Shiftwork-induced sleep deprivation and circadian disruption probably leads to an increase in the production of cytokines and dysregulation of innate immune system, respectively. This project aims evaluating changes in salivary IL-1 beta, cortisol, and melatonin in night workers. Method. Two day and three night healthy workers participated in this study. Sleep was evaluated by actimetry and act...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Povidone-iodine (PI) is commonly used as a preoperative disinfectant; however, it has been shown to be cytotoxic. The present study was performed to investigate the mechanism by which PI causes cell death. METHODS Primary human corneal fibroblasts (HCF) and a human corneal epithelial cell line (HCEC) were treated with 0.1-5% PI for 1 min. Cell morphology and growth were examin...

Background. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common autoimmune disease characterized by chronic polyarticular synovial inflammation. Erosive joint destruction represents a major unsolved complication of RA. Objectives. The aim of this thesis was to obtain increased knowledge of joint destruction by using a multidisciplinary approach. Firstly, the pathophysiological background of joint destruction...

Background: The presence of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) in Wegener’s granulomatosis (WG), implicate the neutrophil as a key effector cell. Previous studies have reported elevated neutrophil counts in the lung although the determinants of neutrophil chemotaxis in the WG lung are unknown. Methods: BALF cell counts, myeloperoxidase (MPO) and chemokines were measured in 27 patient...

Results: The HA group showed significant reduction in the wound area (wound area of day X/wound area of Day0x100) compared to the control group (day8, 26.54 ± 6.12% vs 50.59 ± 5.50%, respectively; p<0.001), which is an assessment of the gross pathology. The HA group showed also significantly superior wound healing to the control group on histological analysis, including assessment of abscess, n...

Achromobacter xylosoxidans strain A22732 is isolated from a pneumonia patient in China and produces carbapenemases OXA-114e and IMP-1, which are encoded by chromosome and plasmid, respectively, and confer resistance to multiple ß-lactam antibiotics including carbapenems. The blaIMP-1 gene together with aacA7 and orfE is captured by a novel Tn402-like class 1 integron in a conjugative IncP-1ß pl...

IL-1beta is an important proinflammatory cytokine with a major role in several inflammatory diseases. Expression of IL-1beta is tightly regulated at the level of transcription, mRNA stability, and proteolytic processing. In this study, we report that IL-1beta expression in response to LPS is also regulated at the translational level. LPS-induced IL-1beta protein levels in macrophages derived fr...

BACKGROUND In addition to forming the epithelial barrier against the outside environment keratinocytes are immunologically active cells. In the treatment of severely burned skin, cryoconserved keratinocyte allografts gain in importance. It has been proposed that these allografts accelerate wound healing also due to the expression of a favourable--keratinocyte-derived--cytokine and growth factor...