Recruitment of the macrophages and neutrophils preceded check details the hemorrhage by several days, and hemorrhage started 3-7 days after pristane injection in some mice, peaked at 2 weeks (84% in B6) and then resolved by 4 weeks in a majority of mice. Alveolar hemorrhage was independent of MyD88 (myeloid differentiation factor 88), or TLR7 pathways, in contrast to autoantibody production and glomerulonephritis, and was also independent of Fc gamma R or Fas. Rag1(-/-) mice had a reduced prevalence of alveolar hemorrhage compared with B6 (P=0.01) congenics. However, T-cell receptor-deficient mice developed alveolar hemorrhage at a rate comparable to wild-type

controls, whereas B6 Ig mu(-/-) mice surprisingly had a strikingly reduced prevalence (7% vs 84% in B6, P<0.0001). Reconstitution of B6 Ig mu(-/-) mice with wild-type B cells increased the prevalence to 50% (P=0.028). Pristane-induced alveolar hemorrhage is a useful model to study the pathogenesis and develop new therapy for this underappreciated and often life-threatening complication of SLE. Laboratory Investigation (2011) 91, 1540-1550; doi:10.1038/labinvest.2011.108;

published online 1 August 2011″
“Introduction Prior activation of the kappa opioid system by repeated stress or agonist administration has been previously shown to potentiate the rewarding properties of subsequently administered cocaine. In the present TPCA-1 study, intermittent and uncontrollable footshock, a single session of forced swim, or acute administration of the kappa agonist U50,488 (5 mg/kg)

were found to reinstate place preference in mice previously conditioned with cocaine (15 mg/kg) and subsequently extinguished by repeated training sessions without drug.

Results and discussion Stress-induced reinstatement did not occur for mice pretreated with the kappa opioid receptor antagonist norbinaltorphimine (10 mg/kg) and did not occur in mice lacking either kappa opioid receptors (KOR -/-) or prodynorphin (Dyn -/-). In contrast, the initial cocaine conditioning and extinction rates were not significantly affected by disruption of the kappa opioid system. Cocaine-injection also reinstated conditioned place preference in extinguished Tau-protein kinase mice; however, cocaine-primed reinstatement was not blocked by kappa opioid system disruption.

Conclusion The results suggest that stress-induced drug craving in mice may require activation of the dynorphin/kappa opioid system.”
“Convergent phenotypes provide extremely valuable systems for studying the genetics of new adaptations. Accumulating studies on this topic have reported surprising cases of convergent evolution at the molecular level, ranging from gene families being recurrently recruited to identical amino acid replacements in distant lineages.