Hepatic artery mycotic aneurysm of tubercular aetiology

Hepatic artery aneurysm caused by tuberculosis is extremely rare, the commonest being atherosclerosis and vasculitis. A 13 year boy admitted with suspected disseminated tuberculosis had a hepatic bruit. Patient died of aneurysmal rupture before antemortem etiological diagnosis could be established. Postmortem examination revealed widespread tubercular lesions in the chest and abdomen and hepatic artery aneurysm.     

Neurological recovery from closed head injury is impaired in diabetic rats

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder associated with central nervous system impairments. Recent studies implicate oxidative stress mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications. ROS have been shown to play role in the pathophysiology of brain injury. In the present study, closed head injury (CHI) was induced in diabetic rats to test the hypothesis that chronic oxidative stress exacerbates brain damage following CHI. Neurological recovery, edema, levels of low molecular weight antioxidants (LMWA), and markers of lipid peroxidation were determined at different intervals after injury. Diabetic rats (4 weeks after induction with streptozotocin) were subjected to CHI. Brain edema (percent water) and clinical status (neurological severity score) were assessed during 7 days. Brain LMWA were determined using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and HPLC-EC. In addition, conjugated dienes and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were measured. Diabetic-CHI rats exhibited a lower rate of recovery and greater and more sustained edema (p < 0.01), as compared with the controls. At all times diabetic rats had higher levels of TBARS and conjugated dienes and lower concentrations of LMWA, and of vitamins C and E, suggesting chronic oxidative stress. At 5 min of CHI, the amounts of LMWA in control-CHI brains decreased (approximately 50%, p < 0.01) and returned to normal by 48 h and 7 days. In the diabetic-CHI brain only one class of LMWA slightly declined but remained low for 7 days. The present results support the hypothesis that diabetic rats are under chronic oxidative stress, and suffer greater neurological dysfunction, associated with further lipid peroxidation following CHI.     

Larval development and settlement of the barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite from the Red Sea: Influence of the nauplii hatching season

Barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite adults were collected from the Jeddah coast of the Red Sea during different seasons. The nauplii released by adults in autumn, winter, spring and summer were reared under laboratory conditions to know the larval development duration and settlement in relation to the hatching season. The nauplii reared during winter (11 days) and autumn (13 days) took longer to reach the cypris stage compared to nauplii reared in summer (6 days) and spring (7 days). The most successful settlement of larvae was observed in spring and summer and the least successful — in winter. The observations of gonads showed that summer and spring are the active breeding season for A. amphitrite in the Red Sea. The results of this study indicated that the nauplii hatching season plays a significant role in the larval development and settlement of barnacles in the Red Sea.     

Genotype-phenotype correlation and molecular heterogeneity in pyruvate kinase deficiency

Pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency is a rare recessive congenital hemolytic anemia caused by mutations in the PKLR gene. This study reports the molecular features of 257 patients enrolled in the PKD Natural History Study. Of the 127 different pathogenic variants detected, 84 were missense and 43 non-missense, including 20 stop-gain, 11 affecting splicing, five large deletions, four in-frame indels, and three promoter variants. Within the 177 unrelated patients, 35 were homozygous and 142 compound heterozygous (77 for two missense, 48 for one missense and one non-missense, and 17 for two non-missense variants); the two most frequent mutations were p.R510Q in 23% and p.R486W in 9% of mutated alleles. Fifty-five (21%) patients were found to have at least one previously unreported variant with 45 newly described mutations. Patients with two non-missense mutations had lower hemoglobin levels, higher numbers of lifetime transfusions, and higher rates of complications including iron overload, extramedullary hematopoiesis, and pulmonary hypertension. Rare severe complications, including lower extremity ulcerations and hepatic failure, were seen more frequently in patients with non-missense mutations or with missense mutations characterized by severe protein instability. The PKLR genotype did not correlate with the frequency of complications in utero or in the newborn period. With ICCs ranging from 0.4 to 0.61, about the same degree of clinical similarity exists within siblings as it does between siblings, in terms of hemoglobin, total bilirubin, splenectomy status, and cholecystectomy status. Pregnancy outcomes were similar across genotypes in PK deficient women. This report confirms the wide genetic heterogeneity of PK deficiency.     

Tracking the Phylogeny of Seagrasses: Inferred from 18S rRNA Gene and Ancestral State Reconstruction of Morphological Data

Taxonomic challenges of seagrasses were met by using 18S ribosomal subunit of ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (18S rDNA) sequence data of 14 seagrass species from India and two temperate species from Germany. The phylogenetic trees presented are based on the 18S rDNA sequence analysis of 41 nucleotide sequences including sequences obtained in the present study as well as previously published sequences of freshwater and saltmarsh plants, and seagrasses for identifying the evolutionary lineage. The 18S rDNA data indicates independent origin of temperate and tropical seagrasses with the genus Halophila as the intermediate group for both the regions. Based on the complex morphological structures the Halophila group represents the basal form among seagrasses whereas Enhalus is considered to be the most recently originated seagrass species. In that context, the marine Hydrocharitaceae group of Enhalus, Thalassia and Halophila has been proposed to be separated into two groups such as Enhalus/Thalassia and Halophila subfamilies. Hence, the present systematic studies warrant a revised taxonomy for seagrasses, which better reflects the phylogenetic results obtained from molecular and conventional data.     

Acute autoimmune hepatitis presenting with centrizonal liver disease: case report and review of the literature

Relatively little is known about the histological appearance of autoimmune hepatitis during the early stage of disease. We describe a case of autoimmune hepatitis in a 20-yr-old woman in which the initial liver biopsy was characterized by a marked predominance of centrizonal injury. Over the course of several months, the histological appearance evolved to what is more commonly associated with chronic autoimmune hepatitis. A review of the literature on this interesting entity is presented.