Acta histochemica. Supplementband最新文献

We investigated brain tissue from 7 deceased patients with Fahr's disease using X-ray-analysis for the determination of compositional differences between calcareous particles in different areas of brain or between the left and right sides in a brain and differences in composition of concrements in different brains. We found, in all areas of one brain no difference in elementary composition. Differences were found between different brains, two brains showed a high silicon content.

The expression of 15 oncogenes including erbB and H-ras in 18 human glial tumors -10 glioblastomas, 1 astrocytoma grade III-IV, 2 oligodendrogliomas grade III, 2 astrocytomas grade II-III, 1 astrocytoma grade II, 1 oligodendroglioma grade II and 1 oligoastrocytoma grade II--was determined by hybridizing RNA against oncogene probes using the Dot Blot technique. Compared with bovine cerebrum (control), the oncogenes abl, erbA, fms, fos, K-ras, mil, mos, myb, rel, sis, src and yes were expressed equally in both bovine cerebrum and the gliomas. However, the expression of erbB was increased 2-9-fold in all except one glioma, and the expression of H-ras was decreased by the factor 0.3-0.7 in 15 tumors. No obvious correlation was found between tumor histology and changed expression of erbB and/or H-ras or between the grade of malignancy and the expression of any oncogene tested. A connection between erbB and H-ras has been shown by several studies. Our results confirm the relationship between H-ras and erbB. However, the meaning of the H-ras decrease in combination with the erbB elevation has to be clarified.

The cells of primitive neuroectodermal tumours may undergo differentiation and, eventually, may be transformed to neurons, glial cells, and ependymal cells. Early stages of neuroectodermal differentiation may primarily be determined by means of immunohistochemical methods. Immunohistochemical investigations were performed on brains of human foetuses obtained from the 18th to 36th weeks of pregnancy, with a view to elucidating the process of maturation during foetal development and to determining the antigens identifiable in cells in the course of differentiation, following fixation in formalin and embedding in paraffin. Gliafibrillar acid protein (GFAP) and vimentin proved to be of particularly high stability and, consequently, were easily detectable from paraffin material. The same antigens were focally recordable also from eight of 17 primitive neuroectodermal tumours. Clues were rare in these tumours as to neuronal differentiation. This was attributed to instability of neurofilament proteins under conditions of formalin fixation and paraffin embedding.

Malignant angioendotheliomatosis, so called intravascular malignant lymphomatosis or angiotropic lymphoma, was found in cerebral hemispheres, spinal cord and nerve roots of a 50-year-old woman who died 4 months after onset of neurological symptoms. The pathological findings were characterised by neoplastic cells within the lumina and wall of small vessels as well as by multiple infarcts in the CNS. Vascular occlusions were caused by tumor cells and secondary changes of the wall. Positive reactions of Common Leucocyte Antigen and B-cell-markers support the idea of a lymphoid origin for the tumor cells. The differentiation to the angiocentric lymphoma as a T-cell tumor and the obscure pathogenesis of this neoplastic process must be clarified in the future.

The causes of symptomatic parkinsonism are enumerated and discussed including drug-induced, vascular, toxic, postencephalitic and posttraumatic parkinsonism. The environmental hypothesis and the concept of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease are illustrated. The clinical diagnosis, the differential diagnosis and the possible diagnostic errors originating from the cardinal symptoms akinesia, rigor und tremor in the early stages of the disease are delineated. At last the contributions of EEG, CCT, evoked potentials, MRI, PET und the apomorphine test to the diagnosis especially early diagnosis are evaluated.

The distribution of intermediate filaments GFAP, Vimentin and Desmin was investigated in normal intracerebral and meningeal vessels in human material. Vimentin is detectable in endothelial cells of all cranial vessels. Moreover Vimentin is expressed in all vascular smooth muscle cells of the brain with the exception of arterioles in the white matter and in the pons. Desmin is only detectable in the tunica media of larger intracerebral arterioles or arteries, larger meningeal veins contain single Desmin positive smooth muscle cells. Immuno-electronmicroscopically Vimentin could be shown in endothelial and smooth muscle cells of larger venous and arteriolar vessels. We conclude from our immunohistologic investigation that there is an uneven distribution of Vimentin and Desmin in brain vessels which might reflect some ultrastructural peculiarities of brain arteries.

Pyloric biopsies obtained at pyloromyotomy from 46 infants were studied by light and electron microscopy and compared to 8 autopsy control cases without any evidence of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS). A positive family history of this disorder was recorded in 8 cases (2 girls and 6 boys). The most frequent changes in the myenteric plexus comprised axonal alterations. In glial cells, cytoplasmic vacuolisation or an increase of intermediate filaments occurred. In ganglion cells, vacuolisation of perikaryal cytoplasm or dense bodies were observed. No obvious differences were seen between sporadic and hereditary cases. In addition to these fine structural alterations, immunohistochemistry in 6 IHPS cases and 4 controls revealed differences in the distribution of substance P, bombesin, calcitonin gene related peptide and enkephalin-like immunoreactivity within the myenteric plexus between IHPS and control cases. The immunoreactivity, however, was unevenly distributed from case to case and even within individual cases. The reduction of immunoreactivity corresponded, at least in part, to an increase of neurofilaments or abnormal organelles within axons. Increased immunoreactivity was apparently related to focal accumulation of dense cored vesicles noted in the preceding study. It is suggested that these and other changes reported interfere with the normal gastrointestinal reflex mechanisms leading to intestinal obstruction.

The silver staining of interphase nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) is a recently developed method to measure cell proliferation in tissue specimens. The major silver staining protein is nucleolin, a 92 kd nucleolar protein, which probably controls rDNA transcription. Nucleolin itself is under control of p34cdc2 kinase, which is a subunit of M phase kinase. The specific silver staining of NORs measures ribosomal gene activity and is therefore useful in measuring cell proliferation via nucleolar biosynthetic activity. Although human tumors of different malignancy grades usually can be distinguished by their AgNOR number, there is considerable overlap between different grades which significantly hampers their use in individual cases. For routine application of the AgNOR technique in histopathology we propose a standardised staining protocol with use of internal control cells and the use of image analysis for AgNOR enumeration.

By means of a standardized silver staining technique, nucleolar organizer region-associated proteins (AgNORs) have been demonstrated in paraffin sections of 41 astrocytomas and glioblastomas and 19 meningiomas. Computer-assisted image analysis was used to measure AgNORs together with other nuclear features. Significant differences in number and configuration of AgNORs have been found between non-anaplastic astrocytomas and anaplastic gliomata. In meningiomas, tumours with signs of increased proliferative activity and usual non-anaplastic ones could be discriminated using AgNOR data.

The cathepsin B, D and L were studied by immunohistochemical techniques in the human postmortem brain. The enzyme were primarily localized in neurons. Makroglial cells were seldom immunostained. It is shown that cathepsins B and D frequently occur in neuritic plaques of Alzheimer victims, thereby raising the question, whether or not cathepsin immunohistochemistry is a useful tool in the diagnosis of this disease. Furthermore, we identified certain glial cells to be immunoreactive for cathepsins in schizophrenics.