Intravenous leiomyomatosis of the uterus: a clinicopathologic study of 22 cases

Sphingosine-1-phosphate (Sph-1-P) has been implicated as a second messenger in control of cell motility and proliferation (e.g., Sadahira Y, et al., PNAS 89:9686, 1992; Olivera A & Spiegel S, Nature 365:557, 1993). The control mechanism for its synthesis, as catalyzed by sphingosine kinase, is crucial in signal transduction. Synthesis of Sph-1-P in Balb/c 3T3 fibroblasts (A31 variant) is strongly up-regulated by brief treatment of cells with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). Level of Sph-1-P in PKC-depleted cells is 10-fold higher than in undepleted cells, and a further 5-fold increase occurs after treatment with TPA. In Swiss 3T3 and B16 melanoma cells, Sph-1-P level was unaffected by TPA treatment. Thus, the effect of TPA on Sph-1-P synthesis appears to be cell type-specific.     

Bacillary angiomatosis of the spleen

Bacillary angiomatosis is a recently described vasoproliferative lesion associated with infection by a newly characterized rickettsial organism, Rochalimaea henselae. Most previous reports have described skin lesions in immunocompromised patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus. This is the first case report detailing the features of bacillary angiomatosis of the spleen occurring in a patient undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapy for disseminated ovarian carcinoma.     

The effect of UW solution and its components on the collagenase digestion of human and porcine pancreas

Miropeats displays DNA sequence similarity information graphically. The program discovers regions of similarity amongst any set of DNA sequences and then draws a graphic that summarizes the length, location and relative orientations of any repeated sequences. Sequence similarity searching is a very general tool that forms the basis of many different biological sequence analyses but it is limited by the verbosity of traditional alignment presentation styles. Miropeats enhances the utility of conventional DNA sequence comparisons when looking at long lengths of sequence similarity by summarizing large-scale sequence similarities on a single page of PostScript graphics. Miropeats has been applied estensively to help understand shotgun assembly projects, to check cosmid overlaps and to perform inter-genomic comparisons.     

Bed nets for the prevention of malaria and anaemia in pregnancy

A prospective comparison of the antimalarial efficacy of bed nets was conducted with 341 pregnant women living in a mesoendemic malarious area of the Thai-Burmese border. Women in 3 adjacent study sites were allocated at random to receive either a single size permethrin-impregnated bed net (PIB), a non-impregnated bed net (NIB), or to a control group who used either their own family size non-impregnated bed net (FNIB) or no net. In one study site, but not the other 2, PIB significantly reduced parasite densities and, together with FNIB, reduced the incidence of malaria in pregnancy from 56% to 33% (relative risk = 1.67, confidence interval = 1.07-2.61, P = 0.03, allowing for parity). Anaemia proved a more sensitive marker of bed net antimalarial efficacy than parasite rates. The incidence of anaemia (haematocrit < 30%) at all study sites was significantly lower at delivery in the PIB (27%) and FNIB groups (21%) than in the NIB group (41%) or those using no net (56%). This suggests that a significant proportion of the malaria in pregnancy in this mesoendemic area was sub-patent. Both patent Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia and anaemia were associated with a reduction in birth weight. Infant mortality was high (16%) and strongly associated with prematurity, low birth weight and maternal anaemia. PIB were well tolerated and had no apparent adverse effect on the pregnancy or infant development. Although the overall effect of bed nets on patent parasitaemia was marginal, they were associated with a significant reduction in maternal malaria-associated anaemia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)