BACKGROUND: Little is known about the induction and the morphology of epithelial damage, and of the ensuing epithelial restitution processes in allergic airways. OBJECTIVE: To examine epithelial damage and restitution in allergen challenged guinea-pig trachea. METHODS: Whole-mount techniques, transmission and scanning electron microscopy, cryosectioning, and histochemical staining were used. Cell

Certain strains of group A streptococci are known to bind IgA and/or IgG via a cell surface receptor, which may act as a virulence factor. The distribution of such receptors among routine clinical isolates was studied, using a total of 225 strains and an assay based on the binding of radiolabelled immunoglobulins. Among 194 throat strains isolated during three different time periods in two differe

Six cysteine proteinase inhibitors were isolated from human urine by affinity chromatography on insolubilized carboxymethylpapain followed by ion-exchange chromatography and immunosorption. Physicochemical and immunochemical measurements identified one as cystatin A, one as cystatin B, one as cystatin C, one as cystatin S, and one as low molecular weight kininogen. The sixth inhibitor displayed im

Abstract in UndeterminedDiabetic foot complications result in huge costs for both society and the individual patients. Few reports on the health-economic consequences of diabetic foot infections have been published. In studies considering a wide societal perspective, costs of antibiotics were relatively low, whereas total costs for topical treatment were high relative to the total costs of foot in

Familial clustering of the precursor condition, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) has been observed in case reports and in smaller studies. Using population-based data from Sweden, we identified 4458 MGUS patients, 17 505 population-based controls, and first-degree relatives of patients (n = 14 621) and controls (n = 58 387) with the aim to assess risk of MGUS and lymphopro

Azimuthal correlations of jet-induced high-p(T) charged hadron pairs are studied at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at root s(NN)=200 GeV. The distribution of jet-associated partner hadrons (1.0 < p(T)< 2.5 GeV/c) per trigger hadron (2.5 < p(T)< 4.0 GeV/c) is found to vary with collision centrality, in both shape and yield, indicating a significant effect of the nuclear collision medium on the jet

Neutral pion transverse momentum (p(T)) spectra at midrapidity (|y| less than or similar to 0.35) were measured in Cu + Cu collisions at root s(NN) = 22.4, 62.4, and 200 GeV. Relative to pi(0) yields in p + p collisions scaled by the number of inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions (N-coll) the pi(0) yields for p(T) greater than or similar to 2 GeV/c in central Cu + Cu collisions are suppressed at 6

The effects of antirheumatic gold compounds and D-penicillamine on protein kinase C- and Ca(2+)-mediated activation of arachidonate mobilization and the formation of eicosanoids in mouse macrophages have been investigated. Auranofin (0.2-2 microM) enhanced the response to phorbol ester two- to three-fold, and similar enhancement was caused by aurothiomalate, aurothioglucose, and penicillamine, but

Trypsinogen is a serine proteinase produced mainly by the pancreas, but it has recently been found to be expressed also in several cancers such as ovarian and colon cancer and in vascular endothelial cells. In this study, we found that trypsinogen-1 and -2 are present at high concentrations (median levels, 0.4 and 0.5 mg/L, respectively) in human seminal fluid and purified them to homogeneity by i

A kinematic approach is applied to compute moisture flux and particle velocities in the unsaturated zone. The computations are compared with observations of tracer marked meltwater particles. Groundwater flow is computed accounting for storage and assuming constant particle velocity. It is found that meltwater particles that reach the groundwater not very close to the ground surface do not contrib

This paper reports on a cross-national study of the activity patterns of 50-90 year old adults in six European countries, namely Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It analyses patterns of activity involvement and the resulting expression of satisfaction. Involvement and satisfaction levels are in turn measured against a number of personal characteristics. T

Previous studies have shown that intrastriatal transplants of dopamine (DA)-rich fetal ventral mesencephalic (VM) tissue can correct denervation-induced changes in the cellular expression of neuropeptide and receptor mRNAs in the rat Parkinson model. However, with the standard transplantation approach normalization of all cellular parameters has not been obtained. This may be due either to the inc

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with certain MHC class II alleles and is characterized by a chronic autoimmune response in the joints. Using transgenic mice expressing human DR4 (DRB1*0401) and human CD4, but lacking endogenous MHC class II, we show that posttranslational glycosylation of type II collagen (CII) influences the level of T cell tolerance to this candidate cartilage-specific a

BRCA1 mutation carriers have up to 80% life-time risk of developing breast cancer and 20-40% risk of developing ovarian cancer. High LH levels have been linked to increased risks of both breast and ovarian cancers in some studies and it is unknown whether gonadotropin levels are associated with BRCA1 mutation status. The aim of the study was to explore whether gonadotropin levels were associated w

Phenyl S-galabiosides display altered conformational properties, as compared to phenyl O-galabiosides, characterised by a remote effect on the galabiose intersaccharidic glycoside bond by the phenyl aglycon, resulting in significantly lowered affinity for the PapG class II adhesin of uropathogenic E. coli.

The European integration process both affirms and challenges gender relations in Europe. Yet integration theories have contributed little to understanding gender dynamics. The article presents a feminist critique of integration theories and argues that they have failed to look at how gender relations impact the 'driving forces' of European integration. This lacuna is attributed t t he implicit mal