Correction to: Features of intracranial hemorrhage in cerebral venous thrombosis

Journal of Neurology - The original version of this article unfortunately contained mistakes. The correct information is given below.     

Targeting the CYP2B 1/cyclophosphamide suicide system to fibroblast growth factor receptors results in a potent antitumoral response in pancreatic cancer models

The CYP2B1/cyclophosphamide (CPA) suicide gene therapy approach has been shown to be highly promising in clinical trials for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. However, delivering the therapeutic gene to a sufficient number of tumor cells able to trigger a complete response remains a challenge. Target-specific delivery of adenovirus to fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) has been obtained in a variety of tumor models and has been shown to highly increase transduction efficiency. In the present paper we have tested the therapeutic outcome of retargeting the adenoviral vector, Ad-CYP2B1, to FGFRs, using an FGF2-Fab' conjugate, in pancreatic cancer models. First, we show a heterogeneous subcellular distribution of overexpressed FGFR-1 in pancreatic cancer cells. Higher transduction efficiency was observed in five of the six cell lines studied after FGF2-AdGFPLuc infection. Interestingly, an association between FGFR-1 membrane cell expression and viral entry was found. Moreover, tumors injected with FGF2-AdGFPLuc showed enhanced and persistent transgene expression. Importantly, we demonstrate the relevant enhanced cytotoxic effect of the FGF2-Ad-CYP2B]/CPA system in four of the six cell lines studied. Moreover, retargeting Ad-CYP2B1/CPA to FGFRs resulted in a potent antitumoral effect and in an increased survival rate, in two human pancreatic xenograft models. Thus, our results indicate that redirecting adenoviruses to FGFRs highly increases the potency of the suicide system CYP2B1/CPA. Consequently, it may constitute a promising approach to the treatment of patients with pancreatic tumors, in which a high proportion of FGF receptors precisely localize to the plasma membrane.     

Identical COL71A1 heterozygous mutations resulting in different dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa phenotypes

Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa is a rare blistering condition caused by mutations in the COL7A1 gene. Different clinical variants have been described, with dominant and recessive inheritance, but no consistent findings have been elucidated to establish a genotype–phenotype correlation. We present three unrelated patients with two identical pathogenic compound heterozygous mutations in the COL7A1 gene that developed different clinical forms of dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa—epidermolysis bullosa pruriginosa and mild recessive non‐Hallopeau–Siemens—raising the possibility of other genetic or environmental modifying factors responsible for the phenotype of the disease.     

Behavior of reticular,vestibular and prepositus neurons terminating in the abducens nucleus of the alert cat

Summary The activity of pontomedullary reticular, vestibular, and prepositus neurons has been recorded in the alert cat during spontaneous and vestibular-induced eye movements. Neurons were identified by their antidromic activation from the abducens nucleus. Spikes of these neurons were used to trigger the recording of field potentials in the abducens nucleus. The analysis by post-spike averaging of the field potentials showed the presence of a trifold system of reciprocal (excitatory and inhibitory) direct projections that originated in the above nuclei and terminated in the abducens nucleus with a distinctly graded effectiveness. This trifold afferent system is involved in the generation of fast eye movements, slow compensatory movements of vestibular origin, and eye fixation, respectively.     

Consistency of the blind source separation computed with five common algorithms for magnetoencephalogram background activity

Blind source separation (BSS) is widely used to analyse brain recordings like the magnetoencephalogram (MEG). However, few studies have compared different BSS decompositions of real brain data. Those comparisons were usually limited to specific applications. Therefore, we aimed at studying the consistency (i.e., similarity) of the decompositions estimated for real MEGs from 26 subjects using five widely used BSS algorithms (AMUSE, SOBI, JADE, extended-Infomax and FastICA) for five epoch lengths (10 s, 20 s, 40 s, 60 s and 90 s). A statistical criterion based on Factor Analysis was applied to calculate the number of components into which each epoch would be decomposed. Then, the BSS techniques were applied. The results indicate that the pair of algorithms ‘AMUSE–SOBI’, followed by ‘JADE–FastICA’, provided the most similar separations. On the other hand, the most dissimilar outcomes were computed with ‘AMUSE–JADE’ and ‘SOBI–JADE’. The BSS decompositions were more similar for longer epochs. Furthermore, additional analyses of synthetic signals supported the results of the real MEGs. Thus, when selecting BSS algorithms to explore brain signals, the techniques offering the most different decompositions, such as AMUSE and JADE, may be preferred to obtain complementary, or at least different, perspectives of the underlying components.     

Late-onset neonatal infections caused by group B Streptococcus associated with viral infection

An association between viral infection and late-onset disease caused by group B Streptococcus (GBS), was systematically looked for in neonates hospitalized for fever during a 3 1/2 year period. Five neonates between 5 to 12.5 months of age presented with meningitis (2 cases) or with septicemia (3 cases) caused by GBS. Viral culture, immunofluorescence, and assay of IFNalpha in blood and cerebrospinal fluid were performed. A viral infection was proved in 4 cases and suspected in 1 case (rash and pharyngitis). We speculate that viral infection may provoke late-onset disease in colonized infants with GBS.