The ERM (ezrin, radixin and moesin) family members, located just beneath the plasma membranes, are thought to be involved in the association of action filaments with the plasma membrane. One of the family members, moesin, is reported to bind to CD44. Splice variants of CD44 are thought to be associated with tumour progression or differentiation. Our aim was to investigate immunohistochemically the expression of moesin together with CD44 on paraffin tissue sections of a series of melanocytic tumours. The material included 12 ordinary melanocytic naevi, six Spitz naevi, eight dysplastic naevi, six blue naevi, seven malignant melanomas in situ, 15 primary malignant melanomas, five metastatic melanomas to the skin and five lymph node metastases. In the normal skin and the melanocytic tumours the expression of moesin was largely similar to that of CD44 standard. Strong moesin staining was observed in benign melanocytic lesions and melanomas in situ. However, the expression was decreased in advanced malignant melanomas. The moesin labelling in melanoma cells was downregulated with the depth of dermal invasion. The immunoreactivity was also diminished in the skin metastases and the lymph node metastases of melanoma. These results suggest that in melanocytic tumours, the alternation in the expression of moesin may be involved in the progression of malignancy.
Bacterial adherence to dense hydroxyapatite (HA) and titanium (Ti) rods was examined in vitro using Streptococcus constellatus ATCC27832. Streptoccus constellatus is associated with dental abscess and was isolated from the peri-implantitis. The dense HA was etched with 5% hydrofluoric acid for 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 s Adherence to the untreated dense HA was twice as high as the adherence to the Ti. The adherence to saliva-treated Ti was 13% higher than that to untreated Ti. The adherence was increased by acid-treatment of the dense HA, following a sigmoid curve from 20 to 50 s of treatment time. The dense HA has the capacity to receive more bacterial adherence than Ti and furthermore, the etched dense HA becomes more adherent.
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