Hemopoietic effects in mice of a transplanted, granulocytosis-inducing tumor.

A transplanted tumor that induces granulocytosis and produces colony stimulating factor (CSF) was studied in mice during several passages. The sequence of events leading to granulocytosis was characterized. Band granulocytes were increased 3 days after tumor inoculation, while simultaneously CFU-s and CFU-c in bone marrow and spleen were transitorily low. This was followed by rapid accumulation of CFU-c and CFU-s in spleen, and by successive waves of increased mitotable and non-mitotable granulocytes in spleen and marrow. In contrast, marrow CFU-c and CFU-s remained normal or slightly decreased.     

Expression profile of the telomeric complex discriminates between benign and malignant pheochromocytoma

Telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein complex that includes the telomerase RNA component, the telomerase-associated protein (TP1), the telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT), and the heat shock protein 90 (HSP90), is closely related to the malignant potential of human tumors. In pheochromocytomas (PC) it is very difficult to predict malignant potential by conventional histology or immunohistochemical and molecular markers. To test whether the expression of telomerase subunits is reflected in the malignant transition of PCs, we determined their mRNA and/or protein expression in 28 benign and nine malignant PCs and compared the results with telomerase activity. RT-PCR analysis revealed that TP1 was ubiquitously expressed. The telomerase RNA component was found in all malignant (100%) and in 13 of 28 (46%) benign PCs. In contrast, hTERT was clearly associated with aggressive biological behavior. All of the malignant (100%), but only two of 28 benign (7%) PCs expressed hTERT. HSP90 was increased in malignant PCs, but was also expressed at a lower level in benign tumors. High telomerase activity was measurable in hTERT-positive tissues only. Our data indicate that hTERT, HSP90, and telomerase activity are up-regulated in malignant cells of the adrenal medulla. The common expression of hTERT and telomerase activity thus represents an additional prognostic marker that may identify more aggressive tumors.     

NK cells – Versatile tools for viral defense and cancer treatment

About 150 NK cell researchers met at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany from 26–28 September 2012 for the Natural Killer Cell Symposium which was organized by the NK cell study group of the German Society for Immunology (DGfI) and sponsored by the European Journal of Immunology (EJI), the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS) and the DGfI. The meeting was a forum for the discussion of the function and regulation of these fascinating innate immune cells and the opportunities for the transfer of this knowledge to cancer immunotherapy.     

FBXO28 causes developmental and epileptic encephalopathy with profound intellectual disability

Chromosome 1q41‐q42 deletion syndrome is a rare cause of intellectual disability, seizures, dysmorphology, and multiple anomalies. Two genes in the 1q41‐q42 microdeletion, WDR26 and FBXO28, have been implicated in monogenic disease. Patients with WDR26 encephalopathy overlap clinically with those with 1q41‐q42 deletion syndrome, whereas only one patient with FBXO28 encephalopathy has been described. Seizures are a prominent feature of 1q41‐q42 deletion syndrome; therefore, we hypothesized that pathogenic FBXO28 variants cause developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs). We describe nine new patients with FBXO28 pathogenic variants (four missense, including one recurrent, three nonsense, and one frameshift) and analyze all 10 known cases to delineate the phenotypic spectrum. All patients had epilepsy and 9 of 10 had DEE, including infantile spasms (3) and a progressive myoclonic epilepsy (1). Median age at seizure onset was 22.5 months (range 8 months to 5 years). Nine of 10 patients had intellectual disability, which was profound in six of nine and severe in three of nine. Movement disorders occurred in eight of 10 patients, six of 10 had hypotonia, four of 10 had acquired microcephaly, and five of 10 had dysmorphic features, albeit different to those typically seen in 1q41‐q42 deletion syndrome and WDR26 encephalopathy. We distinguish FBXO28 encephalopathy from both of these disorders with more severe intellectual impairment, drug‐resistant epilepsy, and hyperkinetic movement disorders.     

Biomarkers in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Overview and Implications for Future Research

PTSD can develop in the aftermath of traumatic incidents like combat, sexual abuse, or life threatening accidents. Unfortunately, there are still no biomarkers for this debilitating anxiety disorder in clinical use. Anyhow, there are numerous studies describing potential PTSD biomarkers, some of which might progress to the point of practical use in the future. Here, we outline and comment on some of the most prominent findings on potential imaging, psychological, endocrine, and molecular PTSD biomarkers and classify them into risk, disease, and therapy markers. Since for most of these potential PTSD markers a causal role in PTSD has been demonstrated or at least postulated, this review also gives an overview on the current state of research on PTSD pathobiology.     

Spatio-temporal Regularization in Linear Distributed Source Reconstruction from EEG/MEG: A Critical Evaluation

The high temporal resolution of EEG/MEG data offers a way to improve source reconstruction estimates which provide insight into the spatio-temporal involvement of neuronal sources in the human brain. In this work, we investigated the performance of spatio-temporal regularization (STR) in a current density approach using a systematic comparison to simple ad hoc or post hoc filtering of the data or of the reconstructed current density, respectively. For the used STR approach we implemented a frequency-specific constraint to penalize solutions outside a narrow frequency band of interest. The widely used sLORETA algorithm was adapted for STR and generally used for source reconstruction. STR and filtering approaches were evaluated with respect to spatial localization error and spatial dispersion, as well as to correlation of original and reconstructed source time courses in single source and two source scenarios with fixed source locations and oscillating source waveforms. We used extensive computer simulations and tested all algorithms with different parameter settings (noise levels and regularization parameters) for EEG data. To verify our results, we also used data from MEG phantom measurements. For the investigated scenarios, we did not find any evidence that STR-based methods outperform purely spatial algorithms applied to temporally filtered data. Furthermore, the results show very clearly that the performance of STR depends very much on the choice of regularization parameters.