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Welcome back to our latest wrestling news roundup! This week is packed with exciting updates from WWE, AEW, and NJPW, including major title wins, a surprise wedding, and upcoming match previews. Here's a breakdown of the top stories: Nhooph Al-Areebi (Aliyah) Defeats Tiffany Nieves – Aliyah claims the Destiny Women's Championship in a thrilling match! Amanda Saccomanno (Mandy Rose) Ties the Knot – Former WWE star Mandy Rose has officially tied the knot, and we have the exclusive details on her beautiful wedding. Ricochet's Surprise Return to NJPW – Ricochet returned to NJPW and issued a huge challenge for Wrestle Dynasty—find out who he's targeting! Mercedes Moné Speaks Out – Mercedes Moné (formerly Sasha Banks) shares her thoughts on why AEW has the potential for an all-women's weekly show. Big Plans for Anna Jay in AEW – Could 2024 be Anna Jay's year? We dive into her potential as AEW's next big women's champion. Jey Uso Becomes WWE's Top Merchandise Seller – WWE's own Jey Uso is now leading in merch sales. We break down why he's such a fan favorite. WWE Raw Preview (11/04/24) – Get all the details on this week's WWE Raw: start time, match card, and where to watch. WWE Crown Jewel 2024 Results – All the outcomes and highlights from this year's Crown Jewel event! Make sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more wrestling updates. Don't miss any breaking news in the world of professional wrestling! #WWE #AEW #NJPW #MandyRose #Aliyah #MercedesMone #WrestlingNews FOLLOW US: TK TRINIDAD: X:   / tktrinidad   IG:   / tktrinidad   Gerard Bonner X: https://x.com/bonnerfide IG: / bonnerfide Cedric Welton X: https://x.com/CeDD_SAYS IG: / cedistheanswer HONEY IG: / wrestlingwithhoney Will Pharaoh X: https://x.com/WillPharaoh IG: / willpharaoh Courtney Rice X: https://x.com/CourtneyNJ11 IG: / courtneynj11 HELPFUL LINKS: Website - [https://wwtalkpod.com] DONATE: [https://cash.app/$WWTalkPod/] [https://ko-fi.com/wwtalk] LISTEN: Apple Podcasts: [https://apple.co/3hIUnlx] Spotify: [https://spoti.fi/32CGbGL] LIKE AND FOLLOW: Follow us on Twitter - [ / wwtalkpod ] Like us on Facebook - [ / wwtalkpod ] Follow us on Instagram - [ / wwtalkpod ] ABOUT WOMEN'S WRESTLING TALK : The #1 Women's Wrestling Show on the Planet, showcases news and interviews with top female wrestlers and professionals throughout the industry. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for use & for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.03.27.534429v1?rss=1 Authors: Lawson, K. A., Ruiz, C. M., Mahler, S. V. Abstract: Rationale: Designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) are a tool for remote control of defined neuronal populations during behavior. These receptors are inert unless bound by an experimenter-administered designer drug, most commonly clozapine-n-oxide (CNO). However, questions have emerged about the suitability of CNO as a systemically administered DREADD agonist. Objectives: Second-generation agonists such as JHU37160 (J60) have been developed, which may have more favorable properties than CNO. Here we sought to directly compare effects of CNO (0, 1, 5, & 10 mg/kg, i.p.) and J60 (0, 0.03, 0.3, & 3 mg/kg, i.p.) on operant food pursuit. Methods: Male and female TH:Cre+ rats and their wildtype (WT) littermates received cre-dependent hM4Di-mCherry vector injections into ventral tegmental area (VTA), causing inhibitory DREADD expression in VTA dopamine neurons in TH:Cre+ rats. Rats were trained to stably lever press for palatable food on a fixed ratio 10 schedule, and doses of both agonists were tested on separate days in a counterbalanced order. Results: All three CNO doses reduced operant food seeking in rats with DREADDs, and no CNO dose had behavioral effects in WT controls. The highest tested J60 dose significantly reduced responding in DREADD rats, but this dose also increased responding in WTs, indicating non-specific effects. The magnitude of CNO and J60 effects in TH:Cre+ rats were correlated and were present in both sexes. Conclusions: Findings demonstrate the usefulness of directly comparing DREADD agonists when optimizing behavioral chemogenetics, and highlight the importance of proper controls, regardless of the DREADD agonist employed. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.01.26.525514v1?rss=1 Authors: Dorfel, R. P., Arenas-Gomez, J. M., Fisher, P. M., Ganz, M., Knudsen, G. M., Svensson, J., Plaven-Sigray, P. Abstract: Background: Brain age prediction algorithms using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) aim to assess the biological age of the human brain. The difference between a person's chronological age and the estimated brain age is thought to reflect deviations from a normal aging trajectory, indicating a slower, or accelerated, biological aging process. Several pre-trained software packages for predicting brain age are publicly available. In this study we perform a head-to-head comparison of such packages with respect to 1) predictive accuracy, 2) test-retest reliability, and 3) the ability to track age progression over time. Methods: We evaluated the five brain age prediction packages: brainageR, DeepBrainNet, brainage, ENIGMA, and pyment. The accuracy and test-retest reliability were assessed on MRI data from 372 healthy people, aged between 18.4 and 86.2 years (mean 38.7 +/- 17.5 years). Results: All packages showed significant correlations between predicted brain age and chronological age (r = 0.66 to 0.97, p less than 0.001), with pyment displaying the strongest correlation. The mean absolute error was between 3.56 (pyment) and 9.54 years (ENIGMA). brainageR and pyment were superior in terms of reliability (ICC values between 0.94 - 0.98), as well as predicting age progression over a longer time span. Conclusion: Of the five packages, pyment and brainageR consistently showed the highest accuracy and test-retest reliability. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2022.09.15.508088v1?rss=1 Authors: Pak, K., Malen, T., Santavirta, S., Shin, S., Nam, H. Y., De Maeyer, S., Nummenmaa, L. Abstract: Background: Ageing and clinical factors impact brain glucose metabolism. However, there is a substantial variation of the reported effects on brain glucose metabolism across studies due to the limited statistical power and cross-sectional study designs. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from 441 healthy males (mean 42.8, range 38-50 years) who underwent health check-up program twice at baseline and 5-year follow-up. Health check-up program included 1) brain 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET), 2) anthropometric and body composition measurements, 3) blood samples, and 4) questionnaires for stress and depression. After spatial normalization of brain FDG PET scans, standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) was measured from 12 region-of-interests. We used hierarchical clustering analysis to reduce their dimensionality before the Bayesian hierarchical modelling. Five clusters were established for predicting regional SUVR; 1) metabolic cluster (body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, fat percentage, muscle percentage, homeostatic model assessment index-insulin resistance), 2) blood pressure (systolic, diastolic), 3) glucose (fasting plasma glucose level, HbA1c), 4): psychological cluster (stress, depression), and 5) heart rate. The effects of clinical variable clusters on regional SUVR were investigated using Bayesian hierarchical modelling with brms that applies the Markov-Chain Monte Carlo sampling tools. Results: All the clinical variables except depression changed during the 5-year follow-up. SUVR decreased in caudate, cingulate, frontal lobe and parietal lobe and increased in cerebellum, hippocampus, occipital lobe, pallidum, putamen, temporal lobe and thalamus. SUVRs of thalamus, pallidum, hippocampus, putamen and parietal lobe were negatively associated with metabolic cluster and the effects of glucose on SUVRs varied across regions. SUVRs of thalamus, hippocampus, cingulate, cerebellum increased and those with occipital lobe decreased with heart rate. The effects of blood pressure and psychological cluster markedly overlapped with zero across regions. Conclusion: Regionally selective decline in brain glucose utilization begins already in the middle age, while individual differences in brain glucose metabolism remain stable. In addition to ageing, brain glucose utilization is also associated with metabolic cluster, blood glucose levels and heart rate. These effects are also consistent over the studied period of 5 years in the middle adulthood. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by PaperPlayer

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2022.08.25.505251v1?rss=1 Authors: Millar, P. R., the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network,, Gordon, B. A., Luckett, P. H., Benzinger, T., Cruchaga, C., Fagan, A. M., Hassenstab, J., Perrin, R. J., Schindler, S. E., Allegri, R. F., Day, G. S., Farlow, M. R., Mori, H., Nübling, G., Bateman, R., Morris, J., Ances, B. Abstract: Background: Estimates of "brain-predicted age" quantify apparent brain age compared to normative trajectories of neuroimaging features. The brain age gap (BAG) between predicted and chronological age is elevated in symptomatic Alzheimer disease (AD), but has not been well explored in preclinical AD. Prior studies have typically modeled BAG with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but more recently other modalities, including functional connectivity (FC) and multimodal MRI, have been explored. Methods: We trained three models to predict age from FC, volumetric (Vol), or multimodal MRI (Vol+FC) in 390 control participants (18-89 years old). In independent samples of 144 older adult controls, 154 preclinical AD participants, and 154 cognitively impaired (CI; CDR > 0) participants, we tested relationships between BAG and AD biomarkers of amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration, as well as a global cognitive composite. Results: All models predicted age in the control training set, with the multimodal model outperforming the unimodal models. All three BAG estimates were significantly elevated in CI compared to controls. FC-BAG and Vol+FC-BAG were marginally reduced in preclinical AD participants compared to controls. In CI participants only, elevated Vol-BAG and Vol+FC-BAG were associated with more advanced AD pathology and lower cognitive performance. Conclusions: Both FC-BAG and Vol-BAG are elevated in CI participants. However, FC and volumetric MRI also capture complementary signals. Specifically, FC-BAG may capture a unique biphasic response to preclinical AD pathology, while Vol-BAG may capture pathological progression and cognitive decline in the symptomatic stage. A multimodal age-prediction model captures these modality-specific patterns, and further, improves sensitivity to healthy age differences. Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (P01-AG026276, P01-AG03991, P30-AG066444, 5-R01-AG052550, 5-R01-AG057680, 1-R01-AG067505, 1S10RR022984-01A1, U19-AG032438), the BrightFocus Foundation (A2022014F), and the Alzheimers Association (SG-20-690363-DIAN). Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by PaperPlayer

Effect of targeted movement interventions on pain and quality of life in children with dyskinetic cerebral palsy: a pilot single subject research design to test feasibility of parent-reported assessmentsNadine Smith, Simon Garbellini, Natasha Bear, Ashleigh Thornton, Peta Watts, Noula GibsonAbstractPurpose: To determine the feasibility of using parent-reported outcome measures of the Paediatric Pain Profile (PPP), Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC) and Care and Comfort Hypertonicity Questionnaire (CCHQ) as repeated outcome measures of change at weekly intervals for children with dyskinetic cerebral palsy (CP). The secondary aim was to explore the efficacy of individualised movement intervention.Material and methods: In this pilot feasibility study a single subject research design was utilised. Three children with dyskinetic CP, completed 5 weeks of parent-reported baseline assessments, 8 weekly sessions of intervention and 5 weeks of follow up.Results: All children completed 18 weeks of the study, with no missing data. There was evidence of parent-reported improvements in their child's pain and care and comfort between the baseline and intervention phases.Conclusions: The PPP, SDSC and CCHQ were feasible to assess pain, sleep and comfort before and after an intervention in children with dyskinetic CP. There is preliminary evidence that individualised movement intervention as little as once a week may help improve pain, sleep and improve ease of care and comfort. Implications for rehabilitation: The Paediatric Pain Profile is feasible to identify and monitor pain, as frequently as weekly, in children with dyskinetic cerebral palsy (CP).There is preliminary evidence that movement can decrease pain in children with dyskinetic CP.Assessments and treatment in this group may be interrupted due to their complex health issues which may be a limitation when collecting repeated measures.

Comparing parent and provider priorities in discussions of early detection and intervention for infants with and at risk of cerebral palsyRachel Byrne, Andrea Duncan, Tracy Pickar, Stephanie Burkhardt, Roslyn N Boyd, Mary Lauren Neel , Nathalie L Maitre AbstractBackground: Although literature suggests that parents need support when their child is diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP), it is unclear to what extent providers implement these supports in practice and what parental perspectives surround provider early diagnosis and management of CP. Therefore, we aimed to characterize and compare experiences of providers and parents of children with CP with regards to early detection and intervention.Method: Seventeen parents participated in day-long world-café style workshops focused on categories extracted from the International Classification of Function framework and recent systematic reviews of early detection for CP. Thirty regional providers (generalists, specialists, and therapists) caring for infants with CP completed surveys with scaled score and open-ended questions. Quantitative and qualitative data were independently assessed by two reviewers to identify prominent themes.Results: All parents (100%) stated early diagnosis or high risk for CP classification was beneficial compared with only 50% of providers who often gave early CP diagnoses before 12 months. Top parent priorities were honesty and positively phrased messages. Providers most often addressed cognition, primary care need, motor, and feeding issues (80%, 62%, 54%, 54% frequently/sometimes). Matching priorities for discussion were neuroimaging timing/risk/benefit, cognition, primary care, motor, and feeding/nutrition. Discordance occurred for participation, parent well-being, pain and vision, with parents wanting more education and resources.Conclusions: Receiving early diagnoses or high-risk for CP classification is a parent priority. Alignment between parents and providers exists for International Classification of Function domains of body functions/structures and activity, but less for those of environment, personal, and participation.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.07.20.212175v1?rss=1 Authors: Sperber, C., Rennig, J., Karnath, H.-O. Abstract: Background: Hemiparesis is a common consequence of stroke to the primary motor system. Brain mapping and post-stroke outcome prediction studies suggest that damage to additional brain areas plays a causal role in occurrence and severity of hemiparesis and its recovery. Objective: The study aimed to evaluate if damage to areas outside of the primary motor system can play a causal role in the occurrence of hemiparesis, or if such brain-deficit relations constitute a mere correlation. Methods: In a sample of 102 patients with unilateral stroke, the neural correlates of acute and chronic upper limb paresis were mapped by univariate and multivariate lesion behavior mapping. Following the same approach, CST lesion biomarkers were mapped, and resulting topographies of both analyses were compared. Results: All mapping analyses of acute or chronic upper limb paresis implicated areas outside of the primary motor system. Likewise, mapping CST lesion biomarkers - that, by definition, are only causally related to damage of the CST - implicated several areas outside of the CST with high correspondence to areas associated with upper limb paresis. Conclusions: Damage to areas outside of the primary motor system might not play a causal role in hemiparesis, while still providing predictive value. This finding suggests that simple theory-based biomarkers or qualitative rules to infer post-stroke outcome from imaging data might perform sub-optimally. Algorithms using theory-driven feature selection do not consider the complexity of lesion data, and could be improved by utilizing high-dimensional models with data-driven feature selection strategies. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info

Got diabetes? You need consistent movement in your life. In a small Study of 24 sedentary overweight and obese men and women with controlled type 2 diabetes, subjects were divided into three groups - sitting, light intensity walking, and simple resistance activities. The authors compared blood glucose, the blood glucose regulator insulin, C-peptide (released along with insulin from the pancreas), and triglycerides (high levels of this fat in your blood increase heart disease) in each group.Results - All measures were lower in the walking and resistance groups compared to sitting. Why? Contracting muscles use energy.Recommendations -  3 minutes every 30 minutes of walking (2 miles per hour pace) or 3 minutes every 30 minutes of 1/2 squats, calf-raises, gluteal contractions, and knee raises.Let’s practice 1/2 squats - Stand in mountain pose. Stand in front of a sturdy chair without wheels).  Place a yoga block or similar sized soft ball between your thighs. Exhale, and send your hips back toward the chair with your weight in your heels and squeezing your thighs, buttocks, and abdominal muscles and keeping your upper body long from tailbone to crown of your head while you hover 1/2 way over the seat. Inhale to stand. Repeat several times. Once you get the hang of it and your are confident in your form,  you can practice without the props.Go to the show notes to read that article and another on the ADA’s recommendations on diabetes and exercise. We did calf raises in a previous Mindful Minute. We will do knee raises in the next episode.Take Home Message - Perform frequent low level physical activity to break up sitting.RESOURCES:Benefits for Type 2 Diabetes of Interrupting Prolonged Sitting With Brief Bouts of Light Walking or Simple Resistance Activities by Dempsey et al., June 2016Physical Activity/Exercise and Diabetes: A Position Statement of the American Diabetes Association by Colberg et al, Nov 2016  

Background: Conventional cardiac pacemakers are still often regarded as a contraindication to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We conducted this study to support the hypothesis that it is safe to scan patients with cardiac pacemakers in a 1.5 Tesla MRI, if close supervision and monitoring as well as adequate pre- and postscan programming is provided. Methods: We followed up 356 patients (age 61.3 +/- 9.1 yrs., 229 men) with single (n = 132) or dual chamber (n = 224) cardiac pacemakers and urgent indication for a cranial MRI for 12 months. The scans were performed at 1.5T. During the scan patients were monitored with a 3-lead ECG and pulse oximetry. Prior to the scan pacemakers were programmed according to our own protocol. Results: All 356 scans were completed without complications. No arrhythmias were induced, programmed parameters remained unchanged. No pacemaker dysfunction was identified. Follow-up examinations were performed immediately, 2 weeks, 2, 6, and 12 months after the scan. There was no significant change of pacing capture threshold (ventricular 0.9 +/- 0.4 V@0.4 ms, atrial 0.9 +/- 0.3 V@0.4 ms) immediately (ventricular 1.0 +/- 0.3 V@0.4 ms, atrial 0.9 +/- 0.4 V@0.4 ms) or at 12 months follow-up examinations (ventricular 0.9 +/- 0.2 V@0.4 ms, atrial 0.9 +/- 0.3 V@0.4 ms). There was no significant change in sensing threshold (8.0 +/- 4.0 mV vs. 8.1 +/- 4.2 mV ventricular lead, 2.0 +/- 0.9 mV vs. 2.1 +/- 1.0 mV atrial lead) or lead impedance (ventricular 584 +/- 179 O vs. 578 +/- 188 O, atrial 534 +/- 176 O vs. 532 +/- 169 O) after 12 months. Conclusions: This supports the evidence that patients with conventional pacemakers can safely undergo cranial MRI in a 1.5T system with suitable preparation, supervision and precautions. Long term follow-up did not reveal significant changes in pacing capture nor sensing threshold.

Background: There has been a long held belief that patients with drug-susceptible TB are non-infectious after two weeks of therapy. Recent microbiological and epidemiological evidence has challenged this dogma, however, the nature of the Mtb-specific cellular immune response during this period has not been adequately investigated. This knowledge could be exploited in the development of immunological biomarkers of early treatment response. Methods: Cellular response to four Mtb infection phase-dependent antigens, ESAT-6/CFP-10 fusion protein and three DosR encoded proteins (Rv1733c, Rv2029c, Rv2628) were evaluated in a Ghanaian TB cohort (n=20) before and after 2 weeks of anti TB therapy. After 6-days in vitro stimulation, Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) culture supernatant was harvested and the concentration of IFN-gamma, Granzyme B, IL-10, IL-17, sIL2R alpha and TNF-alpha were determined in a 6-plex Luminex assay. Frequencies of IFN-gamma + CD4 and CD8 T cells were also determined in an intracellular cytokine assay. Results: All antigens induced higher levels of IFN-gamma, followed by Granzyme B, TNF-alpha and IL-17 and low levels of IL-10 and sIL-2R-alpha in PBMC before treatment and after 2 weeks of treatment. Median cytokine levels of IFN-gamma, Granzyme B, IL-17 and sIL-2R-alpha increased during week two, but it was significant for only Rv1733-specific production of Granzyme B (P = 0.013). The median frequency of antigen specific IFN-gamma + CD4 T cells increased at week two; however, only the increase in the ESAT-6/CFP-10-specific response was significant (P = 0.0008). In contrast, the median frequency of ESAT-6/CFP-10-specific IFN-gamma + CD8 T cell responses declined during week two (P = 0.0024). Additionally, wide inter-individual variation with three distinct patterns were observed; increase in all cytokine levels, decrease in all cytokine levels and fluctuating cytokine levels after 2 weeks of treatment. Conclusion: The second week of effective chemotherapy was characterized by a general increase in cytokine response to Mtb-specific antigens suggestive of an improvement in cellular response with therapy. However, the wide inter-individual variation observed would limit the utility of cytokine biomarkers during this period.

Background: Several secondary metabolites from herbal nutrient products act as weak estrogens (phytoestrogens), competing with endogenous estrogen for binding to the estrogen receptors and inhibiting steroid converting enzymes. However, it is still unclear whether these compounds elicit estrogen dependent transcription of genes at physiological concentrations. Methods: We compare the effects of physiological concentrations (100 nM) of the two phytoestrogens Enterolactone and Quercetin and the suspected phytoestrogen Curcumin on gene expression in the breast cancer cell line MCF7 with the effects elicited by 17-beta-estradiol (E2). Results: All three phytocompounds have weak effects on gene transcription; most of the E2 genes respond to the phytoestrogens in the same direction though to a much lesser extent and in the order Curcumin > Quercetin > Enterolactone. Gene regulation induced by these compounds was low for genes strongly induced by E2 and similar to the latter for genes only weakly regulated by the classic estrogen. Of interest with regard to the treatment of menopausal symptoms, the survival factor Birc5/survivin and the oncogene MYBL1 are strongly induced by E2 but only marginally by phytoestrogens. Conclusion: This approach demonstrates estrogenic effects of putative phytoestrogens at physiological concentrations and shows, for the first time, estrogenic effects of Curcumin. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel

Background and aims: Interleukin 26 (IL-26), a novel IL-10-like cytokine without a murine homologue, is expressed in T helper 1 (Th1) and Th17 cells. Currently, its function in human disease is completely unknown. The aim of this study was to analyse its role in intestinal inflammation.Methods: Expression studies were performed by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR), quantitative PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry. Signal transduction was analysed by western blot experiments and ELISA. Cell proliferation was measured by MTS (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium) assay. IL-26 serum levels were determined by an immunoluminometric assay (ILMA).Results: All examined intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) lines express both IL-26 receptor subunits IL-20R1 and IL-10R2. IL-26 activates extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK)-1/2 and stress-activated protein kinase/c-Jun N-terminal kinase (SAPK/JNK) mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, Akt and signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) 1/3. IL-26 stimulation increases the mRNA expression of proinflammatory cytokines but decreases cell proliferation. In inflamed colonic lesions of patients with Crohn's disease, an elevated IL-26 mRNA expression was found that correlated highly with the IL-8 and IL-22 expression. Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated IL-26 protein expression in colonic T cells including Th17 cells expressing the orphan nuclear receptor RORtextgreekgt, with an increased number of colonic IL-26-expressing cells in active Crohn's disease.Conclusion: Intestinal cells express the functional IL-26 receptor complex. IL-26 modulates IEC proliferation and proinflammatory gene expression and its expression is upregulated in active Crohn's disease, indicating a role for this cytokine system in the innate host cell response during intestinal inflammation. For the first time, IL-26 expression is demonstrated in colonic RORtextgreekgt-expressing Th17 cells in situ, supporting a role for this cell type in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease.

Background: For experimental basic research, standardized transplantation models reflecting technical and immunologic aspects are necessary. This article describes an experimental model of combined pancreas/kidney transplantation (PKTx) in detail. Materials and Methods: Donor rats underwent en bloc pancreatectomy and nephrectomy. Revascularization was performed using the aorta with the superior mesenteric artery and the inferior vena cava with the portal vein. Exocrine drainage of the pancreas took place over a segment of the duodenum which was transplanted side-to-side to the jejunum. The kidney vessels were transplanted end-to-side. The ureter was anastomosed by patch technique. Postoperatively, serum parameters were monitored daily. Biopsies for histopathology were taken on days 5, 8 and 12. Results: All 12 recipients survived the combined PKTx without serious surgical complications. One thrombosis of the portal vein led to organ failure. Blood glucose levels were normal by the 3rd postoperative day. The transplanted duodenal segment showed slight villous atrophy, and the kidneys were well perfused without vascular complications. The anastomosis between ureter and bladder was leakproof. Conclusions: Excellent graft function and survival rates can be achieved due to simplified operation technique and short operation time. It may thus have high clinical relevance to immunologic issues within the scope of basic research. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel

Background: The number of inducible adhesion molecules known to be involved in cell-mediated allograft rejection is still increasing. In addition, recent data describe complement activation during acute humoral allograft rejection. The aim of this study was to assess whether specific molecules from either pathway are excreted into urine and whether they can provide useful diagnostic tools for the monitoring of renal transplant recipients. Methods: Urinary concentrations of soluble adhesion molecules (sICAM-1, sVCAM-1) and of the complement degradation product C4d were determined by standardized ELISA technique in 75 recipients of renal allografts and 29 healthy controls. Patient samples were assigned to four categories according to clinical criteria: group 1: acute steroid-sensitive rejection (ASSR, n=14), group 2: acute steroid-resistant rejection (ASRR, n=12), group 3: chronic allograft dysfunction (CAD, n=20) and group 4: stable graft function (SGF, n=29). Results: All patients with rejection episodes (groups 1-3) had significantly higher values of urinary sC4d compared with healthy controls and patients with stable graft function (p

Background: Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to atovaquone in vitro and in vivo has been associated to mutations in the parasite cytochrome b gene. Methods: Cultures were sequentially subjected to increasing doses of atovaquone alone or in combination with cycloguanil and the cytochrome b gene was sequenced. Additionally, we investigated the parasite cytochrome b gene of a patient returning from Mali with Malarone(R) treatment failure in vivo. Results: All strains that survived atovaquone concentrations in vitro of 2 x 10(-8) to 2 x 10(7) M showed the M1331 mutation and one strain with the highest atovaquone concentration the additional mutation L171F. Sequencing of the in vivo treatment failure revealed a point mutation at codon 268 resulting in an amino acid change from tyrosine to serine. Based on the repeated emergence of mutations at codon 268, but no detection of alterations at codon 133 in vivo, we developed a detection method for the diagnostic of codon 268 polymorphisms as a potential atovaquone/proguanil resistance marker. A nested PCR with 3 different pairs of primers for the second round was designed. Each product was digested with restriction enzymes, capable to distinguish the wild type from the two reported mutations at codon 268. Conclusion: Mutations at codon 268 of the parasite cytochrome bc(1) gene are associated with atovaquone/proguanil treatment failure in vivo and can be used as potential resistance marker This method provides a novel and robust tool to investigate the relevance of codon 268 polymorphisms as resistance marker and to monitor the further emergence of atovaquone/proguanil resistance.