Citations

AbstractBackgroundThe objective of our study was to understand the epidemiological and clinical features of respiratory adenoviral infections among children at a single institution over the course of several years.MethodsFrom January 2005 to April 2009, 1836 children (≤15 years old) who had been admitted to Korea University Ansan Hospital were tested for acute respiratory infection. The patients who were positive for an adenovirus infection were enrolled in this study, and their medical records were retrospectively reviewed.ResultsAdenoviruses were isolated from 310 patients. The male to female ratio was 1.6:1 and mean age was 32 ± 24 months. Children under 5 years of age had the highest prevalence. In 2007, adenovirus infections occurred endemically throughout the year. The clinical diagnoses were primarily upper respiratory tract infections (45.4%), lower respiratory tract infections (48.1%), and neurologic disease (5.2%). Associated symptoms, signs and laboratory findings included fever (91.9%), cough (83.9%), pharyngeal injection (62.3%), rale (32.6%) and elevated C‐reactive protein (93.9%). The most common radiologic findings were perihilar and peribronchial infiltrates (42.6%). Co‐infections were observed in 29 cases. The mean durations of hospitalization and fever were 6.2 ± 6.5 and 4.8 ± 3.1 days, respectively. The lengths of hospitalization were similar for patients admitted for upper respiratory tract infections with severe morbidity and those admitted for lower respiratory tract infections. No children in the study died.ConclusionOur study demonstrates that respiratory adenovirus infections are an important cause of hospitalization in young children, and contribute to a significant morbidity.

In order to develop novel, effective therapies for central nervous system regeneration, it is essential to better understand the role of neurotrophic factors and to design, accordingly, better artificial scaffolds to support both neurite outgrowth and synapse formation. Both nerve growth factor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor are major factors in neural survival, development, synaptogenesis, and synaptic connectivity of primary cultured neurons. As a prime candidate coating material for such neural cultures, carbon nanotubes offer unique structural, mechanical, and electrical properties. In this study, carbon nanotubes coated glass-coverslips were used as the matrix of a primary neural culture system used to investigate the effects of carbon nanotubes on neurite outgrowth and nerve growth factor/brain-derived neurotrophic factor release and expression. For these purposes, we performed comparative analyses of primary cultured neurons on carbon nanotubes coated, non-coated, and Matrigel-coated coverslips. The morphological findings showed definite carbon nanotubes effects on the neurite outgrowths and synaptogenic figures in both cortical and hippocampal neurons when compared with the non-coated negative control. Although the carbon nanotubes did not change neurotrophin expression levels, it stimulated brain-derived neurotrophic factor release into the media from both types of neurons. Accordingly, we suggest a different mechanism of action between carbon nanotubes and Matrigel in relation to the specific neurotrophic factors. Since carbon nanotubes supply long-term extracellular molecular cues for the survival and neurite outgrowths of cultured neurons, the results from this study will contribute to an understanding of carbon nanotubes biological effects and provide new insight into their role in the secretion of neurotrophic factors.

Abstract An increase in bronchovascular permeability is thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of allergic asthma. We sought to determine whether the increase in permeability observed 24 h after segmental antigen challenge in ragweed-allergic human volunteers was associated with the infiltration and degranulation of a specific cell type. A 20,000-fold range of antigen concentrations was used to alter the number and type of inflammatory cells recruited to the lung by challenge. Although large numbers of inflammatory cells were recruited to lung air spaces over a large range of antigen concentrations, significant numbers of eosinophils (731.3 ± 232.9 × 103/ml) were recruited only when the concentration of antigen used for segmental challenge was ⩾ 100-fold higher than the concentration needed to produce an 8 to 10 mm wheal 20 min after intradermal skin testing. In addition, large increases in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) albumin concentration (636.3 ± 170.5 µg/ml) were observed only in this same group of subjects. The correlation coefficient between the logarithms of the BAL eosinophil concentration and albumin concentration was +0.82 (p < 0.001), and between eosinophil-derived neurotoxin and albumin it was +0.88 (p < 0.001). In a stepwise, multiple regression analysis, eosinophils accounted for 67% of the variance in BAL albumin concentration, whereas no other cell type was a significant predictor of albumin flux into BAL fluid. We conclude that eosinophil recruitment and degranulation are associated with large increases in bronchovascular permeability after segmental antigen challenge in humans.