Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0019209 (hepatomegaly)
 5,798 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Toxocara canis is a nematode of the Ascaridae family that normally parasites the small intestine of canid species. Humans are accidentally infected upon ingestion of embryonated eggs, and can manifest several clinical alterations such as fever, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, respiratory symptoms, muscle pain and anorexia. In the present work, we investigated the kinetics of tissue distribution of L2 larva in lungs, liver, kidney, brain, skeletal muscle and myocardium. Also, we analyzed the blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL) for levels of IL-6, IFN-gamma, eotaxin and Regulated on Activation Normal T Cell Expressed and Secreted (RANTES) in experimental murine T. canis infection. We observed liver, lung and kidney lesions correlated to larva migration as early as the first day of infection. After the seventh post-infection day, larva could also be detected in brain, skeletal muscle and heart, as an indicator of biphasic migration pattern. Increased inflammatory activity was detected in BAL and plasma of infected animals, as was an intense eosinophil migration associated with an increase in the levels of all the cytokines studied. In conclusion, our results establish a tight correlation between tissue lesions caused by larva migration and increased plasma levels of pro-inflammatory and eosinophil chemotactic cytokines. Thus, murine T. canis infection may prove to be useful in understanding the role of cytokines in infection.
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PMID:Influence of murine Toxocara canis infection on plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid eosinophil numbers and its correlation with cytokine levels. 1616 64

While the impact of the dengue viruses on liver function is prominent as shown by hepatomegaly, liver enzyme abnormality, occasional fulminant hepatic failure and histological changes including hepatocellular necrosis, significant debate exists as to the possible involvement of the predominant cell type in the liver, hepatocytes, in the disease process. To address this issue purified human primary hepatocytes were exposed to dengue virus serotype 2 and the production of de novo viral progeny was established by standard plaque assay, RT-PCR and immunocytochemistry. To investigate the response of the primary hepatocytes to infection, the expression of a panel of 9 cytokine genes (IFN-beta, TRAIL, MCP-1, IL-6, IL-1beta, IL-8, MIP-1alpha, MIP-1beta, and RANTES) was semi-quantitatively investigated by RT-PCR and up-regulation of TRAIL, MIP-1alpha, IFN-beta, MIP-1beta, IL-8, and RANTES was observed in response to infection. The induction of IL-8 in response to infection was accompanied by the secretion of IL-8 as verified by ELISA assay. The ability of hepatocytes to be infected with dengue virus serotype 2 in vitro support evidence implicating human hepatocytes as a target cell in cases of dengue virus infection, and provide the first experimental evidence to support the large number of clinical studies that implicate the liver as a critical target organ in severe cases of dengue infection.
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PMID:Infection of human primary hepatocytes with dengue virus serotype 2. 1724 28