Mast cells (MCs) are skin-resident immune cells whose role in leishmaniasis has been recently explored. Researchers report varying inferences, that is, mast cells promote, eliminate, or have no role in leishmaniasis. This article discusses this heterogeneity in mast cell roles to facilitate potential therapeutic and vaccine interventions for these diseases.

High-quality leadership is often regarded as one of the main sources of competitive advantage. Especially within sport teams, a team’s leadership structure has historically been considered to be stable across the season, with the coach and team captain as the formal, and often sole, leaders. In line with recent organizational research, the present study aims to broaden this perspective by also taking informal leaders into account and exploring how leadership structures among athletes within sport teams evolve over the course of a season.

Using social network analysis, we analyzed the leadership structure of 20 semi-professional soccer teams (N=460 players, M

=23.50 years; SD=4.55) at the start of the season and then again halfway through the season. More specifically, for each team we constructed a leadership network for four leadership roles (task, motivational, social, and external leadership) at these two time points.

Findings suggest that leadership structures in sport teams can change considerably over the course of the competitive season, thereby challenging the classic view of stable, vertical leadership structures. The transition to more shared forms of leadership can be attributed to the emergence of informal leaders over time as players engage more strongly in leadership roles. Furthermore, our results suggest that as teams evolve towards shared leadership their functioning and performance benefits from these changes.

Based on these findings, we recommend that coaches actively implement a structure of shared leadership and seek to develop the leadership qualities of formal and informal athlete leaders.

Based on these findings, we recommend that coaches actively implement a structure of shared leadership and seek to develop the leadership qualities of formal and informal athlete leaders.

Patients with advanced lung cancer experience high physical symptom burden with substantial psychological distress. Depressive and anxiety symptoms are common and associated with worse quality of life (QoL). Early palliative care (EPC) addresses the complex supportive care needs improving QoL and mood. The mechanisms of EPC are uncertain. We examined whether and how coping strategy, a primary component of EPC, influenced QoL in these patients.

We conducted a multicenter cross-sectional study of patients with advanced lung cancer. A total of 125 patients completed assessments of QoL (QLQ-C15-PAL), depressive and anxiety symptoms (HADS), and coping (brief COPE questionnaire). The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. To determine whether and how coping strategy influences QoL, correlations and logistic regressions were performed.

Positive reframing correlates significantly with global QoL (r= 0.25, P< .01), emotional well-being (r= 0.33, P< .01), pain (r=-0.30, P< .01), fatigue (r=-0.22, otional well-being. Providing skills to cope effectively could impact QoL in these patients.

Encephalopathy is a major neurological complication of severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), but has not been fully defined yet. Further, it remains unclear whether neurological manifestations are primarily due to neurotropism of the virus, or indirect effects, like cerebral hypoxia.

We analysed the electroencephalograms (EEGs) of 19 consecutive patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, performed at peak disease severity as part of their clinical management. Disease severity, respiratory failure, immune and metabolic dysfunction, sedation status, and neurological examination on the day of the EEG were noted.

Severe encephalopathy was confirmed in 13 patients, all with severe COVID-19; 10 remained comatose off sedation, and five of them had alpha coma (AC). Disease severity, sedation, immune and metabolic dysfunction were not different between those with AC and those without.

Severe COVID-19 encephalopathy is a principal cause of persisting coma after sedation withdrawal. The relatively high incidence of the rare AC pattern may reflect direct SARS-CoV-2 neurotropism with a predilection for the brainstem ascending reticular system.

Systematic early EEG detection of encephalopathy related to severe COVID-19 is important for the acute care and the management of long-term neurological and cognitive sequelae, and may help our better understanding of its pathophysiology.

Systematic early EEG detection of encephalopathy related to severe COVID-19 is important for the acute care and the management of long-term neurological and cognitive sequelae, and may help our better understanding of its pathophysiology.Sperm cells undergo maturation during their transit throughout the epididymis. This process takes place in region-specific manner in which sperm are battered by proteins secreted by epithelium lining the epididymal duct. Most of the genes that encode for the proteins involved in the sperm maturation remain uncharacterized. Previous studies showed that family of β-defensins preferentially eaxpressed in male reproductive tracts and play an important role in both innate immunity and sperm fertility. In this study we characterized Defb20 to gain insight on its role in sperm maturation. Bioinformatic tools were used to analyzed functional domains and signal peptide. qRT-PCR analyses were used to analyzed tissue distribution, dependency on androgen and testicular factors and developmental-regulated expression analysis. Defb20 sequence contains important domains such as N-myristoilation and kinase binding sites which are putatively involved in the protein activation and protein-plasma membrane interaction. Moreover, DEFB20 contains a signal peptide indicating characteristic of secretory proteins. Defb20 was expressed exclusively in the epididymis with the highest expression in the caput region and was down-regulated by gonadectomy. Defb20 was also regulated by testicular factors in which the expression was down-regulated after efferent duct ligation (EDL). The dependency on the androgen was further confirmed by postnatal expression analysis in which Defb20 began to express at day-20 postnatal indicating specific stage of expression after initial development of the testis. In conclusion, Defb20 have a potential to be involved in the epididymal sperm maturation process.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICPI) have improved progression-free survival in several solid tumors. Side effects are related to overstimulation of the immune system. Thyroid dysfunction (TD) is the most common endocrine immune-related adverse event of ICPI.

To describe the clinical presentation and the course of TD in cancer patients treated with ICPI referred to an endocrinology outpatient clinic.

This was a descriptive, retrospective and multicenter study of patients with TD associated with ICPI in six Spanish hospitals.

120 patients (50.8% women), mean age 60±12 years were included. The initial TD was hypothyroidism in 49% of patients and hyperthyroidism in 51%, with an average of 76 (41-140) and 43 (26-82) days respectively between the onset of ICPI and the analytical alteration. Significantly, the earlier the first analytical determination was, the greater the prevalence of hyperthyroidism. A turnover was observed in 80% of subjects during follow-up, mostly from hyperthyroidism to hypothyroidismis should be taken into account in the follow-up protocols of these patients.INPP5K (Inositol Polyphosphate 5-Phosphatase K, or SKIP (for Skeletal muscle and Kidney enriched Inositol Phosphatase) is a member of the phosphoinositide 5-phosphatases family. Its protein structure is comprised of a N-terminal catalytic domain which hydrolyses both PtdIns(4,5)P2 and PtdIns(3,4,5)P3, followed by a SKICH domain at the C-terminus which is responsible for protein-protein interactions and subcellular localization of INPP5K. Strikingly, INPP5K is mostly concentrated in the endoplasmic reticulum, although it is also detected at the plasma membrane, in the cytosol and the nucleus. Recently, mutations in INPP5K have been detected in patients with a rare form of autosomal recessive congenital muscular dystrophy with cataract, short stature and intellectual disability. INPP5K functions extend from control of insulin signaling, endoplasmic reticulum stress response and structural integrity, myoblast differentiation, cytoskeleton organization, cell adhesion and migration, renal osmoregulation, to cancer. The goal of this review is thus to summarize and comment recent and less recent data in the literature on INPP5K, in particular on the structure, expression, intracellular localization, interactions and functions of this specific member of the 5-phosphatases family.

Patients with refractory or relapsed lymphoma diagnosed with bulky disease at relapse or with residual disease after salvage treatment are considered to have a dismal outcome, even after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation, as a result of disease recurrence. To minimize the risk of relapse after receipt of a transplant, involved-field radiotherapy (IFRT) to sites of either bulky or localized residual disease has been utilized; however, the ideal timing for irradiation remains controversial. The aim of this study was to assess the safety and efficacy of IFRT in the early period after transplantation.

We retrospectively evaluated the outcome of 24 autografted patients with relapsed/refractory lymphoma who presented with bulky disease at relapse or who had a persistent localized residual mass after salvage treatment and consolidated with IFRT within 4 months after autografting.

No significant toxicity was noticed during the early postradiotherapy period, while graft function was not impaired. After a median follow-up of 3 years for survivors, 21 patients were alive, 19 of whom were event free, while 2 patients died of disease recurrence and 1 died of treatment-related myelodysplastic syndrome. The 3-year overall, lymphoma relapse-free, and event-free survival rates were 86%, 86%, and 82%, respectively.

Taking into consideration the poor-risk features of the study cohort, IFRT provided early after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation showed a safe and well-tolerated toxicity profile and demonstrated long-term effective tumor control, as reflected in the promising survival rates.

Taking into consideration the poor-risk features of the study cohort, IFRT provided early after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation showed a safe and well-tolerated toxicity profile and demonstrated long-term effective tumor control, as reflected in the promising survival rates.

The role of haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo-HSCT) for children with intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia (IR-AML) in first complete remission has been controversial. The present study compared the effect of chemotherapy with unmanipulated haplo-HSCT as treatment of patients with IR-AML in first complete remission (CR1).

We retrospectively analyzed the outcomes of 80 children with IR-AML and compared the effects of chemotherapy (n= 47) with those of haplo-HSCT (n= 33) as treatment in CR1.

The 3-year overall survival, event-free survival (EFS), and cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) was 85.4% ±4.1%, 73.2% ± 5.0%, and 25.4% ± 4.5%, respectively. Compared with the chemotherapy group, the patients in the haplo-HSCT group had a lower CIR (P= .059) and better EFS (P= .108), but roughly equivalent overall survival (P=.841). Multivariate analysis revealed chemotherapy and minimal residual disease (MRD) of≥ 10

after induction therapy as independent risk factors affecting CIR and EFS.