You have noticed that while you generally have clear skin, there are some times when you wake up with acne on your face or body. You are not sure where this has come from, so you are wondering if, perhaps, you have acne prone skin.
About Acne Prone Skin
The first way that you can tell if [...]
No one wants to suffer from acne, but it is a nearly inevitable part of growing up, and can last well into adulthood. Unsightly and sometimes painful, people with acne often suffer from lowered self-esteem, thanks to self-consciousness about their acne problem. It?s no wonder that there are plenty of things on the [...]
Background:
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) associated liver diseases may be related to apoptotic processes. Thus, we investigated the role of different HCV proteins in apoptosis induction as well as their potency to interact with different apoptosis inducing agents.Methods and Results: The use of a tightly adjustable tetracycline (Tet)-dependent HCV protein expression cell system with the founder osteosarcoma cell line U-2 OS allowed switch-off and on of the endogenous production of HCV proteins. Analyzed were cell lines expressing the HCV polyprotein, the core protein, protein complexes of the core, envelope proteins E1, E2 and p7, and non-structural proteins NS3 and NS4A, NS4B or NS5A and NS5B. Apoptosis was measured mainly by the detection of hypodiploid apoptotic nuclei in the absence or presence of mitomycin C, etoposide, TRAIL and an agonistic anti-CD95 antibody. To further characterize cell death induction, a variety of different methods like fluorescence microscopy, TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-catalyzed deoxyuridinephosphate (dUTP)-nick end labeling) assay, Annexin V staining, Western blot and caspase activation assays were included into our analysis.Two cell lines expressing the core protein exerted a strong apoptotic effect, while the other cell lines did not induce any or only a slight effect by measuring the hypodiploid nuclei. Cell death induction was caspase-independent since it could not be blocked by zVAD-fmk. Moreover, caspase activity was absent in Western blot analysis and fluorometric assays while typical apoptosis-associated morphological features like the membrane blebbing and nuclei condensation and fragmentation could be clearly observed by microscopy. None of the HCV proteins influenced the apoptotic effect mediated via the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway while only the core protein enhanced death-receptor-mediated apoptosis.
Conclusions:
Our data showed a caspase-independent apoptosis-like effect of the core protein, which seems to be inhibited in the presence of further HCV proteins like the non structural (NS) proteins. This observation could be of relevance for the viral spread since induction of an apoptosis-like cell death by the core protein may have some impact on the release of the HCV particles from the host cell.
Background:
Group A beta hemolytic streptococcus (GABHS) pharyngitis is a common childhood illness. Penicillin remains the gold standard therapy, but macrolides are indicated for the penicillin allergic patient, and are often used for convenience.
Methods:
We conducted a surveillance study of children with pharyngitis and positive streptococcal rapid antigen testing from 10/05 to 10/06 at 2 sites (A & B). Demographics, treatment, and resistance data was collected and compared to previous data from 2002. Erythromycin (EM) resistance was determined by disk diffusion and E-test on 500 isolates. Pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed to measure genetic relatedness of isolates. StatXact version 8 software (Cytel Inc., Cambridge, MA) was utilized to perform Fisher’s exact test and exact confidence interval (CI) analysis.
Results:
There were no differences in resistance rates or demographic features, with the exception of race, between sites A & B. EM resistance was 0 in 2002, 3.5% in 2005-06 at site A, and 4.5% in 2005-06 at site B. 3/7 and 3/9 had inducible resistance at A and B respectively. 8 isolates had relatedness greater than or equal to 80%, 5 of which were 88% homologous on PFGE.
Conclusion:
Community macrolide resistance has increased following increased macrolide use. These results may have treatment implications if use continues to be high.
Background:
Six asthma candidate genes, ADAM33, NPSR1, PHF11, DPP10, HLA-G, and CYFIP2, located at different chromosome regions have been positionally cloned following the reported linkage studies. For ADAM33, NPSR1, and CYFIP2, the associations with asthma or asthma-related phenotypes have been studied in East Asian populations such as Chinese and Japanese. However, for PHF11, DPP10, and HLA-G, none of the association studies have been conducted in Asian populations. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to test the associations between these three positionally cloned genes and asthma or asthma-related phenotypes in a Chinese population.
Methods:
Two, five, and two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the identified top regions of PHF11, DPP10, and HLA-G, respectively, were genotyped in 1183 independent samples. The study samples were selected based on asthma affectation status and extreme values in at least one of the following three asthma-related phenotypes: total serum immunoglobulin E levels, bronchial responsiveness test, and skin prick test. Both single SNP and haplotype analyses were performed.
Results:
We found that DPP10 was significantly associated with bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) and BHR asthma after the adjustment for multiple testing; while the associations of PHF11 with positive skin reactions to antigens and the associations of HLA-G with BHR asthma were only nominally significant.
Conclusions:
Our study is the first one to provide additional evidence that supports the roles of DPP10 in influencing asthma or BHR in a Chinese population.