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Biomedical subjects

Yaohui Xu

Publications and source records attributed to Yaohui Xu.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Ossified soft tissue leiomyoma in a patient with sickle cell anemia.

Osseous metaplasia in leiomyomas is extremely rare. Here, we report the case of an ossified subcutaneous leiomyoma in a 34-year-old African American man with sickle cell thalassemia who presented with a painful nodule of the scapular region, which appeared as a heavily mineralized soft tissue mass on chest radiographs. Histopathologic and immunohistochemical examination of the resected nodule revealed a benign soft tissue leiomyoma composed of intersecting fascicles of spindle cells that strongly expressed smooth muscle actin and caldesmon. Extensive intratumoral calcification and ossification were noticed. Only eight cases of ossified leiomyoma have been reported, of which two arose in the deep soft tissue.

Actins↗

Pathogen discovery from human tissue by sequence-based computational subtraction.

We have recently reported a new pathogen discovery approach, "computational subtraction". With this approach, non-human transcripts are detected by sequencing cDNA libraries from infected tissue and eliminating those transcripts that match the human genome. We show now that this method is experimentally feasible. We generated a cDNA library from a tissue sample of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD). 27,840 independent cDNA sequences were filtered by computational subtraction against the known human sequence to identify 32 nonmatching transcripts. Of these, 22 (0.1%) were found to be amplifiable from both infected and noninfected samples and were inferred to be human DNA not yet contained in the available human genome sequence. The remaining 10 sequences could be amplified only from Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-infected tissues. All 10 corresponded to the known EBV sequence. This proof-of-principle experiment demonstrates that computational subtraction can detect pathogenic microbes in primary human-diseased tissue.

DNA, Complementary↗

Subepidermal calcified nodule in a 7-month-old boy.

A 7-month-old healthy white boy presented for evaluation of a papule on his right ear. His mother reported a small cut-like lesion at this site shortly after birth that had gradually grown over time. The patient was born full term via repeat cesarean section. On physical examination, located on the right superior helix, there was a 5-6 mm, pink, firm papule with a rough scaly surface and peripheral erythema (Figure 1). The lesion was shave excised and sent for histologic analysis. Microscopic examination revealed a defect of the epidermis with underlying fibrin deposits (Figure 2). Subjacent to the ulcer, there was chondroid tissue, granulation tissue with prominent vascularity, and an extensive amount of amorphous calcified material throughout the dermis extending to the base of the specimen (Figure 3). The clinical and pathologic findings were consistent with a subepidermal calcified nodule (SCN), an uncommon idiopathic calcinosis. The lesion was surgically removed with good results.

Calcinosis↗