"Stranger things" in the gut: uncommon items in gastrointestinal specimens

Organic (such as parasites or vegetable remnants) and inorganic substances may be encountered during routine pathology diagnostic work up of endoscopic gastrointestinal biopsy samples and major resections, causing possible diagnostic conundrums for the young and not so young pathologists. The main aim of this review is the description of the most frequent oddities one can encounter as foreign bodies, in gastrointestinal pathology, on the basis of the current literature and personal experience. The types of encountered substances are divided into four principal categories: parasites (helminths such as Enterobius vermicularis, Strongyloides, Schistosoma, and Anisakis, and protozoa such as Entamoeba, Giardia and some intestinal coccidia); drugs and pharmaceutical fillers (found as deposits and as bystanders, innocent or not); seeds (possibly confused with worms) and plant remnants; pollutants (secondary to post-resection or post-biopsy contamination of the sample). An ample library of images is provided in order to consent easy referencing for diagnostic routine.

The arsenical resistance operon of IncN plasmid R46

The arsenical resistance operon of the IncN plasmid R46 consists of 4696 bp and starts with predicted transcriptional control and initiation signals, followed by five genes, arsD, arsA, and arsC. The corresponding Escherichia coli chromosomal ars operon and two staphylococcal ars operons lack arsA and arsD genes. The R46 system contains only the second known versions of arsA and arsD, after those of plasmid R773. Western blot analysis identified the R46 proteins using antibodies against R773 ArsA, ArsD and ArsR.

Arthroscopic arthrolysis of intra-articular knee stiffness

The authors report 15 cases of intra-articular knee stiffness treated by arthroscopic arthrolysis with or without section of the alar ligaments. The advantages to using this type of treatment as compared to mobilization in narcosis or arthrotomic arthrolysis are emphasized.

A rare case of primary lymphoma of bone of cervical localization

A rare case of primary lymphoma of bone localized in the epistropheus is reported. After emphasizing the difficulty of diagnosis based solely on clinical, radiographic and laboratory data, the authors stress that biopsy is essential to diagnosis. The excellent clinical result, followed up after 5 years, was obtained with surgical excision followed by antiblastic treatment with repeated cycles of VBD, and local and regional lymph node radiotherapy.

Secretion of Zeatin, Ribosylzeatin, and Ribosyl-1'' -Methylzeatin by Pseudomonas savastanoi: Plasmid-Coded Cytokinin Biosynthesis

Cytokinin production by strains of the phytopathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv savastanoi was measured by immunoaffinity chromatography of the culture medium on immobilized anti-cytokinin antibodies, followed by high performance liquid chromatography, radioimmunoassay and mass spectrometry. P. savastanoi strain PB213-2 secretes zeatin (80 nanograms per milliliter) and ribosylzeatin (80 nanograms per milliliter). Even higher levels of zeatin (400 nanograms per milliliter) are produced by the olive-specific strain EW1006, which also produces 180 nanograms per milliliter of the recently identified cytokinin, ribosyl-1'' -methylzeatin. The amounts secreted were approximately 1000 times greater than those secreted by Agrobacterium tumefaciens (DA Regier, RO Morris 1982 Biochem Biophys Res Commun 104: 1560-1566). Examination of cytokinin production by plasmid deletion mutants of PB213-2 and EW1006 indicated that cytokinin biosynthesis was specified, at least in part, by plasmid-borne genes. A fragment of the 105 kilobase pair plasmid from EW1006 was cloned into Escherichia coli where its expression resulted in dimethylallyl transferase activity and the secretion of zeatin.