Mitochondrial Injury in Human Acute Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: The Effect of Oxygen Treatment

The best oxygen therapy for acute carbon monoxide poisoning (ACOP) remains unestablished. Reported mitochondrial complex IV (mtCIV) inhibition, together with carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb)-induced hypoxia, may influence acute clinical symptoms and outcome. To “mitochondrially” evaluate treatment efficacy, we correlated intoxication severity and symptoms with mitochondrial function (mtCIV activity) and oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation) in 60 poisoned patients and determined ACOP recovery depending on either normobaric or hyperbaric oxygen therapy along a 3-month follow-up. In the present article we positively evaluate mtCIV as a good marker of ACOP recovery, treatment effectiveness, and late neurological syndrome development, which advocates for hyperbaric oxygen therapy as the treatment of choice. However, we discourage its usefulness as a severity marker because of its excessive sensitivity. We additionally evaluate oxidative stress role and prognostic factors for neurological sequelae development.     

Menopause Is Associated With a Significant Increase in Blood Monocyte Number and a Relative Decrease in the Expression of Estrogen Receptors in Human Peripheral Monocytes

PROBLEM : The clinical significance of the differential expression of estrogen receptor (ER) in human monocytes was evaluated. METHOD : Two color flow cytometry analysis was used on peripheral blood samples of young and postmenopausal females and postmenopausal females treated with estrogen replacement therapy. In addition, the monocyte and lymphocyte counts and the blood estrogen levels of each patient were determined. RESULTS : During menopause there is a significant decrease in the percentage of ER positive monocytes, and an increase in blood monocyte number, which declines following estrogen replacement therapy to values of the young. CONCLUSIONS : These findings suggest that estrogen modulates the monocyte numbers and its effects may be mediated through the ER in the monocytes.     

A type‐specific study of human papillomavirus prevalence in cervicovaginal samples in three different Spanish regions

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most frequent sexually transmitted viral infection. It is necessary to know HPV genotype distribution to identify how many women will be protected by HPV vaccines. During a period of 18 months, we have analyzed 2362 HPV positive reporting data from a secondary demand screening program in three regions in Spain (Cantabria, Leon and Burgos). The study has been conducted using polymerase chain reaction and tube array hybridization covering the 35 HPV genotypes described as affecting anogenital mucosa. There were no significant differences between the three regions according to genotype distribution. The most frequent were HPV16 (19.18%), HPV53 (11.26%) and HPV58 (7.66%). HPV18 was the source of 4.02% of infections. High‐risk HPVs were found in 1863/2362 cases. HPV16 was present in 24.3% of high‐risk infections and HPV18 was found in 5.1%. Uncommon genotypes (<5% of the total prevalence each) were found in 17,9% of the total high‐risk infections (334/1863). Multiple infections were diagnosed in 22% of the cases. The HPV genotype distribution is different from previously published data when multiple types are included in the screening. Both HPV16/18 account for 30% of high‐risk infections in a clinical setting in Spain. The presence of multiple genotypes is very common among the population.     

A high frequency polymorphism in the candidate region for Tuberous Sclerosis 1 (TSC1) at 9q34

The Surfeit locus contains at least six tightly clustered housekeeping genes (Surf-1 to -6) with novel features (Huxley & Fried, 1990). In contrast to the tens to hundreds of kilobases found between most adjacent mammalian genes only a small region separates any two adjacent Surfeit genes. The organization of the Surfeit locus and the juxtaposition of the Surfeit genes is conserved between mouse, human and chicken (600 million years of divergent evolution) (Williams et al. 1988; Yon et al. 1993; Colombo et al. 1992) indicating that the Surfeit locus gene organization may have biological significance. The Surfeit locus has been mapped to human chromosome band 9q34, within the candidate region for Tuberous Sclerosis 1 (TSC1) (Yon et al. 1993). In the process of screening for mutations correlated with TSC1 by single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) (Orita et al. 1989) in this genomic region we detected a polymorphism which occurs at a high frequency.