patterns related to urban green space (UGS) in Italian cities, during the period of national lockdown imposed due to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in the spring of 2020. A survey was used to examine the responses of population groups in different municipal areas, comparing those in government-defined "red zones", mostly in the northern regions of the country, with "non-red zones" in the rest of the country, where the rate of infection was much lower. A total of 2100 respondents participated in the survey.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAppl Immunohistochem Mol Morphol
April 2022
Histopathologic examination of highly pigmented melanoma tissues has always been a challenge for pathologists. The high concentration of melanin pigment is an obstacle for immunohistochemistry and the ensuing evaluation. Therefore, removing melanin has become a crucial step for processing heavily pigmented melanoma samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT), the rate-limiting enzyme in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) biosynthesis, is up-regulated in several cancers, including metastatic melanoma (MM). The BRAF oncogene is mutated in different cancer types, among which MM and thyroid carcinoma (THCA) are prominent. Drugs targeting mutant BRAF are effective, especially in MM patients, even though resistance rapidly develops.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMacrophages (MΦs) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) are implicated in carcinogenesis. The oxidative stress sensor, transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1), activated by ROS, appears to contribute to lung and breast cancer progression. Although TRPA1 expression has been reported in melanoma cell lines, and oxidative stress has been associated with melanocytic transformation, their role in melanoma remains poorly known.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper describes the antigerminant capacity of water extracts of silver fir needles created by means of hydrodynamic cavitation processes. Fir needles (2 kg fresh weight) collected in the winter were blended and crushed in ice, poured in water only (120 L) and processed in a controlled hydrodynamic cavitation device based on a fixed Venturi-shaped reactor. The water extract (AWE), comprising an oil-in-water emulsion of silver fir needles' essential oil (100% AWE), was diluted in distilled water to 75% and 50% AWE, and all aqueous solutions were tested as antigerminant against four weeds and four horticultural species and compared to control (distilled water).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Eosinophilic dermatosis of hematologic malignancy (EDHM) is a rare dermatosis associated with blood tumors.
Objective: To characterize the expression of T-cell and B-cell markers and pruritogenic mediators in EDHM skin.
Methods: Immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence analysis were performed in 12 skin samples of EDHM, 11 samples of bullous pemphigoid (BP), and 5 samples from healthy controls (HC).
Climate change models predict an increase in rainfall variability, leading to floods and drought events, hence intensifying the need for reservoirs. However, up to 50% of reservoirs' capacity is lost by evaporation, affecting their function of ensuring water availability and stability. Over decades biological, chemical and physical barriers "covers" were developed for inhibiting evaporation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor over a century, neurons have been considered the basic functional units of the brain while glia only elements of support. Activation of glia has been long regarded detrimental for survival of neurons but more it appears that this is not the case in all circumstances. In this review, we report and discuss the recent literature on the alterations of astrocytes and microglia during inflammaging, the low-grade, slow, chronic inflammatory response that characterizes normal brain aging, and in acute inflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol
August 2021
Background: the prognostic significance of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in intermediate/thick primary cutaneous melanoma (PCM) remains controversial, partially because conventional evaluation is not reliable, due to inter-observer variability and diverse scoring methods. We aimed to assess the prognostic impact of the density and spatial distribution of immune cells in early stage intermediate/thick PCM.
Materials And Methods: digital image acquisition and quantitative analysis of tissue immune biomarkers (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD68, PD-L1, CD163, FOX-P3, and PD-1) was carried out in a training cohort, which included patients with primary PCM ≥ 2 mm diagnosed, treated, and followed-up prospectively in three Italian centers.