ProNGF processing in adult rat tissues and bioactivity of NGF prodomain peptides.

The neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF) and its precursor proNGF are both bioactive and exert similar or opposite actions depending on the cell target and its milieu. The balance between NGF and proNGF is crucial for cell and tissue homeostasis and it is considered an indicator of pathological conditions. Proteolytical cleavage of proNGF to the mature form results in different fragments, whose function and/or bioactivity is still unclear. The present study was conducted to investigate the distribution of proNGF fragments derived from endogenous cleavage in brain and peripheral tissues of adult rats in the healthy condition and following inflammatory lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge. Different anti-proNGF antibodies were tested and the presence of short peptides corresponding to the prodomain sequence (pdNGFpep) was identified. Processing of proNGF was found to be tissue-specific and accumulation of pdNGFpeps was found in inflamed tissues, mainly in testis, intestine and heart, suggesting a possible correlation between organ functions and a response to insults and/or injury. The bioactivity of pdNGFpep was also demonstrated in vitro by using primary hippocampal neurons. Our study supports a biological function for the NGF precursor prodomain and indicates that short peptides from residues 1-60, differing from the 70-110 sequence, induce apoptosis, thereby opening the way for identification of new molecular targets to study pathological conditions.

Fusariosis presentación de un caso en paciente con leucemia mieloide aguda / Fusarium: presentation of a patient case's with acute myeloid leukemia

Estudio de caso: Paciente de sexo femenino de 22 años con diagnóstico de leucemia mieloide aguda (LMA) en mayo de 2013. Presenta una recaída refractaria al tratamiento enenero de 2014. En el transcurso de su internación presenta síndrome febril con lesiones en piel de tipo nódulos y placas infiltradas eritematovioláceas, dolorosas a la palpación en tronco y miembros (fig.1). Se toma biopsia cutánea con diagnósticos presuntivos de leucemide y Sarcoma de Kaposi.

Case Study: Female patient of 22 years with diagnosis acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in May 2013. It presents a relapse refractory to treatment January 2014. During his internment presents feverish syndrome with skin lesions in lymph type and infiltrated erythematous plaques, painful to palpation trunk and limbs (Figure 1). Biopsy is taken with presumptive diagnosis of cutaneous and leucemide Kaposi sarcoma.