Non-pneumonia colonization is thought to occur frequently in immunocompetent individuals. The aim was to analyze if low-titer detections have more impact than just colonization. From our total cohort of patients for which testing by qPCR was requested, we selected exclusively those that were fully immunocompetent. Patients were defined as fully immunocompetent if they did not receive immunosuppressive therapy, displayed regular antibody titers, and did not suffer from acquired, inherited or autoimmune diseases. Only those patients with complete medical records available were included. A retrospective analysis identified patients with colonization and successful antibiotic therapy in response to laboratory pathogen detection. We identified 30 fully immunocompetent patients with colonization suspected to suffer from infection with the pathogen, but with milder symptoms than pneumonia. All patients were successfully treated with cotrimoxazole against and resolved from chronic cough and recurrent pulmonary infections. The fact that all patients displayed recovery from their clinical symptoms gives raise to the hypothesis that infections may also occur in immunocompetent patients but with milder symptoms.
Pediatric high-grade gliomas (pHGG) and pediatric diffuse midline gliomas (pDMG) are devastating diseases without durable and curative options. Although targeted immunotherapy has shown promise, the field lacks immunocompetent animal models to study these processes in detail. To achieve this, we developed a fully immunocompetent, genetically engineered mouse model (GEMM) for pDMG and pHGG that incorporates the glioma-associated antigen, interleukin 13 receptor alpha 2 (IL13RA2).
Genetics, Molecular, and Cellular Biology Program, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Tufts University, 02111, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Developmental, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Tufts University School of Medicine, 02111, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address:
Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are a diverse family of viruses with over 450 members that have been identified and fully sequenced. They are classified into five phylogenetic genera: alpha, beta, gamma, mu, and nu. The high-risk alpha HPVs, such as HPV16, have been studied the most extensively due to their medical significance as cancer-causing agents.
* TET2 mutations are common in blood cancers like T cell lymphomas, but mice lacking TET2 alone don't show increased T cell growth, likely due to other TET proteins compensating for its loss.
* Research involving mice with both TET2 and TET3 deficiencies revealed that losing these proteins leads to harmful changes in T cells, including genetic instability, aneuploidy, and increased levels of the oncogene Myc.
Unlabelled is a genus of fungi that can pose health risks to humans and animals, particularly from inhaling spores from soil and trees, and more recently, marine environments.* !
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The dynamics of how these fungi spread through water and their buoyancy are not well understood, but recent findings show that salinity affects their ability to stay suspended at the water's surface for extended periods.* !
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Cryptococcosis, a serious fungal disease primarily affecting immunocompromised individuals, has increasingly appeared in temperate regions since the 1990s, highlighting the need for further studies on its spread and transport.* !
i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen 208, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal; INEB - Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen 208, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal. Electronic address:
Osteosarcoma (OS) represents one of the most common primary bone cancers affecting children and young adults. The available treatments have remained unimproved for the past decades, hampered by the poor knowledge of OS etiology/pathophysiology and the lack of innovative, predictive and biologically relevant in vitro models, that can recapitulate the 3D OS tumor microenvironment (TME). Here, we report the development and characterization of an innovative 3D model of OS, composed of OS tumor cells, immune cells (macrophages) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), that formed a multicellular tissue spheroid (MCTS).
