Biomedical subjects

W Fierz

Publications and source records attributed to W Fierz.

62 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

PubMed1981

Supposed lamarckian inheritance of immunological tolerance.

The notion that an adaptation acquired during an organism's lifetime can somehow be imprinted on the genome and so become heritable has been faulted by every critical test to which it has hitherto been exposed, but many naturalists have lost their faith in what seems to them to be the all-encompassing explanatory glibness of neo-darwinism. Although this criticism is unfair it is entirely proper that neo-darwinism should be under constant critical scrutiny. Interest was therefore aroused by the claim of Gorczynski and Steele that tolerance of A strain antigens induced in CBA mice by injecting into them (CBA x A/J)F1 spleen and bone marrow cells could be transmitted down the male line. Such a claim is of particular interest because spermatozoa, unlike oocytes, are produced throughout life and might thus conceivably have participated in the mechanism envisaged by Steele as that responsible for the supposed transfer of genetic information from soma to germ plasm. It was claimed that as many as 60% of the progeny of tolerant fathers mated with normal CBA females were unresponsive or hyporesponsive in an in vitro assay in which their spleen cells were tested for reactivity against A/J strain histocompatibility antigens in the cell-mediated lympholysis assay (CML). We describe here our failure to confirm these findings and our inability to extend them by testing the progeny for their reactivity against skin allografts from the tolerance-conferring strain.

Adaptation, Physiological↗

PubMed1981

Immune reactivity of progeny of tetraparental male mice.

Steele and Gorczynski have recently suggested that inbred male mice rendered tolerant at birth to the alloantigens of an H-2 plus non-H-2 incompatible inbred strain can transmit this tolerance or hyporeactivity, as measured in a primary anti-H-2 cytotoxic T-cell test in vitro, to their progeny, born of normally reactive females syngeneic with the males. As a corollary, it might be expected that the progeny of tetraparental males which are tolerant because from earliest fetal development they are chimaeric with respect to all tissues, including haematopoietic cells and germ cells, might in turn be tolerant to the other set of paternal alloantigens. We have now found, on the contrary, that inbred progeny of one component of a tetraparental male showed heightened responsiveness to the other paternal alloantigens.

Animals↗

PubMed1981

Specific haplotype preference in congenic F1 hybrid mice in the cytotoxic T cell response to the male specific antigen H-Y.

Haplotype preference in the cytotoxic T cell response to H-Y in B10 congenic mice is only found in (B10 X B10.S)F1 hybrids. (B10 X B10.BR)F1 and (B10 X B10.D2)F1 do not generally show haplotype preference. H-2s is the preferred haplotype in H-Y immune (B10 X B10.S)F1 Tc cells. This haplotype preference is antigen specific since no preference was observed in the anti-influenza responses in (B10 X B10.S)F1 hybrids. Feedback inhibition as an explanation for haplotype preference could be excluded, but cross-reactivity of B10 H-Y immune Tc cells on B10.S targets suggests that natural tolerance may be responsible for haplotype preference.

Animals↗

PubMed1980

[Loss of 2 kidney grafts due to recurrence of type II membrano-proliferative glomerulonephritis].

Recurrent glomerulonephritis after renal transplantation is seen in a very high percentage of patients with dense "deposit" disease (= membrano-proliferative glomerulonephritis type II). However, loss of graft due to recurrence is rare; only 4 cases have been reported. Two additional pediatric patients are described. Both had recurrent dense "deposit" disease with extracapillary proliferation and crescent formation. In one of them, a quiet initial phase of 20 months was followed by an extremely rapid progression of the disease leading to loss of graft function within 3 weeks.

Acute Kidney Injury↗

PubMed1979

The Sézary syndrome.

Symptoms of the Sézary syndrome are described in a case history. Sézary's syndrome is a lymphoproliferative process of the skin, which eventually develops into an erythrodermia. Strange lymphocytes with a cerebriform chromatin structure, often with T-cell characteristics, circulate in the blood stream. In few instances they are also found in lymphnodes and bone marrow. This primarily benign disease can become malignant, possibly due to an overaggressive cytostatic therapy. Besides the hitherto unknown endogenous causes, exogenous factors cannot be excluded.

Humans↗

PubMed1976

[The Sézary syndrome].

A case of the rare Sézary syndrome is described. The Sézary syndrome is a lymphoproliferative disorder of the skin, the lymph nodes, and to a smaller extent the bone marrow, which begins with erythrodermia. In the blood, strange circulating lymphocytes with a "cerebriform" chromatin structure and T-cell properties are found. The disease is primarly benign but may become malignant. The origin is unknown. Endogenic and exogenic factors are considered and relationships to other cutaneous lympho-proliferative diseases and treatment are discussed.

Chlorambucil↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Astrocytes present myelin basic protein to encephalitogenic T-cell lines.

Astrocyte proliferation and perivascular lymphocyte infiltration are conspicuous among the cellular changes in the active brain lesions of multiple sclerosis patients. Recent observations have indicated that most of the perivascular lymphocytes are T cells which may be actively involved in the generation of the brain lesions. Much less is known about the significance of the proliferative astrocytes, although the fact that they produce an interleukin-1 (IL-1)-like factor that enhances the release of interleukin-2 by T lymphocytes, may provide a clue. We show here that rat astrocytes are able to present antigen to T lymphocytes in a specific manner which is restricted by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and that they can in particular activate myelin basic protein (BP)-specific, encephalitogenic T-cell lines. Only on such interaction do astrocytes express Ia antigens in easily detectable amounts. Antigen presentation by astrocytes may have a central role in the generation of immune responses in the brain.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The SGML standardization framework and the introduction of XML.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is on its way to becoming a global standard for the representation, exchange, and presentation of information on the World Wide Web (WWW). More than that, XML is creating a standardization framework, in terms of an open network of meta-standards and mediators that allows for the definition of further conventions and agreements in specific business domains. Such an approach is particularly needed in the healthcare domain; XML promises to especially suit the particularities of patient records and their lifelong storage, retrieval, and exchange. At a time when change rather than steadiness is becoming the faithful feature of our society, standardization frameworks which support a diversified growth of specifications that are appropriate to the actual needs of the users are becoming more and more important; and efforts should be made to encourage this new attempt at standardization to grow in a fruitful direction. Thus, the introduction of XML reflects a standardization process which is neither exclusively based on an acknowledged standardization authority, nor a pure market standard. Instead, a consortium of companies, academic institutions, and public bodies has agreed on a common recommendation based on an existing standardization framework. The consortium's process of agreeing to a standardization framework will doubtlessly be successful in the case of XML, and it is suggested that it should be considered as a generic model for standardization processes in the future.

Cohort Studies↗