Paranoid beliefs and self‐criticism in students

Paranoid beliefs are associated with negative and malevolent views of others. This study, however, explored hostile and compassionate self‐to‐self relating in regard to paranoid beliefs. A total of 131 students were given a series of scales measuring paranoid ideation, forms and functions of self‐criticism, self‐reassurance, self‐compassion and depression. Test scores were subjected to correlation and hierarchical regression analyses to explore the relative contribution of study variables to paranoid beliefs. In this population, paranoid beliefs were associated with forms and functions of self‐criticism, especially self‐hating and self‐persecution. Paranoid beliefs were negatively correlated with self‐kindness and abilities to be self‐reassuring. These variables were also associated with depression (as were paranoid beliefs). A hierarchical regression found that self‐hatred remained a predictor of paranoid ideation even after controlling for depression and self‐reassurance. Paranoid beliefs seem to be associated with a critical and even hating experience of self. These inner experiences of self may be profitable targets for therapeutic interventions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Protective factors related to antisocial behavior trajectories

A group of 115 fifth- and sixth-grade Latino students were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the school year before their transition to middle or junior-high school about their engagement in antisocial behaviors and about individual, social, and behavioral protective factors. The best predictors of decreases in antisocial behavior for these students, above and beyond variance for initial ratings and gender, were student perceptions of social support, parent supervision, and classroom participation. The importance of keeping students engaged in school academic work as a protection against antisocial behavior is emphasized as well as the need to help students gain skills necessary to access support for this academic work.     

Defining remission by cut off score on the MADRS: selecting the optimal value

BACKGROUND: Remission from major depression may be conceptualised in terms of a cut-off score on an appropriate rating scale. Candidate values proposed hitherto have not been directly validated. METHOD: The relationship between The Clinical Global Impression Scale for Severity (CGI-S) and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) was explored in 684 major depressed patients (1114 observations). The value on the MADRS which had greatest concordance with remission, as defined by the CGI-S, was computed using two models. Concordance between clinician and patient judgements of global illness were also compared. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The two models yielded optimal definitions of remission of <9 and <10 on the MADRS. Either value offers a workable operationalisation of remission and there is little to choose between them. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The data confirm that MADRS <10 should provide the clinician with a valid, and reasonably objectifiable, target for remission     

Serum TABM produced during anterior chamber-associated immune deviation passively transfers suppression of delayed-type hypersensitivity to primed mice

Injection of soluble protein antigen into the anterior chamber of the eye of primed mice induces anterior chamber-associated immune deviation (ACAID) which is manifested by suppression of delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) to the antigen. Recently, we found that ACAID induced in primed mice also results in a rapid rise in serum of soluble T lymphocyte-derived proteins specific for nominal antigen (TABM). Here, we demonstrate that serum TABM induced in primed mice during ACAID will transfer the suppression of DTH to mice primed to the same antigen. Sera from TNP-BSA-primed mice that received an anterior chamber injection of TNP-BSA, but not BSA alone, suppressed the DTH response to TNP when injected into other TNP-BSA-primed mice. Sera absorbed with Sepharose beads conjugated with either anti-TCR C(alpha), anti-TCR C(beta), anti-TABM or TNP-BSA did not contain TNP-specific TABM and did not transfer suppression of DTH. These results suggest that the antigen-specific, TCR C(alphabeta)+ TABM that appear in serum during ACAID are able to confer on or amplify the capacity of sensitized T cells to suppress DTH. We believe this to be the first demonstration of an in vivo immunologic function that is specifically associated with TABM produced in vivo.      

Improved enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using C-terminal truncated recombinant antigens of Babesia bovis rhoptry-associated protein-1 for detection of specific antibodies

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on a recombinant rhoptry-associated protein-1 (RAP-1) of Babesia bovis has been previously developed, but it was imperfect because some cross-reactions were still present in Babesia bigemina-infected bovine sera. To improve its accuracy for the specific detection of the antibodies to B. bovis, we constructed three C-terminal truncated recombinant antigens of the RAP-1-rCT1 (amino acids [aa] 301 to 408), rCT2 (aa 388 to 490), and rCT3 (aa 466 to 565)-by using a baculovirus expression system and evaluated their diagnostic potentials using ELISA. rCT1 and rCT2 were better diagnostic antigens in their sensitivities and diagnostic efficiencies than rCT3, although none of the recombinant antigens showed any cross-reactivity to B. bigemina-infected bovine sera. These results confirmed that the N-terminal 300-aa region caused cross-reactivity of the entire RAP-1 antigen, and the C-terminal truncated recombinant antigens were shown to be useful reagents for species-specific serodiagnosis.     

Human telomerase catalytic subunit gene re-expression is an early event in oral carcinogenesis

AIMS: Detection of telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT) mRNA has been used as a surrogate marker for estimation of telomerase activity. The exact role and timing of telomerase re-activation, a key enzyme implicated in cellular immortalization and transformation, in the multistep process of oral carcinogenesis is still unknown. The aim was to test the hypothesis that (i) quantitative rather than qualitative differences exist in the level of hTERT mRNA expression between normal oral mucosa, different grades of oral epithelial abnormalities and squamous cell carcinomas of the oral cavity, and that (ii) hTERT gene re-expression is an important, probably early event in oral carcinogenesis. METHODS AND RESULTS: The relative quantity of hTERT mRNA was analysed in 45 frozen oral epithelia representing different morphological stages of oral carcinogenesis classified according to the Ljubljana classification and in 37 oral squamous cell carcinomas, using a commercially available LightCycler Telo TAGGG hTERT Quantification kit. hTERT mRNA was not detected in normal or reactive hyperplastic oral epithelia, but was present in 43% of atypical hyperplasias (premalignant lesions), 60% of intraepithelial carcinomas and 68% of oral squamous cell carcinomas. Statistical analysis revealed two groups of oral epithelial changes, with significant differences in the levels of hTERT mRNA expression: 1, normal and reactive hyperplastic oral epithelium, and 2, atypical hyperplasia, intraepithelial carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that hTERT gene re-expression represents an early event in the multistep process of oral carcinogenesis, already detectable at the stage of precancerous oral epithelial changes. Nevertheless, other genetic aberrations appear to be necessary for progression of oral epithelial abnormalities towards invasive squamous cell carcinoma.     

IL-10-driven immunoglobulin production by B lymphocytes from IgA-deficient individuals correlates to infection proneness

In search for a possible explanation of the phenotypic heterogeneity in IgA deficiency, we studied the function of B cells from IgA-deficient (IgAd) individuals. Two groups of IgAd individuals, one frequently infected and one clinically apparently healthy, as well as normal controls, were studied. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and B cells from IgAd individuals and controls were cultured with Staphylococcus aureus Cowan I strain and with anti-CD40 MoAb presented on the CD32-transfected fibroblast cell line in the presence of IL-10. In this experimental system PBMC and B cells from the infection-prone IgAd individuals produced only minute amounts of IgA. In contrast, PBMC and B cells from healthy IgAd subjects secreted significantly more IgA1 and IgA2 in comparison with infection-prone IgAd patients (P < 0.05). These data suggest that the abnormalities of B cell differentiation in IgAd could be of heterogeneous origin. Thus, whereas in healthy IgAd subjects IgA production may be efficiently up-regulated in vitro by addition of IL-10 to CD40-activated B cell culture, the corresponding B cell differentiation does not occur in infection-prone IgAd patients. These observations provide a conceptual framework for phenotypic heterogeneity in IgAd subjects.     

Tumor-specific and gender-specific pre-vaccination distribution of human papillomavirus types 6 and 11 in anogenital warts and laryngeal papillomas: a study on 574 tissue specimens

Anogenital warts and laryngeal papillomas are two most important benign tumors etiologically linked with HPV. In the study, which included both the largest number of laryngeal papilloma tissue specimens (152 specimens from 152 patients) to date and the largest number of prospectively collected and histologically confirmed tissue specimens of anogenital warts obtained from both genders (422 specimens from 315 patients), HPV DNA was detected in 413/422 (97.9%) of anogenital warts and 139/152 (91.4%) of laryngeal papillomas. HPV‐6 and/or HPV‐11 were detected in 291/315 (92.4%) patients with anogenital warts and in 138/152 (90.8%) patients with laryngeal papillomas, indicating that the great majority of both tumors could be prevented with prophylactic quadrivalent vaccine. The HPV‐6 gender‐specific distribution in both anogenital warts and laryngeal papillomas was not statistically significant. In contrast, HPV‐11 was found almost three times more often in males than in females with anogenital warts (16.5% vs. 6.3%; P = 0.008), with a gender neutral HPV‐11 type distribution in laryngeal papillomas. The overall HPV DNA prevalence in anogenital warts was significantly different from that in laryngeal papillomas (97.1% vs. 91.4%; P = 0.01). In the first comparison of the HPV‐6/HPV‐11 type‐specific distribution between patients suffering from anogenital warts and laryngeal papillomas with the same geographic and ethnic background, a significant imbalance in tumor‐specific distribution of HPV‐6 and HPV‐11 was identified: HPV‐6 was statistically more often present in anogenital warts than in laryngeal papillomas (79.0% vs. 59.2%; P = 0.000013), whereas HPV‐11 was statistically more frequent in laryngeal papillomas than in anogenital warts (28.9% vs. 12.4%; P = 0.00003). J. Med. Virol. 84: 1233–1241, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Alternate donor hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) in non-Hodgkin lymphoma using lower intensity conditioning: a report from the CIBMTR

We analyzed the outcomes of 248 (61% male) adult recipients of HLA-matched unrelated and HLA-mismatched related donor hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) after reduced or lower intensity conditioning (RIC), reported to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) from 1997 to 2004. Median age was 52 (range: 18-72 years); 31% had a Karnofsky performance score <90. Follicular NHL (43%) was the major histology. Incidence of grades II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) was 43% at 100 days; and chronic GVHD (cGVHD) was 44% at 3 years. Treatment-related mortality (TRM) at 100 days was 24%. Three-year overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were 41% and 32%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, use of antithymocyte globulin (ATG) and HLA mismatch were associated with increased TRM. High-grade histology, ATG use, and chemotherapy resistance were associated with lower PFS. Older age, shorter interval from diagnosis to HCT, non-total body irridiation (TBI) conditioning regimens, ex?vivo T cell depletion, and HLA-mismatched unrelated donors were associated with mortality. GVHD did not influence relapse or PFS. Older age, aggressive histology, and chemotherapy resistance correlated with poorer survival. For selected patients with NHL, lack of an available sibling donor should not be a barrier to allogeneic HCT.