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Sexually transmitted diseases, genital ulcer disease, and progesterone therapy increase susceptibility to lentivirus transmission. Infection of cells by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is dependent on expression of specific chemokine receptors known to function as HIV co-receptors. Quantitative kinetic reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was developed to determine the in vivo expression levels of CCR5, CXCR4, CCR3, CCR2b, and the cytomegalovirus-encoded US28 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and cervical biopsies from 12 women with and without sexually transmitted diseases, genital ulcer disease, and progesterone-predominant conditions. Our data indicate that CCR5 is the major HIV co-receptor expressed in the female genital tract, and CXCR4 is the predominantly expressed HIV co-receptor in peripheral blood. CCR5 mRNA expression in the ectocervix was 10-fold greater than CXCR4, 20-fold greater than CCR2b, and 100-fold greater than CCR3. In peripheral blood, CXCR4 expression was 1.5-fold greater than CCR5, 10-fold greater than CCR2b, and 15-fold greater than CCR3. US28 was not expressed in cervical tissue despite expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from five individuals. CCR5 was significantly increased (p < 0.02) in biopsies from women with sexually transmitted diseases and others who were progesterone predominant. In vitro studies demonstrate that progesterone increases CCR5, CXCR4, and CCR3 expression and decreases CCR2b expression in lymphocytes and monocytes/macrophages. Characterization of chemokine receptors at the tissue level provides important information in identifying host determinants of HIV-1 transmission.

Summary A biphasic nursery outbreak of impetigoneonatorum and dermatitis exfoliativa neonatorum (Ritter's disease) is described. There were twelve cases of uncomplicated impetigo and ten cases of Ritter's disease. Of the ten infants with Ritter's disease,five died and five recovered. Only when therapy could be started with the earliest signs of illness was a fatal outcome prevented. The evidence suggests that a Staph. aureus hemolyticus was the causative organism. The epidemic was not finally controlled until all personnel with nasopharyngeal cultures positive for hemolytic Staph. aureus were rigidly excluded from the nurseries.

1. 1. A case of cardiac rupture through a calcified myocardial infarct, with the intermediate formation of a myocardial aneurysm, is reported. It is suggested that bacteremia resulting from a perinephric abscess, with localization of the inflammatory process in the myocardial aneurysm, brought about this unusual event. 2. 2. Coronary sclerosis is the most common cause of primary, massive, myocardial calcification; its etiologic relationship has been established in ten of fourteen cases reported in the literature and in our own.

1. Die durch die Verabreichung von 1,2–3,6 g Bleiacetat an wachsende Kaninchen innerhalb einer Versuchsdauer von 40–75 Tagen entstehende Knochenveranderung gleicht dem Bilde derakuten Osteoporose bzw. der sog. progressiven KnochenatrophieAskanazys. 2. Die im Verlauf der Erkrankung auftretende ortliche Fasermarkentwicklung ist als Begleiterscheinung der gesteigerten Abbauvorgange aufzufassen. 3. Die Ursache der Knochenveranderung ist die relativeBlutacidosis, die durch das Zusammenwirken der durch das Blei hervorgerufenen Nierenschadigung, der Nekrosen an den Einspritzungsstellen sowie des durch die Abnahme der Freslust eingetretenen Hungerzustandes bedingt ist, wobei aber der Bleiwirkung wohl die Hauptrolle zuzuschreiben ist.

This abstract covers three main areas of investigation: mesothelioma induction by asbestos, radiation tumorigenesis and transplantable tumors. Canadian and Rhodesian asbestos fibers have been administered under anesthesia to rats by intratracheal, intrapleural and intraperitoneal injection. Additional groups were given 3-methylcholanthrene or x-radiation along with asbestos. A large series of mice also treated as above have displayed mesotheliomas. In addition, glass fiber injections and feeding of asbestos were done and have produced negative results to date. The carcinogenic effect of whole-body radiation on hemi-irradiated parabiont partners exposed to a single 1000 R dose of x-ray was evidenced by a significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors in only six tissues: skin, supporting soft tissue, kidney, bone, pancreatic islets and ovary. In the male adrenal medulla and in the female breast genetic and parabiotic hormonal factors were judged to exert a significant effect. The occurrence of incisional (anastomotic) sarcomas in significant numbers in hemi-irradiated and parabiont control pairs suggests the operation of mechanical factors complicating the healing process, only slightly enhanced by radiation. One of the very valuable but unanticipated developments of the rat radiation program was the isolation of two transplantable endocrine tumors with strong hormonal potentials: an insulinoma ofmore » the pancreas and a pheochromocytoma of the adrenal medulla.« less

Summary In a series of 1003 pairs of parabiosed rats, in which the right partner of each pair received 1000 rads total-body irradiation, the incidence of soft-part sarcomas at the anastomotic site was 8.7%. The incidence in other parts of the irradiated partner was 5.8%, and in the nonirradiated partner it was 0.3%. A combination of whole-body irradiation plus local factors of continuing trauma and scar formation is thought to account for the higher incidence of sarcomas in the anastomotic region. Systemic factors such as the endocrines may also play a secondary role.

A total-body dose of 1000 R X radiation to 1252 male and 1366 female NEDH rats protected by permanent parabiosis to an untreated partner yielded respective cancer incidences of 42.7 and 38.3% within mean life-spans slightly less than single controls. These incidences were significant at the 1% level of probability compared with lower rates in shielded partners as well as in over 600 control parabiont partners and 700 single controls in which both sexes were nearly equally represented. Significant cancer incidences were induced in skin and islet cells of males, soft supporting tissue, renal tubules, bone of males and females, and ovary. Parabiosis per se provided local conditions conducive to the development of sarcomas, possibly enhanced by radiation, in anastomosed tissue as well as systemic changes promoting the spontaneous development of lymphoma and leukemia in females and inhibiting that of mammary carcinoma in females and malignant pheochromocytoma in males. The effects in females were largely cance...

Spontaneous benign tumors are present in nearly half of NEDH rats. A single whole-body exposure of 1000 R X radiation delivered to a rat supported by a shielded parabiont partner induced high incidence rates of benign tumors in several radioresponsive organs: ovary, 49.7%; adrenal medulla (males, 23.9%; females, 15.2%); mammary tissue (females, 19.6%); islands of Langerhans (males, 15.3%); and liver (cholangiomas) (males, 7.4%; females, 13.8%). Both hormonal imbalance and radiation effects appear to be involved. Parabiosis decreased the incidence of pheochromocytoma, but irradiation of a partner increased it. Mammary tumors occurred on the average 200 days earlier in irradiated rats than in their unirradiated controls. Benign tumors rarely affected health. The incidence was not increased in most organs following irradiation. Three control series were used: single rats, control parabiont rats and the shielded partners of the irradiated partners. Although endometrial polyps were more frequent in irradiated than in shielded partners, they probably resulted from hormonal imbalance. Adenomas of the pituitary were most frequent in shielded female parabiont partners (16.0%). Their incidence was decreased by radiation to 4.2%. Most types of benign tumors rarely progress to malignancy.

Leukemia and lymphoid tumors each have a 2% spontaneous rate in NEDH rats. Rats are less prone to such tumors than mice. Parabiosis of syngeneic rats permits one partner to survive a whole-body X-ray exposure of 1000 R if the other partner is shielded. Parabiosis alone induced a slight increase in the rates of incidence of both leukemia and solid lymphoid tumors, to about 5%. Exposure of one parabiont partner to 1000 R did not increase the incidence rates of these tumors significantly in either partner and sharply decreased the incidence rate of lymphosarcoma in female pairs. Monocytoid and myeloid leukemias were the more common types. Leukemia was often but not always shared by both partners of a pair. The solid lymphoid tumors tended to respond similarly following parabiosis and radiation. These tumors were usually restricted to one partner. Their incidence rates did not differ significantly between the irradiated and shielded partners, for lymphosarcoma 0.3% in the irradiated and 1.0% in the shielded a...

Ninety-five (7.6%) irradiated partners of 1244 parabiosed rats receiving 1000 R of whole-body irradiation developed renal tumors-10.3% of the males and 5.2% of the females. The commonest types of renal tumors were renal cell carcinomas, adenomas, and transitional cell carcinomas. As with irradiation carcinogenesis in general, renal tumors in irradiated rats appear earlier and with greater frequency than spontaneous tumors in nonirradiated rats. The nonneoplastic renal tubular epithelium of the irradiated tumor-bearing kidneys contained fewer mitoses than the renal tubular epithelium of their nonirradiated partners.

The fatal acute cardiac failure which sometimes intervenes during the course of exfoliative dermatitis due to arsphenamine is seldom anticipated clinically, and the microscopic appearance of the myocardium post mortem is even less expected. The cases of such myocardial changes following the onset of arsphenamine dermatitis comprise part of the general group of instances of a condition designated as acute interstitial, isolated or Fiedler's myocarditis. The more than 40 recorded cases making up this general group have in common the apparently spontaneous occurrence of progressive myocardial failure and diffuse interstitial inflammation involving a thickened left ventricular myocardium, according to postmortem observations. Fiedler in 1899 called attention to this peculiar nonspecific interstitial myocarditis, accounts of which first reached the American literature in 1929, with a review by Scott and Saphir. 1 They collected 30 cases and added 2 of their own but did not include Fiedler's cases because of their relative