Alveolar hydatid disease of the liver: Brief review and spectrum of adjacent organ invasion

The purpose of this study is to show the spectrum of adjacent organ invasion and to make a brief review of hepatic alveolar hydatid disease (AHD), using CT and MR imaging. We retrospectively reviewed CT and MR images of three patients with various adjacent organ invasions surgically and histologically proven to be AHD. Local invasion to right kidney and adrenal, right hemidiaphragm and lung were detected in one patient, right adrenal in another patient and gall bladder, duodenum, gastric wall and pancreas invasion in the other. AHD may rarely extend to the gall bladder, stomach, duodenum, pancreas, right adrenal and kidney, diaphragm, pleura and lung. The extension of the disease outside the liver is usually encountered in patients with large, peripherally located masses in the advanced stage of the disease.     

Deprivation of form vision suppresses diurnal cycling of retinal levels of leu-enkephalin

Deprivation of form vision by the fitting of translucent occluders suppressed the diurnal cycling of enkephalinergic amacrine cells (the ENSLI amacrine cells), in the chicken. Daily periods of normal vision or enforcing temporal contrast using strobe lighting appeared to restore normal functioning of the ENSLI cells. These results suggest that the ENSLI cells are involved in retinal circuits that assess the quality of the visual image and control eye growth.     

Autopsy findings in two siblings with infantile Refsum disease

Summary Recognition of adrenal atrophy during a review of autopsy findings in two sisters who died at 8 months and 3 1/2 years prompted estimation of very long chain fatty acids, phytanic acid and pristanic acid on wet liver fixed in formalin for 12 years. These were shown to be markedly increased and defects in multiple peroxisomal functions and decrease in particulate catalase were shown in cultured fibroblasts, confirming an abnormality of peroxisomal biogenesis. The patients had presented with failure to thrive, recurrent diarrohea and vomiting, poor mental development, retinal pigmentation, blindness and in the older patient deafness, with only mild dysmorphic features. Autopsy in the older patient showed adrenal atrophy, cirrhosis, and foamy histiocytes in multiple organs. The brain showed no demyelination, little cytoarchitectural abnormality, occasional perivascular histiocytes in the grey matter and meninges and prominent Purkinje cells in the molecular layer of the cerebellum. In the younger patient the changes were very subtle in spite of the marked clinical similarity. Despite the young age at death the clinicopathological features are most suggestive of infantile Refsum disease. In many situations anatomical pathology can be very useful in the recognition and study of peroxisomal disorders.     

Identification of a parathyroid hormone in the fish Fugu rubripes.

A PTH gene has been isolated from the fish Fugu rubripes. The encoded protein of 80 amino acid has the lowest homology with any of the PTH family members. Fugu PTH(1-34) had 5-fold lower potency than human PTH(1-34) in a mammalian cell system. INTRODUCTION: Parathyroid hormone (PTH) is the major hypercalcemic hormone in higher vertebrates. Fish lack parathyroid glands, but there have numerous attempts to identify and isolate PTH from fish. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed with primers based on preliminary data from the Joint Genome Institute database. PCR amplification was performed on genomic DNA isolated from Fugu rubripes. PCR products were purified and DNA was sequenced. All sequence was confirmed from more than one independently amplified PCR product. Multiple sequence alignments were carried out, and the percentage of identities and similarities were calculated. An unrooted phylogenetic tree, using all the known PTH and PTH-related protein (PTHrP) amino acid sequences, was determined. Synthetic peptides were tested in a biological assay that measured cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate formation in UMR106.1 cells. Rabbit polyclonal antisera specific for N-terminal human PTHrP and one rabbit polyclonal antiserum specific for N terminus hPTH were used to test the cross-reactivity with fPTH(1-34) in immunoblots.