Search PubMedSearch

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “tonsil”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

Prevalence of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae in tonsils of domestic pigs and wild boars in Sweden.

Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (ER) causes erysipelas in multiple animal species and may persist in the environment or be carried asymptomatically. It is estimated that 30-50% of apparently healthy or convalescent pigs harbour ER in their tonsils and other lymphoid tissues. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of ER in the tonsils of healthy Swedish fattening pigs and wild boars. Tonsils were collected from 200 fattening pigs at slaughter from ten abattoirs across Sweden in 2017, with one pig per herd sampled. Wild boars (n = 180) were sampled during hunting, primarily in Östergötland County, in 2018. Cultures were performed using selective media and isolates were confirmed as ER by MALDI-TOF MS. ER was recovered from 6/200 pig tonsils (3.0%), all originating from three abattoirs in southern Sweden. ER was isolated from 76/167 (45.5%) of wild boar tonsils. Whole-genome sequencing revealed a high genetic diversity among the isolates with no dominant clones. Overall, these results indicate that Swedish pig husbandry, characterized by indoor rearing of fattening pigs, age-segregated rearing, sow vaccination, enhanced biosecurity, and restricted straw access largely prevents tonsillar colonization by ER aligning with the low occurrence of clinically diagnosed erysipelas in such herds. For wild boars, the high isolation rate suggests that wild boar could act as a reservoir and potential source of infection for domestic pigs. The potential zoonotic risk should also be considered.

Animals

Metagenomic Analysis of the Tonsil Virome Highlights Its Diagnostic Potential for Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease whose exact pathogenesis remains unclear, despite links to genetics, environmental factors, and microbial dysbiosis. Recent studies have highlighted the role of the microbiome in RA, yet the contribution of the tonsil virome remains unexplored. This study aims to investigate whether changes in the tonsil virome are associated with RA progression and assess its diagnostic potential. Using metagenomic data from 32 RA patients and 30 healthy controls (HCs), we identified 45 782 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs), with 14 341 classified as core vOTUs. RA patients exhibited significantly reduced virome richness and diversity, whereas Siphoviridae and Microviridae dominated both groups. Statistical analysis identified 235 RA-associated viral markers, including 13 enriched in RA and 222 in HCs. RA-enriched markers were primarily bacteriophages infecting Streptococcaceae, whereas HCs displayed more diverse viral-host interactions. Random forest models demonstrated strong discriminatory power of viral markers in distinguishing RA patients from HCs, achieving an AUC of 0.960, outperforming bacterial markers. Correlation analyses further linked viral markers to immune cell subsets, suggesting that tonsil virome alterations may influence immune dysregulation in RA. This study reveals significant changes in the tonsil virome of RA patients, highlighting its potential as a diagnostic tool and offering new insights into RA pathogenesis. These findings pave the way for future research into the virome's role in autoimmune diseases and therapeutic development.

Humans

Interferon-producing capacity of human tonsil cells and properties of interferon produced by these cells.

Tonsils excised from human beings for chronic tonsillitis have been shown to be an accessible and sufficiently rich source of human lymphocytes. Tonsil cells produced interferon as intensively as blood leukocytes and the properties of this interferon were similar to those of leukocyte interferon. The optimal conditions for interferon production by tonsil cells were established.

Adenoviridae

Alkaline phosphatase activity in the human tonsils and its relation to tonsillar diseases.

Alkaline phosphatase activity was examined in the human tonsils in fetal life and after repeated attacks of acute tonsillitis and in quinsy. Gomori's metal precipitate technique was used to demonstrate the phosphatase activity using four different substrates: sodium beta-glycerophosphate and adenosine triphosphate at pH 9, riboflavin 5-phosphate at pH 9.2 and 5-monophosphoric acid at pH 8.3. (2) The phosphatase activity differs somewhat according to the phosphate ester used as a substrate illustrating an example of 'substrate specificity'. (3) Alkaline phosphatase activity was increased in the case of both acute and chronic inflammation. This increase has been discussed in relation to such phenomena as transformation of lymphocytes into macrophages and antibody formation.

Acute Disease

Tonsillar expression quantitative trait loci verify and expand genetic contributors to childhood atopic diseases.

BACKGROUND: The spectrum of causal variants, mechanisms, and immunologic gene networks that influence pediatric atopic traits is not completely understood. Human genetic variation associated with transcript abundance (expression quantitative trait loci [eQTLs]) can help to advance our understanding, yet prior work has focused on profiling immune cell populations collected from peripheral blood primarily in adult populations, leaving tissue-resident lymphocytes collected from children uncharacterized. OBJECTIVE: We sought to characterize gene expression of 4 populations of tonsil-derived immune cell types collected from pediatric patients. METHODS: We collected naive B, germinal center B, naive T, and T follicular helper cells from the discarded tonsils of 103 children across development (age range 1-19). Following genotyping and RNA sequencing of samples, we performed differential expression and eQTL analysis, then statistically linked eQTL signals to relevant atopic traits via colocalization. RESULTS: We found differentially expressed genes across cell types and identified 13,393 expression genes (eGenes) (1,793 eGenes not previously reported in similar datasets) influenced by 27,603 eQTLs (5,199 eQTLs not previously reported). We linked eQTLs to associations identified in pediatric and adult asthma and atopy traits, nominating 78 eGenes including TRAF3, ZBTB10, and JAZF1 in disease-relevant cell types. CONCLUSIONS: Our freely available resource exemplifies the importance of discovery in native tissues and across human development.

Expression quantitative trait locus

Spatial proximity sequencing maps developmental dynamics in the germinal center.

Spatial profiling of proteins and protein interactions facilitates understanding of cell functions within tissues and is essential for studies in signaling, immunity, and cancer. We present spatial proximity sequencing (Sprox-seq) for simultaneous profiling of surface proteins, protein complexes, and mRNAs, recording the tissue location of each molecule. Sprox-seq profiled 32 proteins, 528 pairwise interactions, and thousands of mRNAs with spatial resolution across human tonsils and germinal centers. Mapping tissue-wide protein interactions recapitulated RNA-defined tissue architecture but also revealed higher interaction complexity in the light zone. Protein-interaction trajectories uncovered a B cell state transition distinct from that inferred by RNA. Integrated protein-complex and mRNA analysis related spatially enriched complexes with mitotic pathways. Sprox-seq captured cell-cell interactions, such as B cell-follicular dendritic cell interactions mediated by the receptor complex VLA-4-VCAM1. Sprox-seq provides a spatially resolved multi-modal view of cell states and an integrated study of protein and cellular interactions across tissues.

Humans

Streptococcal sore throat in general practice--a controlled study.

A controlled study was undertaken to determine the incidence of Group A haemolytic streptococci and other bacterial pathogens in throat swabs from patients presenting with sore throats. The isolation rate (38-8%) of Group A haemolytic streptococci from patients with acute tonsillitis was significantly higher than the isolation rate (8-9%) in a control group, but there was no significant difference in the isolation rates in patients diagnosed as having acute pharyngitis compared with the control group. There was no difference in the isolation rates of the other bacterial pathogens in the patient and control groups. In-vitro antibiotic studies were performed, and a comparison was made of the results of these tests and the treatment prescribed.

Acute Disease

Latent pseudorabies virus infection in pigs.

Latent infection with the TOP strain of pseudorabies virus (PRV) was established in 6 weeks old piglets. Infectious virus was found in oropharyngeal swabs till day 10 post infection (p.i.); later on, attempts to detect the virus remained unsuccessful. However, PRV could be isolated by explantation of tonsils, cervical lymph nodes, nasal mucosa and gasserian ganglia. These tissues were removed between 160 and 181 days p.i., during cultivation, infectious PRV was released into the culture fluid from the 3rd to the 11th day of the explantation. PRV antigen was seen by immunofluorescence only in explants coming from gasserian ganglia. It was localized in both neurons and satellite cells. In piglets given hydrocortisone before explantation, the number of virus-producing explants was not enhanced as compared to that of virus-producing explants from untreated animals.

Animals

Accurately Deciphering Tissue Heterogeneity From Spatial Multi-Modal and Multi-Omics With STransformer.

Advances in spatially resolved technologies enable the simultaneous acquisition of diverse data modalities within a tissue slice while preserving critical spatial context, which presents unprecedented opportunities to decipher intricate tissue heterogeneity. However, existing computational approaches lack the intrinsic flexibility to universally process both spatial multi-modal and multi-omics data. Here, we introduce STransformer, a unified deep learning framework designed to seamlessly accommodate a comprehensive landscape of spatial data. By simultaneously capturing short-range cellular interactions and tissue-wide semantic patterns, it extracts robust representations to accurately dissect complex tissue heterogeneity. Systematic evaluations across diverse species, tissue types, and data modalities highlight its profound versatility. For spatial multi-modal data, STransformer delineates intricate anatomical structures in the human cortex, uncovers pathological mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease, and characterizes dynamic spatiotemporal developmental trajectories during chicken cardiogenesis. Scaling to spatial multi-omics data, STransformer synergizes spatial transcriptomic and proteomic profiles to decipher intricate immune microenvironments within the human tonsil, and jointly analyzes spatial epigenomic and transcriptomic data to infer regulatory mechanisms in the mouse embryonic brain. Consequently, STransformer serves as a highly versatile and robust analytical framework for advancing our understanding of tissue heterogeneity and disease pathogenesis.

Multiomics

Chiari I malformation.

Chiari I malformation (CM1), the most common structural hindbrain disorder in humans, is traditionally characterized by the downward displacement of the cerebellar tonsils through the foramen magnum. However, this definition does not reflect the variability in clinical presentation, natural history and treatment response of this disorder. Some individuals with minimal tonsillar descent have severe neurological symptoms and syringomyelia, whereas others with extensive descent remain asymptomatic. Emerging evidence from neuroimaging, developmental biology and human genetics indicates that CM1 is not a single anatomical entity but a spectrum of disorders resulting from disruptions in coordinated growth and homeostasis across the cerebellum, posterior fossa, craniocervical junction, cerebrospinal fluid and neurovascular systems. CM1 may be best understood as a disorder of disrupted developmental scaling, in which the tightly regulated relationships between cerebellar growth and cranial accommodation are altered within a dynamic neurovascular and cerebrospinal fluid environment. In this context, tonsillar herniation is a geometric consequence rather than the primary disease process. This Primer synthesizes current knowledge on the epidemiology, mechanisms, diagnosis and management of CM1 across the lifespan. We highlight advances in neuroimaging, genomics and phenomics that support a shift from anatomy-based definitions towards an integrated genomic-phenomic classification.

Humans

ARCADIA reveals spatially dependent transcriptional programs through integration of scRNA-seq and spatial proteomics.

MOTIVATION: Cellular states are strongly influenced by spatial context, but single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) loses information about local tissue organization, while spatial proteomic assays capture limited marker panels that constrain transcriptomic inference. Integrating these modalities can elucidate how spatial niches shape transcriptional programs, yet existing approaches depend on either feature-level correspondence such as gene-protein linkage or cell-level barcode pairing, which is often unavailable. RESULTS: We present ARCADIA (ARchetype-based Clustering and Alignment with Dual Integrative Autoencoders), a generative framework for cross-modal integration that operates without cell barcode pairing and does not assume direct feature-to-feature correspondence. ARCADIA identifies modality-specific archetypes, that is, convex combinations of cells representing extreme phenotypic states, and aligns these anchors across modalities by minimizing the discrepancy between their cell-type composition profiles. The aligned archetypes define a shared coordinate system that anchors dual variational autoencoders (VAEs) trained with cross-modal geometric regularization, preserving archetype structure and spatial neighborhood information while enabling bidirectional translation between modalities. On semi-synthetic CITE-seq data, ARCADIA outperforms existing weak-linkage methods. Applied to independent human tonsil scRNA-seq and CODEX data, ARCADIA reconstructs known tissue architecture and reveals spatially dependent transcriptional programs linking B-cell maturation and T-cell activation or exhaustion to microenvironmental niches. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Source code is accessible at https://github.com/azizilab/ARCADIA_public. Reproducibility scripts and data are available at https://github.com/azizilab/arcadia_reproducibility.

Proteomics

Time-resolved mapping in calves reveals bovine herpesvirus 1 shift from mucosal replication to trigeminal ganglion neuroinvasion with promyelocytic leukemia protein-centered host-virus antagonism.

Although bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) causes massive losses of cattle, the transition from mucosal replication to neuroinvasion remains poorly understood. Using a controlled calf model, we integrated quantitative virology and transcriptomics to map its pathogenesis and define the role of promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML). Calves inoculated intranasally and ocularly (1.4 × 106 plaque-forming units/head) were sampled daily (1-14 days post-infection, dpi) for glycoprotein B (gB) qPCR. Tissues were analyzed at 4 and 14 dpi to measure viral DNA via gB-specific qPCR, and for mRNA-seq of trigeminal ganglia (TG). Shedding peaked at 3-6 dpi, being highest in nasal samples, lower in ocular samples, and substantially lower in rectal samples, and declined by 10-14 dpi. At 4 dpi, among the tissues sampled, the tonsils exhibited the highest viral burden. TG exhibited low viral levels at 4 dpi, although they remained detectable at 14 dpi, indicating neuroinvasion. The TG program shifted from early proteostasis priming (4 dpi) to immune/extracellular matrix activation with synaptic repression (14 dpi). In MDBK/Vero cells, IFN-α resulted in higher bovine PML (bPML) levels and enlarged PML nuclear bodies (PML-NBs), reducing very early viral DNA levels, whereas BoHV-1 disrupted PML-NB integrity. The different bPML isoforms exerted different effects on viral infection. STRING analysis revealed a conserved PML-SUMO1-UBE2I-DAXX-SP100 core. These findings delineate the mucosal-to-neuronal trajectory, establish PML as both an effector and viral target in complementary in vitro systems, and identify SUMO/ubiquitin-linked proteostasis as a tractable target for antiviral intervention.IMPORTANCEAlthough bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) remains a major challenge to cattle health, the early transition from mucosal replication to trigeminal neuroinvasion has not been clearly mapped in natural-host calves. By integrating daily shedding kinetics, tissue viral DNA profiling, and time-resolved trigeminal ganglion transcriptomics, we delineate when and how BoHV-1 reaches the sensory neurons. Promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML) is identified as a key intrinsic antiviral factor that is upregulated by IFN-α and restricts very early viral genome accumulation, while viral BoHV-1-encoded infected cell protein 0 actively dismantles PML nuclear bodies. The discovery of opposing isoform-specific PML functions and a conserved PML-SUMO proteostasis hub provides mechanistic insight into BoHV-1 immune evasion. These findings refine our understanding of the mucosal-to-neuronal trajectory of infection and highlight proteostasis-linked antiviral pathways as promising targets for intervention.

Animals

Systematic comparison of quantity and quality of RNA recovered with commercial FFPE tissue extraction kits.

BACKGROUND: FFPE tissue samples are commonly used in biomedical research and are a valuable source for next-generation sequencing in oncology, however, extracting RNA from these samples can be difficult the quantity and quality achieved can impact the downstream analysis. This study compared the effectiveness of seven different commercially available RNA extraction kits specifically designed for use with FFPE samples in terms of the quantity and quality of RNA recovered. METHODS: This study used 9 samples of FFPE tissue from three different types of tissue (Tonsil, Appendix and lymph node of B-cell lymphoma) to evaluate RNA extraction methods. Three sections of 20 µm of each sample were combined per sample. The slices were distributed in a systematic manner to prevent any biases. Each of the 7 commercially available RNA extraction kits were used according to manufacturer's instructions, with each sample being tested in triplicate resulting in a total of 189 extractions. The concentration, RNA quality score (RQS) and DV200 of each extraction was analysed using a nucleic acid analyser to determine the quantity and quality of the recovered RNA. RESULTS: This study found that despite processing the FFPE samples in the same standardized way, there were disparities in the quantity and quality of RNA recovered across the different tissue types. Additionally, the study found notable differences in the quantity of RNA recovered when using different extraction kits. In terms of quality, three of the kits performed better than the other four in terms of RQS and DV200 values. CONCLUSION: Though many laboratories have developed their own protocols for specific tissue types, using commercially available kits is still a popular option. Although these kits use similar processes and extraction procedures, the amount and quality of RNA obtained can vary greatly between kits. In this study, among the kits tested, while the Roche kit, provided a nearly systematic better-quality recovery than other kits, the ReliaPrep FFPE Total RNA miniprep from Promega yielded the best ratio of both quantity and quality on the tested tissue samples.

Paraffin Embedding

SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination elicit distinct pharyngeal mucosal B cell responses in children.

Mucosal immunity is an important correlate of protection against respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2. Comparing B cell responses in the upper respiratory tract following vaccination and infection may offer unique insights into mucosal immunity. Here, we characterized antigen-specific B cells in the tonsils, adenoids, and peripheral blood of children who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccinated with SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. SARS-CoV-2-specific switched memory B cells (BSM) and germinal center B cells were found in the blood and pharyngeal lymphoid tissues after vaccination or infection. However, infection generated a higher proportion of IgA+ BSM and CXCR3+CD21+ BSM, which showed distinct spatial localization, greater clonal expansion and increased propensity for plasma cell differentiation compared to their CXCR3- counterparts, accompanied by persistent activation of innate and T follicular helper cells in the tissues. Our data provide evidence for tissue-specific B cell memory after either SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection, but with distinct characteristics that can influence the quality, durability, and localization of immunity.

Journal Article

The Association of Allergic Rhinitis with Chronic Adenotonsillar Diseases and Chronic Rhinosinusitis: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

INTRODUCTION: Allergic rhinitis (AR) has long been considered to be associated with chronic adenotonsillar disease (CATD). However, their causal relationship remains unclear. This study aims to investigate the causal relationship between AR and CATD and to examine the mediating role of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) in this association. METHODS: This study employed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) design using genetic instrumental variable analysis. Data for allergic rhinitis (AR) were obtained from the MRC IEU OpenGWAS data infrastructure, data for chronic adenotonsillar disease (CATD) from the FinnGen biobank, and data for chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) from the GWAS Catalog. Several MR methods were applied. In addition, a two-step MR approach was used to investigate the mediating role of CRS in the relationship between AR and CATD. RESULTS: MR analysis identified a positive correlation between AR and CATD. IVW and weighted median analyses showed significant causal effects (beta = 0.55, 95% CI: 0.26 to 0.84); p <0.001). No causal association was found between CATD and AR. AR and CRS showed a positive correlation (beta = 1.38, 95% CI: 0.78 to 1.98; p = 6.5 &#xd7; 10-6). CRS had a beta value of 0.15 (95% CI: 0.06 to 0.24; p = 0.001) for CATD. CRS mediates 37.6% of the AR to CATD pathway (mediation effect = 0.20, 95% CI: 0.04 to 0.37; p = 0.013). DISCUSSION: These findings indicate that AR may contribute to CATD risk through CRS, highlighting the need for further research to explore underlying biological mechanisms and validate these findings. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests a positive causal relationship between AR and CATD, with CRS acting as a mediator.

Mendelian Randomization Analysis