Diagnosis of congenital aneurysmal giant right auricle in a dog.

A five-year-old intact male Golden Retriever was sent to our center for a second cardiac evaluation after the diagnosis of right atrial dilatation. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiographic evaluation and echo-contrast study were performed. A diagnosis of aneurysmal right auricle was issued without any sign of other cardiac pathologies. The tomographic evaluation was necessary to estimate the dimension of the aneurysmal area and exclude pericardial defects that may justify this anomaly. This report describes a rare case of aneurysmal giant right auricle in dogs. The diagnosis is accurate with the association of echocardiography and computed tomography.

Acute pulmonary edema in a dog with severe pulmonary valve stenosis: A rare complication after balloon valvuloplasty.

Pulmonic stenosis is a frequent congenital heart disease in dogs, and the treatment of choice is balloon valvuloplasty which is usually safe and successful. The authors describe for the first time a severe complication after balloon valvuloplasty in a five-month-old dog. After effective treatment, with a considerable drop in right ventricular pressures, the dog developed hypoxemia and dyspnea due to pulmonary edema. The dog underwent intensive care and symptoms improved after a few hours of oxygen therapy, continuous positive airway pressure, and furosemide. Although this event is rare, it could have a large impact on patient survival and should be considered in the treatment of severe pulmonary valve stenosis in the future.

First evidence for the presence of aquaporins in stallion sperm.

Aquaporins (AQPs) are transmembrane proteins found in all cells and are responsible for the transport of water and small solutes. While these proteins have been found in the spermatozoa of humans, rodents, pigs and cattle, where not only do they play a role for the regulation of sperm volume but are also related with the sperm resilience to withstand freeze-thawing procedures, their presence in stallion sperm is yet to be reported. Therefore, the objectives of this work were as follows: (i) to determine whether AQP3, AQP7 and AQP11 are present in stallion sperm and (ii) to investigate whether the relative amounts of these three AQPs play any role in the cryopreservation success. With this purpose, a total of five ejaculates from healthy stallions were collected. Evaluation of sperm quality and immunoblotting against these three proteins were performed before and after cryopreservation. Immunoblots confirmed the presence of AQP3, AQP7 and AQP11 in all examined samples. Subsequently, ejaculates were classified as GFE (good) and PFE (poor freezability ejaculates), according to their sperm viability and motility at 0 and 2 hr post-thaw. Relative AQP3 and AQP11 contents in stallion fresh semen were found to be significantly (p < .05) higher in GFE than in PFE. In conclusion, the current study has confirmed, for the first time, the presence of AQP3, AQP7 and AQP11 in stallion sperm. In addition, despite preliminary, our results suggest that AQP3 and AQP11 are involved in the resilience of stallion sperm to withstand cryopreservation. Ongoing research is aimed at increasing the sample size and includes immunolocalization studies.

Transrectal ultrasonographic evaluation of combined utero-placental thickness during the last half of pregnancy in Martina Franca donkeys.

In the recent years, the donkey population decreased dramatically so that many breeds are presently considered as endangered. In comparison to the horse, the donkey placenta still remains not completely studied. In the horse, one of the diagnostic tools useful to identify pregnant mares at risk of abortion or premature delivery, include the transrectal ultrasound examination of the uterus and its contents; and especially of the combined thickness of the uterus and of the placenta (CUPT). Since the CUPT was never investigated in donkeys, the present study was aimed to define the transrectal CUPT values during the last half of pregnancy in 20 Martina Franca jennies. Foalings times, foals characteristics and placental gross appearance, and measurements were also evaluated and values resulted always within normality. Differently to the mare, a continuous significant CUPT increase between the sixth to the 12 months of pregnancy, and a substantial increase from the ninth to the 12th month of pregnancy, was found. Although statistically not evaluable, the CUPT values recorded from three jennies with pregnancy loss did not show evidence of CUPT increases. In conclusion, normal CUPT values from the sixth to the 12th month of pregnancy in Martina Franca donkeys are provided, but further investigations are needed to define possible breed or body-size CUPT specific differences, as well as the CUPT values during pregnancy disturbances or placental abnormalities.

Characteristics of frozen epididymal spermatozoa from stallions that died 12 to 36 hours after colic surgery.

Equine spermatozoa from the cauda epididymis were previously collected and frozen, and the fertility was assessed. Most studies were performed on healthy stallions that had undergone routine castration or on the epididymis collected at the abattoir, but there are no studies on the quality of epididymal semen in subjects which have died from colic or which underwent intensive care. The present study was designed to verify whether a severe illness could affect epididymal semen quality and freezability in the stallion. Therefore, epididymal semen characteristics during the freezing process in stallions which had died from colic and in healthy stallions submitted to elective castration were compared. Five stallions that had died from colic (ill stallions [ISs]) and seven stallions that had undergone elective castration (healthy stallions) were castrated, and cauda epididymis spermatozoa were collected and processed. Sperm quality was tested after collection, after washing procedures, at the end of the equilibration (5 °C for 75 minutes), and after freezing/thawing. Sperm quality was measured by objective motility characteristics, membrane and acrosome integrity, and mitochondrial activity. After collection, sperm in ISs showed low kinetic parameters (total motility: 17.3 ± 3%, progressive motility: 6 ± 1%, average path velocity: 57.4 ± 35.4 µm/s, straightness: 74.2%) compared with healthy stallions (total motility: 90.8 ± 3.7%, progressive motility: 70 ± 4%, average path velocity: 118.1 ± 12.6 µm/s, straightness: 82.4%) but demonstrated similar membrane and acrosome integrity (85 ± 2.8% vs. 87.6 ± 3.1%). Sperm kinetic parameters increased after washing procedures and cooling in ISs, reaching comparable values after equilibration (5 °C for 75 minutes) and freezing/thawing. The data reported in this study suggest that the quality of the equine epididymal spermatozoa cryopreserved in stallions that had died from colic was similar to that reported in epididymal sperm after elective castration and was also similar to the data reported in literature for cryopreserved equine semen.

Microcirculation in the healing of surgical wounds in the oral cavity.

The aim of this research is to evaluate in vivo the characteristics of microcirculation after taking a biopsy sample from the oral mucosa. 20 patients were recruited to the study and all underwent an oral mucosa biopsy for the excision of benign neoformations. The modifications in the oral microcirculation were evaluated in vivo in correspondence to the surgical site through videocapillaroscopy at three different times: 30 min before the biopsy; 48 h after the biopsy; and 7 days after the biopsy. The statistical significance was checked with the Mann-Whitney U-test (P<0.05). The analysis of videocapillaroscopic patterns showed statistically significant variations relative to the capillary loop density; the diameter of the outgoing loop; and the length of the capillary loop. In conclusion, the study describes a simple and reproducible model for the study of wound healing from a microcirculatory point of view.

6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase: suiting structure to need, in a family of tissue-specific enzymes.

The present review addresses recent advances in research into a family of bifunctional enzymes that are responsible for the twofold task of synthesizing and hydrolyzing fructose-2,6-bisphosphate (Fru-2,6-P2), which in turn regulates the rate of glycolysis in most cells. The structure of the synthetic kinase, conjoined at its carboxyl-terminus to the phosphatase, is very highly conserved throughout evolution and differentiation, with isotypic expression arising from highly variable amino-terminal and carboxyl-terminal regulatory domains. These domains, which frequently contain protein-kinase-catalyzed phosphorylation motifs, are responsible for the widely divergent kinetics observed in various tissues and species, and for the hormonal modulation that alters intracellular levels of Fru-2,6-P2. The present review discusses recent advances in relating structure to function, and the identification of new pathways of transcriptional regulation of this important family of regulatory enzymes.

[Recent advances in diagnosis of Sjogren's syndrome]. / Recenti acquisizioni nella diagnosi della sindrome di Sjogren.

In this paper the authors review the classification and the clinical features of primary and secondary Sjogren's syndrome. Particular attention in focused on differential diagnosis, on clinical examination of the patients with chronic xerostomia and on its functional and pathological sequelae: rampant dental caries and oral candidiasis. Advanced in diagnostic procedures are described: salivary flow rate, salivary gland scintigraphy, parotid and submandibular scialography, Schirmer's test, Rose Bengal staining, minor salivary gland biopsy and serum immunological examinations. The relationships between scintigraphic and histologic result are discussed. The clinical features and the course of the disease provide further insight into the immunological pathogenesis of this syndrome.