079 Suction blistering of vitiligo lesional skin provides insight into disease pathogenesis as well as biomarkers of disease activity

Insight into the Pathogenesis of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and Europe, caused by a tick-borne spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. Life cycle alternation between arthropod and mammals enhanced B. burgdorferi to adapt to two diverse niches. Although B. burgdorferi infection in these reservoir hosts appears asymptomatic, infection in human can typically cause inflammation in the skin,...

Telocytes: new insight into the pathogenesis of gallstone disease

The major mechanisms of gallstone formation include biliary cholesterol hypersecretion, supersaturation and crystallization, mucus hypersecretion, gel formation and bile stasis. Gallbladder hypomotility seems to be a key event that triggers the precipitation of cholesterol microcrystals from supersaturated lithogenic bile. Telocytes, a new type of interstitial cells, have been recently identifi...

Doxycycline-Inducible Autoimmune Blistering Skin Disease Model

W. Nishie , M.D., Ph.D. • H. Shimizu , M.D., Ph.D. (*) Department of Dermatology , Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine , N15W7, Kita-ku , Sapporo 003-0835 , Japan e-mail: [email protected] Abstract Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is the most common autoimmune blistering disorder. BP autoantibodies target two hemidesmosomal components, collagen XVII (COL17) and BP230, with autoimmuni...

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Markers of Aberrantly Activated Innate Immunity in Vitiligo Lesional and Non-Lesional Skin

BACKGROUND Vitiligo is characterized by the death of melanocytes in the skin. This is associated with the presence of T cell infiltrates in the lesional borders. However, at present, there is no detailed and systematic characterization on whether additional cellular or molecular changes are present inside vitiligo lesions. Further, it is unknown if the normal appearing non-lesional skin of viti...

Vitiligo – A Complex Autoimmune Skin Depigmenting Disease