Vol 23, No 1 (2023)

This part of the review focuses on the proposed involvement of the gut microbiota in the realization of the genetic risk of multiple sclerosis, the formation of the intestinal microbiome in early life, and provides data supporting the hypothesis that aberrant formation of the intestinal microbiota in early life may be a predisposing factor to multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: There is a high need for drugs to reduce the side effects of radiation exposure on people in extreme, military, marine, space medicine, at nuclear facilities, in hematology and oncology.

AIM: To evaluate the antiradiation efficacy of beta-D-glucan derived from Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) after total body irradiation of mice in terms of survival and hematopoiesis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted on a mouse model of the acute radiation hematopoietic syndrome caused by exposure to X-rays. Radioprotective effect of intragastrically administered beta-D-glucan derived from Pleurotus ostreatus at a dose of 500 mg/kg was studied. The parameters of the 30-day survival of irradiated mice were analyzed using the Kaplan–Meyer method. Dose reduction factor of X-ray radiation was calculated to evaluate the radiomodifying effect. The hematopoiesis was assessed by the endogenous colony formation test and hematological parameters in irradiated mice. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistica 8.0 software.

RESULTS: The antiradiation efficacy of orally administered beta-D-glucan has been shown. DRF was 1.16 when the drug was administered 0.5 hours before irradiation and 1.06 during therapeutic use (after 1 or 2 hours). There was a decrease in weight loss in lethally irradiated mice and its faster recovery. Single oral administration of beta-D-glucan at a dose of 500 mg/kg stimulated the growth of splenic endogenous colony-forming units in mice on day 9 after total body irradiation at doses of 7 and 7.8 Gy, contributed to a decrease in the severity of leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. The antiradiation effect of beta-D-glucan was associated with an increase in the viability of bone marrow stem cells and a faster restoration of hematopoiesis.

CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained indicate the possibility of using beta-D-glucan from P. ostreatus both before irradiation to increase the radioresistance and for early therapy of the hematopoietic syndrome of acute radiation sickness.

BACKGROUND: For a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of COVID-19, it is necessary to study the mechanisms that implement the influence of pro-inflammatory cytokines on the processes of regulation of the external respiratory system. In experiments on anesthetized rats, the effect of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β on the respiratory effects of dizocilpine (MK-801), which has an inhibitory effect on neurotransmitter systems involved in the control of the respiratory system, was studied. It was considered that, first of all, dizocilpine is a highly effective non-competitive NMDA-type glutamate receptor blocker.

AIM: The objectives of the study were to identify the effect of the influence of dizocilpine on the parameters of the breathing pattern and to assess the degree of change in this effect when dizocilpine was administered against the background of an elevated systemic level of interleukin-1β.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was performed on 24 anesthetized tracheostomy spontaneously breathing rats. To register the volume-time parameters of external respiration, a pneumotachographic technique was used. In the process of processing the obtained results, the value of the recorded parameter was determined immediately before the introduction of MK-801 and 1 min after its introduction

RESULTS: At a dosage of 0.1 mg/kg, dizocilpine was found to cause a reversible short-term decrease in respiratory rate, tidal volume, and minute respiratory volume. It has been shown that this effect of dizocilpine does not appear after intravenous administration of interleukin-1β (at a dosage of 2 μg/kg). The results obtained confirm the assumption about the effect of an elevated systemic level of interleukin-1β on the state of neurotransmitter systems involved in the control of respiration.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on the correlation of the obtained results with the literature data, an assumption was made about a change in the state of NMDA-type glutamate receptors under the influence of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which may be one of the mechanisms of cardiorespiratory dysfunctions observed in a systemic inflammatory reaction accompanied by hypercytokinemia.

BACKGROUND: Necrotizing soft tissue infection is one of the most severe life-threatening surgical infections with a very high mortality rate. A characteristic feature of necrotizing soft tissue infection is the rapid development of anemia, the causes and prognostic value of which are not well understood.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to investigate the timing, development, and dynamics of anemia in generalized forms of necrotizing infection to identify clinical and bacteriological factors associated with its development.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: 129 patients with necrotizing soft tissue infection who were treated from 09.2015 to 12.2019 in the department of purulent-septic surgery at Hospital of the Holy Great Martyr George were examined. All patients received surgical treatment, laboratory hematological, biochemical examination, bacteriological examination of blood, and wound discharge. Overall, 22 patients suffered from systemic inflammatory response syndrome, 63 patients with sepsis, and 41 patients with septic shock.

RESULTS: The Counts of hemoglobin and red blood cells in necrotizing soft tissue infection patients with sepsis revealed the anemia already during the first day and then from the 15th day of the disease, the red blood cell values began to rise in the patients who survived. However, continued to decrease in the deceased patients. In the group of deceased sepsis patients from day 3 of hospitalization, correlations between red blood cells count and potassium ion concentration (r = –0.318; p < 0.01), and red blood cells count and total plasma protein (r = 0.30; p < 0.01) became significant. Among patients with hemoglobin <110 g/L on the day of hospitalization, 36 of 67 (53.7%) patients died, and among those with hemoglobin levels >110 g/L, 20 of 62 (32.2%) patients died (p = 0.004). The highest lethality was registered patients who suffered from wound discharge Klebsiella pneumoniae (12 of 18, 66.7%) or anaerobic infection, but marked anemia was noted only in patients with anaerobic infection (Proteus spp., Clostridium spp., Bacteroide spp.) (8 out of 12, 66.7%).

CONCLUSIONS: We attribute the development of anemia in sepsis patients to the destruction of red blood cells. The type of infectious agent influences both the mortality rate and the degree of anemia, which is probably related to the ability of bacteria to destroy red blood cells.

Academician A.A. Zavarzin (1886–1945) — the founder of evolutionary histology and the creator of tissue parallelism theory, is known as an outstanding neurohistologist and organizer of the Department of General Morphology of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (AIEM). During the Great Patriotic War (World War II) A.A. Zavarzin was evacuated to Tomsk as part of the laboratories of the central part of AIEM (Moscow) and the Leningrad branch of AIEM (Leningrad). Some information about his scientific work in Tomsk is presented in the historical literature, however, up to the present, his organizational activities as a commissioner have not been known. Based on information from the archive of the Institute of Experimental Medicine (St. Petersburg), including previously unpublished materials from orders on personnel for 1941 and 1945 and those for the Tomsk Group of AIEM, this article presents new facts about the life and scientific and organizational activities of Academician A.A. Zavarzin during the Great Patriotic War. In the period from 1943 to 1944, he headed the Tomsk group of laboratories of the A.M. Gorky All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine — the main scientific medical institution in the country, on the basis of which the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences was organized in 1945.