OBJECTIVES Fungi have been suspected of contributing to the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis. A previous intervention study demonstrated an improvement in the clinical condition in 15 out of 18 patients with a long-term history of sarcoidosis when antifungal medication was added to corticosteroids. The present study was performed to compare the effects of antifungal treatment with corticosteroid tre...

AIM The purpose of this study was to investigate the time course(s) of the cerebrospinal fluid and serum chitotriosidase changes in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and to show whether cerebrospinal fluid and/or serum chitotriosidase levels might be used as a specific marker for disease severity. MATERIAL AND METHODS Chitotriosidase in the cerebrospinal fluid and serum was mea...

Fish express two different chitinases, acidic fish chitinase-1 (AFCase-1) and acidic fish chitinase-2 (AFCase-2), in the stomach. AFCase-1 and AFCase-2 have different degradation patterns, as fish efficiently degrade chitin ingested as food. For a comparison with the enzymatic properties and the primary structures of chitinase isozymes obtained previously from the stomach of demersal fish, in t...

Human Chitotriosidase (CHIT), produced by activated macrophage, is a member of the chitinase family, a group of enzymes with the capability to hydrolyze chitin1. Recently plasma CHIT activity was found elevated in children with acute P. falciparum malaria compared with healthy African children, as a consequence of macrophage activation due to the presence of parasites2. In this study we recruit...

Sarcoidosis is characterized by granulomatous inflammation developing in the affected organs. The ethiopathogenesis of the disease is still unknown. The lungs are most commonly affected, and uncontrolled, long-lasting inflammation can result in pulmonary fibrosis. Many different mediators, such as cytokines, chemokines, and other proteins with various functions that participate in its complex p...

The paper by De Fost et al. in the current issue of Blood contains important data with regard to dose-sensitivity in the treatment of Gaucher disease, but the title is misleading. It implies that high-dose enzyme replacement therapy may be superior to low-dose enzyme replacement therapy. However, it is apparent that “superiority” in response is limited to two surrogate markers, serum chitotrios...

M1-type macrophages are capable of inducing lysis in various types of cancer cells, but the mechanism of action is unclear. It has been noted that an "unknown protein" produced together with protease by activated macrophages is responsible for this action. Activated M1 macrophages have been recently reported to produce family 18 chitinases, all of which have been named chitotriosidase. Our expe...

OBJECTIVE To study disease severity and response to enzyme replacement therapy in Gaucher disease. METHODS Updated data was captured from records of 37 patients (35 reported previously) with confirmed diagnosis of Gaucher disease from January 1995 through December 2011 (31, 83.8 %) and prospectively from January 2012 through June 2013 (6, 16.2 %). Severity of manifestations was determined by ...