Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a critical role in the maintenance of a pregnancy. While the kinetics of the number of peripheral blood Tregs has been satisfactorily described in mouse models, analysis of these cell populations in human pregnancy is complicated by high variability in the quantity of Tregs and inconsistencies in the markers used for detecting different types of Treg. In the light of this, we set out to investigate the kinetics of various types of Treg, including CD45RA, GARP and PD-1(+) Tregs, in the peripheral blood of pregnant women in the first, second and third trimester, and at the time of delivery. Tregs, defined as a CD4(+)CD25(++)CD127(dim)Foxp3(+) population of leucocytes, were detected using flow cytometry. Natural thymus-derived Tregs and induced Tregs in the peripheral blood were distinguished by the expression or absence of a Helios marker, respectively. Our results showed that during normal pregnancy the sizes of various Treg subpopulations varied across women and also in an individual woman did not remain constant but varied significantly, most notable being the decrease observed at the time of delivery. Helios(-) cells were significantly less frequent in the peripheral blood of healthy pregnant women than Helios(+) cells, and the majority of Tregs were Helios(+)PD-1(+) Tregs.

• MeSH
• Cell Differentiation MeSH
• Forkhead Transcription Factors metabolism   MeSH
• Immunophenotyping MeSH
• Cells, Cultured MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Lymphocyte Count MeSH
• Flow Cytometry MeSH
• T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory immunology   MeSH
• T-Lymphocyte Subsets immunology   MeSH
• Pregnancy immunology   MeSH
• Thymus Gland immunology   MeSH
• Transforming Growth Factor beta blood   MeSH
• Ikaros Transcription Factor metabolism   MeSH
• Healthy Volunteers MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Pregnancy immunology   MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

One of the most recent non-invasive technologies to examine the gastrointestinal tract is wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE). As there are thousands of endoscopic images in an 8-15 h long video, an evaluator has to pay constant attention for a relatively long time (60-120 min). Therefore the possibility of the presence of pathological findings in a few images (displayed for evaluation for a few seconds only) brings a significant risk of missing the pathology with all negative consequences for the patient. Hence, manually reviewing a video to identify abnormal images is not only a tedious and time consuming task that overwhelms human attention but also is error prone. In this paper, a method is proposed for the automatic detection of abnormal WCE images. The differential box counting method is used for the extraction of fractal dimension (FD) of WCE images and the random forest based ensemble classifier is used for the identification of abnormal frames. The FD is a well-known technique for extraction of features related to texture, smoothness, and roughness. In this paper, FDs are extracted from pixel-blocks of WCE images and are fed to the classifier for identification of images with abnormalities. To determine a suitable pixel block size for FD feature extraction, various sizes of blocks are considered and are fed into six frequently used classifiers separately, and the block size of 7×7 giving the best performance is empirically determined. Further, the selection of the random forest ensemble classifier is also done using the same empirical study. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated on two datasets containing WCE frames. Results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms some of the state-of-the-art methods with AUC of 85% and 99% on Dataset-I and Dataset-II respectively.

• MeSH
• Fractals MeSH
• Gastrointestinal Tract MeSH
• Capsule Endoscopy * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

Generation of neurons in the embryonic neocortex is a balanced process of proliferation and differentiation of neuronal progenitor cells. Canonical Wnt signalling is crucial for expansion of radial glial cells in the ventricular zone and for differentiation of intermediate progenitors in the subventricular zone. We detected abundant expression of two transcrtiption factors mediating canonical Wnt signalling, Tcf7L1 and Tcf7L2, in the ventricular zone of the embryonic neocortex. Conditional knock-out analysis showed that Tcf7L2, but not Tcf7L1, is the principal Wnt mediator important for maintenance of progenitor cell identity in the ventricular zone. In the absence of Tcf7L2, the Wnt activity is reduced, ventricular zone markers Pax6 and Sox2 are downregulated and the neuroepithelial structure is severed due to the loss of apical adherens junctions. This results in decreased proliferation of radial glial cells, the reduced number of intermediate progenitors in the subventricular zone and hypoplastic forebrain. Our data show that canonical Wnt signalling, which is essential for determining the neuroepithelial character of the neocortical ventricular zone, is mediated by Tcf7L2.

• MeSH
• Cell Differentiation genetics   MeSH
• Chloride-Bicarbonate Antiporters MeSH
• Down-Regulation genetics   MeSH
• Embryo, Mammalian MeSH
• Hippocampus cytology   embryology   MeSH
• Mutation genetics   MeSH
• Mice, Transgenic MeSH
• Mice MeSH
• Neocortex cytology   embryology   MeSH
• Neural Stem Cells physiology   MeSH
• Neurogenesis physiology   MeSH
• Neuroglia MeSH
• Neurons physiology   MeSH
• Cell Count MeSH
• Cell Proliferation genetics   MeSH
• Transcription Factor 7-Like 2 Protein genetics   metabolism   MeSH
• T-Box Domain Proteins metabolism   MeSH
• Wnt Proteins metabolism   MeSH
• Retinal Ganglion Cells physiology   MeSH
• Signal Transduction genetics   MeSH
• SOXB1 Transcription Factors metabolism   MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Mice MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

T regulatory cells (Tregs) are essential for maintaining tolerance and preventing autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes (T1D). In our study, we investigated CD25 + FoxP3 + Tregs and thymic FoxP3 + Helios + Tregs in large cohorts of children with T1D at onset and with long-term T1D, and further in their relatives and healthy controls. We observed significantly decreased numbers of CD25 + FoxP3 + Tregs, but not FoxP3 + Helios + Tregs, in long-term patients compared with the control group and T1D onset. Furthermore, long-term T1D patients exhibited highly significant decrease of CD25 expression on both CD25 + FoxP3 + Tregs and FoxP3 + Helios + Tregs, independently on age or the duration of diabetes. A similar reduction of CD25 expression was also found in T1D relatives, more significant in those with positive autoantibodies. Low CD25 expression was associated with impaired signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (STAT5) phosphorylation after IL-2 exposure. Our results show that the frequency of Tregs is altered in a large cohort of long-term T1D patients, a profound decrease in CD25 expression and altered IL-2 signaling are typical features of Tregs populations in long-term diabetic patients and their relatives.

• MeSH
• Biomarkers MeSH
• Cell Differentiation MeSH
• Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 diagnosis   etiology   metabolism   MeSH
• Child MeSH
• Forkhead Transcription Factors metabolism   MeSH
• Phosphorylation MeSH
• Immunophenotyping MeSH
• Interleukin-2 metabolism   pharmacology   MeSH
• Infant MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Lymphocyte Count MeSH
• Child, Preschool MeSH
• Interleukin-2 Receptor alpha Subunit genetics   metabolism   MeSH
• T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory cytology   immunology   metabolism   MeSH
• Signal Transduction MeSH
• Case-Control Studies MeSH
• Thymocytes cytology   immunology   metabolism   MeSH
• STAT5 Transcription Factor MeSH
• Age Factors MeSH
• Check Tag
• Child MeSH
• Infant MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Child, Preschool MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

• MeSH
• Liver Diseases MeSH
• Reference Books, Medical MeSH
• Publication type
• Handbook MeSH

• Conspectus
• Patologie. Klinická medicína
• NML Fields
• hepatologie

• MeSH
• Cell Biology MeSH
• Molecular Biology MeSH
• Publication type
• Monograph MeSH

• Conspectus
• Biochemie. Molekulární biologie. Biofyzika
• NML Fields
• biologie
• cytologie, klinická cytologie