Pridgen Olsson (branchmarch45)

Keratinization provides tolerance to desiccation and mechanical durability. Loricrin, which is an epidermal thiol-rich protein, efficiently stabilizes terminally differentiated keratinocytes and maintains redox homeostasis. The discovery of the largely asymptomatic loricrin knockout (LKO) phenotype decades ago was rather unpredicted. Nevertheless, when including redox-driven, NF-E2-related factor 2-mediated backup responses, LKO mice provide opportunities for the observation of altered or "quasi-normal" homeostasis. Specifically, given that the tissue structure, as well as the local metabolism, transmits immunological signals, we sought to dissect the consequence of truncated epidermal differentiation program from immunological perspectives. Through a review of the aggregated evidence, we have attempted to generate an integrated view of the regulation of the peripheral immune system, which possibly occurs within the squamous epithelial tissue with truncated differentiation. This synthesis might not only provide insights into keratinization but also lead to the identification of factors intrinsic to the epidermis that imprint the immune effector function. This study aimed to validate the Willems Belgian Caucasian (Willems BC) age estimation model in a Kenyan sample, to develop and validate a Kenyan-specific (Willems KB) age estimation model and to compare the age prediction performances of both models. Panoramic radiographs of 1038 (523 female, 515 male) Kenyan children without missing permanent teeth and without all permanent teeth fully developed (except third molars) were retrospectively selected. Tooth development of the seven lower-left permanent teeth was staged according to Demirjian etal. The Willems BC model, performed on a Belgian Caucasian sample and a constructed Kenyan-specific model (Willems KB) were validated on the Kenyan sample. Their age prediction performances were quantified and compared using the mean error (ME), mean absolute error (MAE) and root-mean-square error (RMSE). The ME with Willems BC method equalled zero. Hence, there was no systematic under- or overestimation of the age. For males and females separately, the ME with Willems BC was significantly different from zero, but negligible in magnitude (-0.04 and 0.04, respectively). Willems KB was found not to outperform Willems BC, since the MAE and RMSE were comparable (0.98 vs 0.97 and 1.31 vs 1.29, respectively). Although Willems BC resulted in a higher percentage of subjects with predicted age within a one-year difference of the true age (63.3% vs 60.4%, =0.018), this cannot be considered as clinically relevant. There is no reason to use a country-specific (Willems KB) model in children from Kenya instead of the original Willems (BC) model. There is no reason to use a country-specific (Willems KB) model in children from Kenya instead of the original Willems (BC) model.Objective To study the relationships between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the intron of the tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) gene and the susceptibility and severity of disease associated with adenovirus infection in children. Methods Four polymorphic loci of the TNFα gene (rs3093661, rs1800610, rs3093662, and rs3093664) were characterized allelically and genotypically in 320 children with adenovirus-associated pneumonia (AP) and compared with 320 healthy controls. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) were used to detect the plasma TNFα protein levels in all subjects. Results The TNFα gene rs3093661 locus A allele, the rs1800610 locus A allele, the rs3093662 locus G allele, and the rs3093664 locus G allele were identified as susceptibility alleles for development of AP, and they were also positively correlated with the severity of AP. In children who had the GGAA haplotype, AP susceptibility was significantly reduced (0.28-fold) (95% confidence interval, CI 0.20-0.40, p less then 0.001). Conversely, among the