Unlabelled: Internal abdominal hernias present an infrequent surgical diagnosis and are usually encountered accidentally during surgery. They are generally considered as an extremely rare cause of ileus. In our article we present the case of a 69-year-old healthy female who was operated for suspected gastric volvulus as suggested by the CT scan; however, upon surgery, herniation of the right-sided colon into the omental bursa with subsequent cecal dilation and bowel wall necrosis was revealed to be the true culprit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this report we questioned the current view that the two principal cytotoxic pathways, the exocytosis and the Fas ligand (FasL)/Fas-mediated pathway, have largely nonoverlapping biological roles. For this purpose we have analyzed the response of mice that lack Fas as well as granzyme A (gzmA) and gzmB (FasxgzmAxB(-/-)) to infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV). We show that FasxgzmAxB(-/-) mice, in contrast to B6, Fas(-/-), and gzmAxB(-/-) mice, do not recover from a primary infection with LCMV, in spite of the expression of comparable numbers of LCMV-immune and gamma interferon-producing cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in all mouse strains tested.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory joint diseases such as adult and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and Lyme arthritis is still poorly understood. Central to the various hypotheses in this respect is the notable involvement of T and B cells. Here we develop the premise that the nominal antigen-independent, polyclonal activation of preactivated T cells via Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 has a pivotal role in the initiation and perpetuation of pathogen-induced chronic inflammatory joint disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe expression of housekeeping and/or immunoproteasomes in isolated thymic stroma subsets has so far not been analyzed but may have important consequences for self peptide repertoires presented by MHC class I molecules during positive and negative thymic selection. Here we determined the expression of housekeeping and immunoproteasome beta subunits and of PA28 in positively and negatively selecting stroma subsets. Positively selecting cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTEC) expressed only housekeeping but no immunoproteasome beta subunit mRNA and proteins.
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