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Species of Scedosporium and Lomentospora are considered as emerging opportunists, affecting immunosuppressed and otherwise debilitated patients, although classically they are known from causing trauma-associated infections in healthy individuals. Clinical manifestations range from local infection to pulmonary colonization and severe invasive disease, in which mortality rates may be over 80%. These unacceptably high rates are due to the clinical status of patients, diagnostic difficulties, and to intrinsic antifungal resistance of these fungi. In consequence, several consortia have been founded to increase research efforts on these orphan fungi. The current review presents recent findings and summarizes the most relevant points, including the Scedosporium/Lomentospora taxonomy, environmental distribution, epidemiology, pathology, virulence factors, immunology, diagnostic methods, and therapeutic strategies.

Biological effects of vasopressin (VP) are mediated by four different receptors, two of which (the V1a and the oxytocin receptors) have been well characterized in the rodent brain, suggesting that these are the main receptors responsible for the central effects of VP. However, transcripts of the V1b VP receptor (V1bR) have been detected throughout the rat brain by RT-PCR and in situ hybridization, indicating that the V1bR adds to the population of central VP receptors. Because there are no specific ligands for the V1bR, the receptor protein itself has been difficult to visualize. In the present study, the distribution of the V1bR protein was investigated in the rat forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, and cerebellum by immunohistochemistry using an antiserum raised against a synthetic fragment of the carboxylterminal of the rat V1bR protein. Immunohistochemistry revealed the presence of the V1bR in pituitary corticotrophs as expected. In naive, untreated rats, fiber networks containing V1bR-immunoreactivity were mainly concentrated in the hypothalamus, amygdala, cerebellum, and particularly in those areas with a leaky blood brain barrier or close to the circumventricular organs (medial habenula, subfornical organ, organum vasculosum laminae terminalis, median eminence, and nuclei lining to the third and fourth ventricles). A strikingly dense network was present in the external zone of the median eminence. Colchicine treatment was required to reveal the localization of V1bR-immunoreactive cell bodies. V1bR-containing cell bodies and associated protrusions were mainly located in the hippocampus, caudate putamen, cortex, thalamus, olfactory bulb, and cerebellum. These results demonstrate the widespread distribution of the V1bR protein in the rat brain over multiple, functionally distinct neuronal systems. These data suggest that the V1bR mediates different physiological functions of VP in the brain.

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There is currently increasing concern about the relation between microbial infections and cancer. More and more studies support the view that there is an association, above all, when the causal agents are bacteria or viruses. This review adds to this, summarizing evidence that the opportunistic fungus Candida albicans increases the risk of carcinogenesis and metastasis. Until recent years, Candida spp. had fundamentally been linked to cancerous processes as it is an opportunist pathogen that takes advantage of the immunosuppressed state of patients particularly due to chemotherapy. In contrast, the most recent findings demonstrate that C. albicans is capable of promoting cancer by several mechanisms, as described in the review: production of carcinogenic byproducts, triggering of inflammation, induction of Th17 response and molecular mimicry. We underline the need not only to control this type of infection during cancer treatment, especially given the major role of this yeast species in nosocomial infections, but also to find new therapeutic approaches to avoid the pro-tumor effect of this fungal species.

We prove that the known formulae for computing the optimal number of maximally entangled pairs required for entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes (EAQECCs) over the binary field hold for codes over arbitrary finite fields as well. We also give a Gilbert-Varshamov bound for EAQECCs and constructions of EAQECCs coming from punctured self-orthogonal linear codes which are valid for any finite field.2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 81P70; 94B65; 94B05.

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