Sleep disturbance and disease activity in adult patients with inflammatory bowel diseases

The aim of the study was to identify whether poor quality of sleep is connected to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and if so, whether sleep disturbances are related to disease activity. Prospective, observational cohort study was performed. In all enrolled adult patients, the disease activity was assessed by using Crohn's Disease Activity Index (CDAI) for Crohn's disease (CD) and Partial Mayo Score for ulcerative colitis (UC), respectively. All patients were also asked to respond to a questionnaire to define Pittsburgh Quality Sleep Index (PSQI). Sixty-five patients were enrolled in our study: n = 30 with CD and n = 35 with UC. The poor sleep was noted in 78% (40/51) patients with clinically exacerbation and in 35% (5/14) patients in remission (P = 0.002; OR 6.5, 95% confidence interval, 1.8 - 23.6). A global PSQI score of 5 points yielded a sensitivity of 84%, a specificity of 39%, and a positive predictive value of 89% for discriminating participants with exacerbation of IBD from those in clinical remission; PSQI higher than 6 indicates the exacerbation of IBD with 77% sensitivity and 62% specificity. The poorest sleep quality was reported in IBD patients with severe exacerbations (9.1 ± 2.9). Sleep disturbance was confirmed in adult IBD patients, both in CD and UC. Confirmation of the relationship between sleep abnormalities and IBD may show the new pathway in pathophysiology, course and treatment of IBD.

Young Sprague Dawley rats infected by Plasmodium berghei: A relevant experimental model to study cerebral malaria

Cerebral malaria (CM) is the most severe manifestation of human malaria yet is still poorly understood. Mouse models have been developed to address the subject. However, their relevance to mimic human pathogenesis is largely debated. Here we study an alternative cerebral malaria model with an experimental Plasmodium berghei Keyberg 173 (K173) infection in Sprague Dawley rats. As in Human, not all infected subjects showed cerebral malaria, with 45% of the rats exhibiting Experimental Cerebral Malaria (ECM) symptoms while the majority (55%) of the remaining rats developed severe anemia and hyperparasitemia (NoECM). These results allow, within the same population, a comparison of the noxious effects of the infection between ECM and severe malaria without ECM. Among the ECM rats, 77.8% died between day 5 and day 12 post-infection, while the remaining rats were spontaneously cured of neurological signs within 24-48 hours. The clinical ECM signs observed were paresis quickly evolving to limb paralysis, global paralysis associated with respiratory distress, and coma. The red blood cell (RBC) count remained normal but a drastic decrease of platelet count and an increase of white blood cell numbers were noted. ECM rats also showed a decrease of glucose and total CO2 levels and an increase of creatinine levels compared to control rats or rats with no ECM. Assessment of the blood-brain barrier revealed loss of integrity, and interestingly histopathological analysis highlighted cyto-adherence and sequestration of infected RBCs in brain vessels from ECM rats only. Overall, this ECM rat model showed numerous clinical and histopathological features similar to Human CM and appears to be a promising model to achieve further understanding the CM pathophysiology in Humans and to evaluate the activity of specific antimalarial drugs in avoiding/limiting cerebral damages from malaria.

Impact of obesity and nitric oxide synthase gene G894T polymorphism on essential hypertension

Hypertension is a multifactorial disease caused by environmental, metabolic and genetic factors, but little is currently known on the complex interplay between these factors and blood pressure. The aim of the present study was to assess the potential impact of obesity, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) I/D polymorphism and endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS3) 4a/4b, G894T and -T786C variants on the essential hypertension. The study group consisted of 1,027 Caucasian adults of Polish nationality (45.5 ± 13.6 years old), of which 401 met the criteria for hypertension. Body weight, height and blood pressure were measured and data on self-reported smoking status were collected. Fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides were determined by standard procedures. The ACE I/D polymorphism and three polymorphisms in NOS3 gene (4a/4b, G894T, -T786C) were detected by the PCR method. Multivariable logistic regression demonstrated that age above 45 years, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking and male sex are important risk factors for hypertension and no significant influence of variants in ACE and NOS3 genes on this risk was recognized. Obese subjects had a 3.27-times higher risk (OR = 3.27, 95% CI: 2.37 - 4.52) of hypertension than non-obese, and in obese the NOS3 894T allele was associated with 1.37 fold higher risk of hypertension (P = 0.031). The distribution of NOS3 G894T genotypes supported the co-dominant (OR = 1.35, P = 0.034, Pfit = 0.435) or recessive (OR = 2.00, P = 0.046, Pfit = 0.286), but not dominant model of inheritance (P = 0.100). The study indicates that in obese NOS3 G894T polymorphism may enhance hypertension risk. However, in the presence of such strong risk factors as age, diabetes and smoking, the impact of this genetic variant seems to be attenuated. Further studies are needed to reveal the usefulness of G894T polymorphism in hypertension risk assessment in obese.

Crossreactive influenza A(IAV)-Specific CD4 memory cells enhance viral load during lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV) infection (IRC5P.635)

IAV is a common human respiratory pathogen with a strong association with heterotypic and heterologous immunity. IAV-immune mice challenged with LCMV develop detrimental effects with both increased virus titers and immunopathology. Crossreactive CD8 T cell responses between these two viruses mediate the enhanced lung pathology. Here, we questioned whether crossreactive CD4 memory cells in IAV-immune mice could play a role in increasing viral titers during the subsequent LCMV infection. Preferential depletion of memory CD4 but not CD8 cells in IAV-immune mice prevented the increase in LCMV titers. In IAV+LCMV mice there was an early increase in CD4 cells with a shift in the CD4/CD8 ratio. Luminex cytokine assays suggested that there was an increase in Th2 cytokines, IL-4 and IL-5, in the spleen of IAV+LCMV mice, which was IAV CD4 memory cell dependent, as IL-4 decreased in the CD4 depleted mice. Depleting IL-4 or IL-5 returned LCMV titers to naïve levels while adding rIL-4 and rIL-5 together to naïve mice increased virus titers. This suggests that the crossreactive heterologous response was more Th2-polarized and that since memory cytokines are produced early they may shift the normally strong Th1-type response to LCMV towards a more Th2-type response, inhibiting appropriate CD8 activation and impeding viral clearance. This shift to stronger Th2-type response would contribute to detrimental effects as LCMV requires a strong CD8 response and perforin to clear.

Preventing lung immunopathology during a heterologous infection by functional inactivation of cross-reactive influenza A memory T cells (92.20)

Heterologous immunity may help explain why any respiratory infection can cause a wide range of disease from asymptomatic to extremely severe, even resulting in death. Prior immunity to influenza A led to significantly increased viral load and lung pathology upon LCMV infection, the severity of which varied between genetically identical mice, but did not correlate with viral load. Flu-specific memory CD8 T cells mediated this increased pathology as evidenced by CD8 depletion studies and the observation that disease severity directly correlated with the expansion of two cross-reactive Flu-epitope specific memory CD8 T cell responses during LCMV infection. H2-Kb-restricted IAV-PB1703 and H2-Db-restricted IAV-PA224 responses cross-reacted with LCMV-GP34, and -GP276, respectively. Functionally inactivating these memory populations by peptide tolerization or blocking IFNγ activity greatly decreased lung pathology demonstrating novel therapeutic interventions. Flu-specific memory CD4 T cells mediated the enhanced viral load during LCMV infection as demonstrated by CD4 depletion studies and depletion of the early enhanced Th2 cytokine IL-4. These findings have important implications for understanding and potentially controlling variability in disease outcome during respiratory infections.

Characterization and sequence analysis of the replicator region of the novel plasmid pALC1 from Paracoccus alcaliphilus

The replicator region of a low-copy-number plasmid, pALC1, of Paracoccus alcaliphilus JCM 7364 was cloned in a form of the minireplicon pALC100 (3.6 kb). The host range of the minireplicon embraces several species of genus Paracoccus, as well as Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Rhizobium leguminosarum, and Rhodobacter sphaeroides (all belonging to alpha-Proteobacteria), but not Escherichia coli. The complete nucleotide sequence of the replicator region (2276 bp) revealed the presence of one complete open reading frame coding for the 28.4-kDa protein (RepA) with similarity to replication proteins of plasmid pSW500 of Erwinia stewartii and pVS1 of Pseudomonas fluorescens. The iteron-like region was identified upstream of the repA gene and consisted of two clusters of repeated sequences (17 bp long) separated by a putative DnaA box. Analysis of the predicted amino acid sequence of two adjacent incomplete ORFs suggests the localization of repA between genes involved in conjugation (traG) and partitioning (parA) within the pALC1 genome.

Complete nucleotide sequence of the replicator region of Paracoccus (Thiobacillus) versutus pTAV1 plasmid and its correlation to several plasmids of Agrobacterium and Rhizobium species

The complete nucleotide sequence of the replicator region of pTAV1, a cryptic, low copy number plasmid of Paracoccus versutus, was determined. The minimal replicon sequence (3149 bp) included in pTAV203/18 contains two open reading frames with coding capabilities for putative polypeptides of 23.8 (RepX) and 46 kDa (RepC'). The two genes have the same transcriptional polarity and both seem to be essential for replication of pTAV203. The predicted amino acid sequence of RepC' shows significant homology with the major replication-associated proteins of several Agrobacterium and Rhizobium plasmids. A probable origin of replication (oriV) was proposed to be localized at the 3' terminal end of the repC' gene.

Nonintegrated plasmid-chromosome complexes in Escherichia coli

A number of plasmid systems have been examined for the ability of their covalently closed circular deoxyribonucleic acid (CCC DNA) forms to cosediment in neutral sucrose gradients with the folded chromosomes of their respective hosts. Given that cosedimentation of CCC plasmid and chromosomal DNA represents a bound or complexed state between these replicons, our results can be expressed as follows. (i) All plasmid systems complex, on the average, at least one plasmid per chromosomal equivalent. (ii) Stringently controlled plasmids exist predominantly in the bound state, whereas the opposite is true for plasmids that exist in multiple copies or are under relaxed control of replication. (iii) The degree to which a plasmid population binds to host chromosomes appears to be a function of plasmid genotype and not of plasmid size. (iv) For the colicin E1 plasmid the absolute number of plasmids bound per folded chromosome equivalent does increase as the intracellular plasmid/chromosome ratio increases in cells starved for required amino acids or in cells treated with chloramphenicol; however, the ratio of bound to free plasmids remains constant during plasmid copy number amplification.