Elephantiasis of the external genitalia is characterized by lymphedema and thickening of the subcutaneous tissues. This gives the skin an appearance similar to a pachyderm skin. This pathology is invalidating for the patient. Reconstructive surgery is often the only way to restaure aesthetic and functional aspects of the external genitalia. We aim to report a 52 year man with huge penoscrotal e...

The Ras signaling pathway specifies a variety of cell fates in many organisms. However, little is known about the genes that function downstream of the conserved signaling cassette, or what imparts the specificity necessary to cause Ras activation to trigger different responses in different tissues. In C. elegans, activation of the Ras pathway induces cells in the central body region to generat...

Understanding how cells move, change shape, and alter cellular behaviors to form organs, a process termed morphogenesis, is one of the great challenges of developmental biology. Formation of the Caenorhabditis elegans vulva is a powerful, simple, and experimentally accessible model for elucidating how morphogenetic processes produce an organ. In the first step of vulval development, three epith...

BACKGROUND Hydrocele and elephantiasis are 2 clinically very diverse and often mutually exclusive chronic manifestations of human bancroftian filariasis. Plasma levels of endothelin-1 (ET-1), a major angiogenic factor, and tumor necrosis factor receptors (TNFRs) that regulate host inflammation have been associated with development of chronic filariasis, although their genetic basis are not know...

BACKGROUND The cell lineage of nematodes is mostly invariant for a given species, but varies between species. One can thus wonder how a cell lineage varies during evolution. We have started a microevolutionary approach within two genera by observing lineage variations of vulval precursor cells in different natural nematode populations of the same and closely related species. RESULTS In Caenor...

Abdominal elephantiasis is a rare entity. Abdominal elephantiasis is an uncommon, but deformative and progressive cutaneous disease caused by chronic lymphedema and recurrent streptococcal or Staphylococcus infections of the abdominal wall. We present 3 cases of patients with morbid obesity who presented to our hospital with abdominal wall swelling, thickening, erythema, and pain. The abdominal...