Morphological features of intestinal endocrine cells in experimentalEscherichia coli infection

Laboratory of Infectious Pathology, Research Institute of Human Morphology, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. (Presented by Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR N. K. Permyakov.) Translated from Byulleten' Éksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 111, No. 6, pp. 668–672, June, 1991.     

Diphtheria surveillance and control in the Former Soviet Union and the Newly Independent States

The Newly Independent States (NIS) inherited a common approach to diphtheria control from the Soviet Union and maintained a centralized system of surveillance and control managed by Soviet-trained epidemiologists with a shared professional culture. This system had controlled a diphtheria resurgence in the 1980s. In response to the epidemic of the 1990s, NIS health authorities responded with a set of control measures based on the Soviet-era experience. These measures included intensified childhood vaccination, aggressive case investigation, widespread diphtheria screening in institutions, and vaccination of adults in high-risk occupation groups. These measures proved insufficient due to high levels of susceptibility among adults, excessive contraindications to childhood vaccination, and insufficient resources in many countries. After these initial delays in implementing effective measures in some countries, most of the NIS health authorities rapidly and successfully implemented mass immunization of the population against diphtheria once the strategy was adopted and sufficient vaccine was available.     

Effect of chemotherapy combined with the use of tissue preparations on nonspecific immunity in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis

General and local nonspecific immunity was studied in 143 new cases of pulmonary tuberculosis (71 and 72 persons, respectively). The results showed that combination of chemotherapy using desensitizing agents and tissue preparations according to V. P. Filatov (a suspension of placenta tissue and aloe) had an immunomodulating effect. The efficacy of the combined chemotherapy amounted to 87 per cent with an account of the general immunity status.     

A1, a Bcl-2 family member, prolongs cell survival and permits myeloid differentiation

A1, a bcl-2 family member, has been identified as a hematopoietic- specific, early inducible gene. In this study it is shown that stable transfection of A1 into an interleukin-3 (IL-3)-dependent myeloid precursor cell line, 32D c13, leads to a retardation of IL-3 withdrawal- induced cell death similar to that observed with transfection of bcl-2. However, unlike bcl-2. A1 expression permits the accumulation of differentiated myeloid cells both before and after IL-3 withdrawal. Total cell accumulation, on the other hand, is considerably greater after IL-3 deprivation in the bcl-2 transfectant than in A1-expressing cells. Cells cotransfected with the two genes behave similarly to cells singly transfected with bcl-2, except that viability following IL-3 withdrawal is somewhat further enhanced. These results suggest that these two proteins have distinct roles that may be related to the divergent regulation of their expression during myeloid differentiation.