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The international consensus Sepsis-3 in 2016 defined sepsis as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a disruption of the host response to infection. One of the main mechanisms leading to the death of patients with sepsis is an imbalance of the immune response to pathogens. Activation of immune cells, in particular neutrophils, plays a key role in the mechanisms of sepsis. During sepsis, the number of immature neutrophils in the blood increases, PD-L1 neutrophils appear, which have an immunosuppressive function, and the number of Neu1 subtype of neutrophils, characterized by high expression of the NF-kB inhibitor, the chemokine CXCL8, olfactomedine, which regulates the production of cytokines, and myeloperoxidase, increases. When the inflammatory response generalizes, the phagocytic and bactericidal functions of neutrophils are disrupted. An important role in the mechanisms of sepsis is played by the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps, extracellular DNA, and the nuclear non-histone protein HMGB1, which are DAMPs and have proinflammatory activity. The development of approaches to predicting the development and course of sepsis in injuries and infectious and inflammatory diseases based on assessing the functional activity of neutrophils and their phenotype is a promising area of research, in particular approaches to regulating the functioning of neutrophils using miRNA.

Background: Doxorubicin is a well-known antitumor drug that is not employed for chemotherapy of brain tumors. Indeed, doxorubicin does not penetrate across the blood-brain barrier in therapeutic concentrations., Objective: To study the antitumor effect of doxorubicin combined with nitrosorbide on intracranial experimental glioblastoma 101/8 in rats., Material and Methods: Male Wistar rats ( n =86) with intracranial implanted glioblastoma 101/8 received doxorubicin (i.v. 1.5 mg/kg thrice) alone or in combination with nitrosorbide (i.v or orally, 0.5 mg/kg thrice) in 2, 5 and 8 days after implantation. Efficacy was assessed considering survival and brain tumor volume in 14 days after tumor implantation., Results: Combination of doxorubicin and nitrosorbide significantly increased survival (57% and 155%, respectively) and slowed down tumor growth (16±12 and 8±6 mm 3 , respectively) compared to doxorubicin alone. Effectiveness of nitrosorbide alone was trivial., Conclusion: Nitric oxide donor nitrosorbide considerably potentiated the antitumor effect of doxorubicin against intracranial 101/8 glioblastoma in rats.

Objective: To investigate morphological changes in the thymus, the subpopulation composition of lymphocytes and its non-lymphoid cells in dextran-induced experimental acute ulcerative colitis and in different periods of chronic ulcerative colitis., Material and Methods: Acute and chronic ulcerative colitis was simulated in C57BL/6 mice, by replacing drinking water with a 1% aqueous dextran sulfate sodium solution. Thymic changes were morphometrically assessed; the number and absolute area of thymic corpuscles and epithelial cells were calculated; and the subpopulation composition of lymphocytes and thymic stromal cells was determined using flow cytofluorimetry; the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Mann-Whitney test were used to compare the groups., Results: In acute catarrhal and ulcerative colitis, there was acute accidental thymic involution with devastation of the cortical substance and with a decline in its volume fraction, with an increase in the levels of cells dying through the mechanism of apoptosis, and with a decrease in the absolute number of lymphocytes, T-helper cells, cytotoxic T-cells, regulatory T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and dendritic cells, with a rise in the index of the area of thymic corpuscles and in the content of late-phase corpuscles among them, and with the appearance of thymic corpuscles as cyst-like cavities. In chronic ulcerative colitis, the cortex was expanded and the area of thymic corpuscles and the count of medullary epithelial cells increased. The cyst-like thymic corpuscles formed clusters, the count of dendritic cells increased in early-stage chronic ulcerative colitis, but the levels of macrophages decreased in both periods of its development., Conclusion: There is acute accidental involution and thymic hyperplasia with an increase in medullary epithelial cells and thymic corpuscles consisting of cytokeratin 19 + in the epithelial cells in experimental acute and chronic ulcerative colitis, respectively. The more pronounced epithelial cell response found in end-stage experimental chronic ulcerative colitis reflects the enhanced differentiation of regulatory T-lymphocytes and the larger number of which is observed in peripheral blood and in the focus of inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis, according to the literature.

We studied the histological and physiological changes in the organs of the immune system, liver, and lungs as well as colon microflora in the late period after orchiectomy in Wistar rats. It was shown that on day 52 after surgical castration leading to a sharp decline in androgens, activation of the immune system was detected with enhanced production of IL-12 and IL-6 and accumulation of neutrophils in the interalveolar septa of the lungs. The level of aspartate aminotransferase was within the normal range. Qualitative and quantitative changes of microflora were associated with increased number of opportunistic bacteria.

Comparative analysis of the hormonal profile was performed in 12 and 16 patients with mild and moderately severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) respectively, in 25 patients with chronic bronchitis, 13 smokers without respiratory symptoms and dysfunction of external respiration, and in healthy non-smokers. Patients with moderately severe COPD had lower concentrations of total and free testosterone and DHEA than smokers with chronic bronchitis and mild COPD. Blood androsterone level positively correlated with the forced expiratory volume during the first second and inversely related to the duration of smoking and severity of coughing.