Faculty Bibliography

Cutaneous patch and plaque lesions, and erythroderma may suggest mycosis fungoides both clinically and histopathologically in HIV+ patients. However, in some cases, this diagnosis is questionable. Five such cases are presented. When we compared these cases with cases of mycosis fungoides unassociated with HIV infection, we found less concordance among dermatopathologists in making a histopathological diagnosis, a greater proportion of CD8 than CD4 T cells in the cutaneous infiltrates, and no instances of demonstrated clonality of the cutaneous T-cell infiltrates in the HIV+ group. We conclude that CD8 T-cell predominant dermatoses may simulate mycosis fungoides in HIV+ patients

Suitability of the DNA content in urine stained material was evaluated for use in forensic analysis. High molecular weight (HMW) DNA (>20 Ms, where 1kb equals 1000 base pairs) was obtained in only 9% (4 out of 44) of laboratory produced urine stains using an organic extraction method. Slot blot hybridization analysis with a human specific repeat probe (SLI332) showed that these stains contained DNA of human origin. A group of 12 urine stains from the original 44 that did not yield any DNA was subjected to Chelex resin extraction followed by PCR amplification for genotyping of the Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA) DQA1 locus. Typing was successfull on 5 of the 12 samples. The concentrated sediment from the original liquid urine portion of the samples was similarly subjected to Chelex extraction and HLA DQA1 typing. Six out of ten samples were successfully typed. Blood specimens collected from the urine donors to serve as typing controls yielded identical genotypes in all cases. PCR based analysis of urine stains may yield useful forensic information even when the DNA content is extremely low, degraded or undetectable.

DNA was isolated from casework urine samples previously submitted for toxicological analysis. The quality and quantity of DNA isolated was determined by spectrofluorometry and agarose yield gel electrophoresis. Hae III restricted samples were then resolved by analytical agarose gel electrophoresis, transferred to a membrane by Southern blotting and hybridized with a chemiluminescently-labelled (D2S44) probe. The DNA fragment banding patterns were indistinguishable from the DNA banding patterns of blood specimens collected from the same donor. Only 5 of 20 samples yielded banding patterns and the banding intensity relative to background was low. Genomic DNA was also obtained from casework samples by Chelex extraction, amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and then genotyped for human leucocyte antigen (HLA) DQ alpha. Of 20 specimens, 13 (65%) were typed correctly producing identical results for urine and blood specimens obtained from the same donor. Aging studies of casework samples and normal samples (from a non-drug using population) were also conducted with PCR-HLA DQ alpha analysis. Results of these studies indicate that amplification by PCR was more likely to produce positive results. Based on these findings, we conclude that PCR-initiated analysis is more suitable than RFLP analysis for individualization of urine samples.