Early diagnosis and management rely on history and physical examination. Delay in treatment may allow progression of paralysis, protracted hospitalization and deaths of long-term mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit care. The clinicians must take this disease into consideration of a possible outbreak. Awaiting laboratory confirmation is an egregious error, while awareness of the clinical sign and symptoms of botulism is critical for early diagnosis. Rapid management and followed public health surveillance may greatly alleviate disease severity and decrease mortality rates.

It has been shown that aging can greatly influence the integrity and ultrastructure of white matter and the myelin sheath; however, studies regarding the effects of aging on the expression of myelin proteins are still limited. In the present study, immunohistochemical mapping was used to investigate the overall expression of myelin basic protein (Mbp) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (Mog) in the central nervous system (CNS) of rats in postnatal months 2, 5, 18 and 26. Astrocyte and microglia activation was also detected by glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) or ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule 1 (Iba1) staining and western blotting. A significant decline of Mbp and Mog was identified as a universal alteration in the CNS of aged rats. Aging also induced significant astrocyte and microglial activation. Correlation analysis indicated a negative correlation between the reduction of age‑related myelin proteins and glial activation in aging. This correlation of myelin breakdown and glial activation in aging may reveal new evidence in connecting the inflammation and myelin breakdown mechanism of age‑related neurodegenerative diseases.

Regulatory T cell (Treg) is a subset of CD4(+) T cells that play a critical role in regulating the immune responses. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is associated with T cell abnormalities and alters effector T cell function. There are a large number of patients coinfected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV). Here, we evaluated the proportion of CD4(+) Treg cells expressing CD25 and FOXP3, and the status of immune activation of CD8(+) T cells in 60 Chinese patients chronically infected with HIV and/or HCV. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on the level of Treg cells and immune activated CD8(+) T cells. We observed that the Treg level was upregulated in HIV infection and HCV infection could not enhance this kind of upregulation significantly. The level of Treg cells was negatively correlated with CD4(+) T cell counts and positively correlated with HIV viral loads. We observed considerably elevated CD38 and HLA-DR expression in CD8(+) T cells in HIV-infected subjects but not in HCV-infected patients in comparison to that in healthy controls. There is no significant difference concerning the proportion of CD8(+) T cells expressing CD38 or HLA-DR between HIV-1-monoinfected and HIV/HCV-coinfected patients. After 12-week HAART, the proportion of Treg cells dropped, but still more than the level in healthy controls. HAART could reverse the abnormal immune activation of CD8(+) T cells. The decrease of Tregs did not alter the downregulation of HIV-1-specific CTL responses in these HIV-infected patients after HAART therapy. The level of HIV virus might be the key point for the decline of CTL responses.

Background COVID-19 is novel infectious disease with an evolving understanding of its epidemiology and clinical manifestations. Severe cases developed life-threatening complications, such as respiratory failure, shock, and multiple organs dysfunction. Immunocompromised patients often present atypical presentations of viral infected diseases. Case presentation We report newly diagnosed HIV infections in two patients with COVID-19 in China. In our two cases, both patients with elevated IL-6 received Tocilizumab treatment, but did not present obvious therapeutic effect. Conclusions These cases highlight possible co-detection of known immunocompromised diseases such as HIV. The two cases we reported stressed the risk of misdiagnosis, especially during the pandemic of an infectious disease and the importance of extended testing even if in immune-compromised condition the immune state may be ignored.

Enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma (EATL) is a rare gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, originating from intraepithelial T-lymphocyte, which is specifically associated with celiac disease. EATL most commonly presents in the sixth and seventh decades of life. We report a unique case of type I EATL in the colon with liver metastasis, which was presented with nonspecific radiological findings and at a very young age (29 years old) compared with previously published data. We suggest that EATL should be regarded as part of differential diagnosis in any patient presenting with abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, and malabsorption because delay in treatment can result in an irreversible clinical outcome.