Apoptosis and cell-cycle regulatory proteins in colorectal carcinoma: relationship to tumour stage and patient survival

The quantitative assessment of apoptotic index (AI) and mitotic index (MI) and the immunoreactivity of p53, bcl-2, p21, and mdm2 were examined in tumour and adjacent normal tissue samples from 30 patients with colonic and 22 with rectal adenocarcinoma. Individual features and combined profiles were correlated with clinicopathological parameters and patient survival data to assess their prognostic value. Increased AI was significantly associated with increased bcl-2 expression (p

Familiarity and Preference for Pitch Probability Profiles

We investigated familiarity and preference judgments of participants toward a novel musical system. We exposed participants to tone sequences generated from a novel pitch probability profile. Afterward, we either asked participants to identify more familiar or we asked participants to identify preferred tone sequences in a two-alternative forced-choice task. The task paired a tone sequence generated from the pitch probability profile they had been exposed to and a tone sequence generated from another pitch probability profile at three levels of distinctiveness. We found that participants identified tone sequences as more familiar if they were generated from the same pitch probability profile which they had been exposed to. However, participants did not prefer these tone sequences. We interpret this relationship between familiarity and preference to be consistent with an inverted U-shaped relationship between knowledge and affect. The fact that participants identified tone sequences as even more familiar if they were generated from the more distinctive (caricatured) version of the pitch probability profile which they had been exposed to suggests that the statistical learning of the pitch probability profile is involved in gaining of musical knowledge.

Detection of Staphylococcus aureus by 16S rRNA directed in situ hybridisation in a patient with a brain abscess caused by small colony variants.

Kipp F, Ziebuhr W, Becker K, Krimmer V, Höbeta N, Peters G, Von Eiff C. Institute of Medical Microbiology, Hospital and Clinics, University of Münster, Germany. A 45 year old man was admitted to hospital with a right sided facial paralysis and three month history of seizures. Computed tomography showed a left temporal mass including both intracerebral and extracerebral structures. Ten years earlier the patient had undergone a neurosurgical intervention in the same anatomical region to treat a subarachnoid haemorrhage. In tissue samples and pus obtained during neurosurgery, Staphylococcus aureus was detected by a 16S rRNA-directed in situ hybridisation technique. Following long term cultivation, small colony variants (SCV) of methicillin resistant S aureus were identified. The patient was treated successfully with a combination of vancomycin and rifampin followed by prolonged treatment with teicoplanin, with no sign of infection on follow up nine months after discharge. This is the first report in which S aureus SCV have been identified as causative organisms in a patient with brain abscess and in which in situ hybridisation has been used to detect S aureus in a clinical specimen containing SCV. Antimicrobial agents such as rifampin which have intracellular activity should be included in treatment of infections caused by S aureus SCV.