A key to the larvae of Sialidae (Insecta: Megaloptera) occurring in the British Isles

SUMMARY. The discovery of a third species of alderfly ( Sialis nigripes ) in Britain and Ireland necessitates a new larval key for the group in these islands. Characters are now provided to distinguish the larvae of the three species, and their habitat and distribution in the British Isles are outlined.     

Origin of PHA-responsive Cells in the Mouse Thymus after Treatment of the Animal with Hydrocortisone

AFTER treatment of mice with corticosteroids, the number of cells in the thymus is greatly reduced. However, on a cell to cell basis, these cells are more competent to cause graft versus host reactions and to cooperate with ? cells in antibody responses, than are thymus cells from normal animals^1–6. We are primarily concerned here with the origin of the corticosteroid resistant cells.     

A new actinolepid arthrodire (Class Placodermi) from the Lower Devonian Sevy Dolomite, East-Central Nevada

A new genus and species of actinolepid arthrodire, Aleosteus eganensis , is described from the Lower Devonian (Late Emsian) Sevy Dolomite in the Egan Range of east-central Nevada. A cladistic analysis of the family Actinolepidae is presented for the first time and shows the Baltic Actinolepis species form the primitive sister-group of all other actinolepids. Rapid evolution of the Actinolepidae during the Lochkovian is reflected in the dispersal of the family around the Old Red Sandstone Continent at this time followed by the development of endemic faunas through the Lower Devonian and into the Middle Devonian.     

Discriminating lymphomas and reactive lymphadenopathy in lymph node biopsies by gene expression profiling

Background

Diagnostic accuracy of lymphoma, a heterogeneous cancer, is essential for patient management. Several ancillary tests including immunophenotyping, and sometimes cytogenetics and PCR are required to aid histological diagnosis. In this proof of principle study, gene expression microarray was evaluated as a single platform test in the differential diagnosis of common lymphoma subtypes and reactive lymphadenopathy (RL) in lymph node biopsies.

Methods

116 lymph node biopsies diagnosed as RL, classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL), diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) or follicular lymphoma (FL) were assayed by mRNA microarray. Three supervised classification strategies (global multi-class, local binary-class and global binary-class classifications) using diagonal linear discriminant analysis was performed on training sets of array data and the classification error rates calculated by leave one out cross-validation. The independent error rate was then evaluated by testing the identified gene classifiers on an independent (test) set of array data.

Results

The binary classifications provided prediction accuracies, between a subtype of interest and the remaining samples, of 88.5%, 82.8%, 82.8% and 80.0% for FL, cHL, DLBCL, and RL respectively. Identified gene classifiers include LIM domain only-2 (LMO2), Chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 22 (CCL22) and Cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor-3 (CDK3) specifically for FL, cHL and DLBCL subtypes respectively.

Conclusions

This study highlights the ability of gene expression profiling to distinguish lymphoma from reactive conditions and classify the major subtypes of lymphoma in a diagnostic setting. A cost-effective single platform "mini-chip" assay could, in principle, be developed to aid the quick diagnosis of lymph node biopsies with the potential to incorporate other pathological entities into such an assay.