Invasive cellular blue nevus in the cervical spine: A case report.

INTRODUCTION: Cellular blue nevus is an uncommon neoplasm in the spine. PATIENT CONCERNS: Here, we present a case of a 24 years old male with a 2 months history of numbness in the right upper limb and shoulder. DIAGNOSIS: Cervical spine and subcutaneous tissue invasive cellular blue nevus. INTERVENTIONS: The patient underwent C4 laminectomy and partial C3 and C5 laminectomy for total resection of the lesion. Histopathology revealed a nodular tumor with unclear boundaries, which was composed of heavily pigmented dendritic cells and more pigmented spindle cells. OUTCOMES: There was no recurrence during 3 years follow-up. CONCLUSION: Invasive cellular blue nevus of the spine can be wrongly diagnosed as spinal meningeal melanocytoma and meningeal melanoma due to its special cell behavior and rarity. Therefore, it is important to understand its pathological and clinical characteristics to avoid over-treatment.

Matrilin-2 prevents the TNFα-induced apoptosis of WB-F344 cells via suppressing JNK pathway.

Oval cells, a kind of hepatic progenitor cell quiescent at normal condition, activates to proliferate and differentiate into hepatocytes under severe and long-term liver injury, which usually raises severe inflammation. However, how oval cell survives in the inflammatory milieu interne is still unclear. Tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), mimicking inflammatory hepatic milieu interne, was used to treat oval cell line, WB-F344, to test the protective function of matrilin-2. In this study, our data suggested that matrilin-2 prevented TNFα-induced apoptosis in WB-F344 cells via inhibiting ASK1/MKK7/JNK pathway. In conclusion, we determined that matrilin-2 plays the key role in maintaining the survival of oval cell and guarantees its proliferation under various injury factors.