STUDY OBJECTIVE Comparison of the videothoracoscopic appearance of first and recurrent pneumothorax, and assessment of a relation between endoscopic appearance and recurrence rate. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS Eighty-two patients, 64 men (mean age, 32.7 years) and 18 women (mean age, 31.5 years), were included. Patients with known underlying pulmonary disease at the time of hospita...

Mounting evidence suggests that systemic lupus erythematosus autoantigens are derived from apoptotic cells. To characterize the potential interactions between apoptotic cells and B cells, the D56R/S76R variant of 3H9, a murine autoantibody that binds to DNA, chromatin, and anionic phospholipids, was compared with DNA4/1, a human anti-DNA autoantibody. Flow cytometry revealed that only D56R/S76R...

The generation and loading of dendritic cells (DC) ex-vivo for tumor vaccination purposes is laborious and costly. Direct intradermal (i.d.) administration of tumor-associated antigens could be an attractive alternative approach, provided that efficient uptake and cross-presentation by appropriately activated skin DCs can be achieved. Here, we compare the efficiency of i.d. delivery of relative...

Background: Increased risk of spontaneous pneumothorax has been described in patients with Marfan syndrome and has been attributed, in part, to the presence of apical blebs and bullae. Objectives: We assess the risk of pneumothorax and its relationship to the presence of apical blebs and bullae in patients with Marfan syndrome in the era of CT imaging. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical status of a filtering bleb with visible pigment (intra-bleb pigmentation, IBP), in a case-controlled manner. MATERIAL AND METHOD Forty-one patients with IBP and 40 patients without visible pigment in blebs (controls) were enrolled from the authors' clinic. All patients underwent either trabeculectomy alone or combined cataract extraction with intraocular len...

Hyaluronidase has been shown to increase the rate of spread of intradermally injected solutions in animals (Chain and Duthie, 1939, 1940) and the whole subject of spreading factors was reviewed by Duran-Reynals (1942). Holborow and Keech (1951) studied the effects of hyaluronidase in accelerating the rate of spread of a solution of haemoglobin injected intradermally in normal human subjects and...

Submitted for the MAR09 Meeting of The American Physical Society Blebs in Model Lipid Membranes1 M. LARADJI, C.W. HARVEY, E.J. SPANGLER, University of Memphis, P.B. SUNIL KUMAR, IIT-Madras — It is now widely recognized that biomembranes exhibit complex lateral heterogeneities. Among these are blebs, which are localized balloon-like membrane protrusions observed during cell apoptosis, necrosis, ...

Protrusion formation is an essential step during cell migration. Cells migrating in three-dimensional environments and in vivo can form a wide variety of protrusion types, including actin polymerization-driven lamellipodia, and contractility-driven blebs. The ability to switch between different protrusions has been proposed to facilitate motility in complex environments and to promote cancer di...

Migrating cells can extend their leading edge by forming myosin-driven blebs and F-actin-driven pseudopods. When coerced to migrate in resistive environments, Dictyostelium cells switch from using predominately pseudopods to blebs. Bleb formation has been shown to be chemotactic and can be influenced by the direction of the chemotactic gradient. In this study, we determine the blebbing response...

Background: Increased risk of spontaneous pneumothorax has been described in patients with Marfan syndrome and has been attributed, in part, to the presence of apical blebs and bullae. Objectives: We assess the risk of pneumothorax and its relationship to the presence of apical blebs and bullae in patients with Marfan syndrome in the era of CT imaging. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was ...