Pathobiology Flashcards
What is alkaptonuria?
Homogentistic acid accumulates in joints, causing artiste damage and back pain - Kidney stones - Blackening of urine Inherited as autosomal recessive Inborn errors of metabolism
Name some autosomal recessive inherited diseases?
Alkaptonuria
Cystic fibrosis
Name some autosomal dominant inherited diseases
Brachydactyly
Huntington’s disease
Name some autosomal co-domiant inherited diseases
Sickle cell anaemia
Name some x linked inherited diseases
Duchenne muscular dystrophy
X linked mental retardation
Haemophilia
What are the symptoms and cause of sickle cell anaemia?
- Painful
- Life threatening
- Erythrocytes sickle shaped - can’t carry as much oxygen
- Caused by a single point mutation in the codon for amino acid 6 in B- global subunit
- Causes haemoglobin tetrameters containing HBs to form large insoluble polymers which distort erythrocytes shape
Where and why is the frequency of the sickle cell anaemia allele (HBs) high?
High in sub saharan countries
- Prevalence 2%
- Allele carrier is 10-40%
Heterozygous provides resistance to malaria
What has karyotyping allowed to happen?
Allows each chromosome to be distinguished
- Abnormalities in banding due to mutagens rearrangements can be associated with specific phenotypes
- Genes can be tapped to specific chromosomal locations
What is Aniridia?
An autosomal dominant phenotype caused by deletion or loss of function point mutations in one copy of the gene
What is Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)?
Progressive muscle damage and wasting disease
Lethal in childhood or early adulthood
What gene is responsible for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy?
- Was identified by DNA sequencing
- DNA sequence deleted form the X chromosome of DMD patients
- It is the dystrophin gene that is affected which is the largest known human gene
- Dystrophin protein is responsible of connecting each muscle fibre to the extracellular matrix - integrity
What is Huntington’s disease?
A progressive, late-onset, inherited neurodegenerative disorder
- Dementia and movement disorder
What is the pathology of Huntington’s disease?
The brain of a Huntington’s disease patient has suffered massive neuronal loss in the basal ganglia and has dilated lateral ventricles
- Caused by an expansion of the repeated CAG sequence in the Huntingtin gene
- This expansion makes the protein toxic to neurones
Name an animal virus genome the contains genes that can cause cancer ?
Rous Sarcoma Virus
- contains the v-src oncogene
- Encodes for an abnormally hyperactive version of tyrosine kinase
- Dominant gain of function
Name an example of a cancer that can be caused by a loss of function mutation
Retinoblastoma
- can be hereditary or non hereditary
- Can be bilateral or unilateral
- Caused by loss of function of a tumour suppressor gene (both alleles) - more likely to happen if inherited one mutated allele
How can chromosomal rearrangements lead to cancer?
- Disruption, eructation or the reassembling of chromosomes
How can Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP’s) be used to identify DNA sequence associated with common diseases?
- There are a total of 3x10^7 SNPs in the human genome
- Provide detailed map of DNA sequence variation across the genome
- Can compare SNP’s in a group of patients with a specific disease to the SNP’s of healthy people
- Any common differences can be associated with that disease
- These studies are called genome wide association studies (GWAS)
What is imprinting of genes in animals?
When particular regions of chromosomes have structural modifications to stop transcription e.g. methylation of DNA sequences
- The structural modification are introduced to chromosomes of the sperm and eggs and remain in somatic cells of the offspring but are removed during germ cell production
How is methylation an example of the imprinting of genes?
- Methylation of DNA on cytosine bases is a hallmark of imprinted chromatin
- Switches genes off by recruiting repressors and binding proteins
What is a paternal and maternal imprint?
Maternal - When maternal gene has a structural modification so is not expressed - Paternal gene is expressed - Gene carries a maternal imprint - During oogenesis Paternal - When paternal gene has a structural modification so is not expressed - Maternal gene is expressed - Gene carries a paternal imprint - During spermatogenesis
Explain UBE3A and SNORD116 as an example of gene imprinting
Maternal imprint on SNORD116
Paternal imprint on UBE3A
An example of reciprocal imprinting
Only SNORD116 expressed form paternal and UBE3A from maternal
- Maintained in somatic tissue
- Removed in germ cell development and reestablished
What disease occurs when maternal copy of SNORD116 is imprinted and paternal copy mutated?
No functional copy of SNORD116 Prader-willi syndrome - Low muscle tone - Cognitive disability - Morbid obesity
What disease occurs when paternal copy of UBE3A is imprinted and maternal copy mutated?
No functional copy of UBE3A Angelman syndrome - Cognitive disability - Sleep disturbance - Seizures - Frequent smiling
What is epidemiology?
Basics science concerned with the patterns of disease frequency in human population
What extrinsic and intrinsic factors can cause disease?
Extrinsic - Physical - Socioeconomic Intrinsic - Age - Sex - Behaviour - Immunisation
Give an example of a migrant study that shows environmental factors causing disease?
Prevalence of certain cancers e.g. stomach and lung are substantially higher in Japan than America
- Decreases if the people from japan migrate to America
- Decreases further in the offspring of the immigrants
=> suggests environmental over genetic factors
How is cholera shown to show environmental causes of disease?
- There was poor access to safe water
- Caused by vibrio cholera
- prevalence 50% in unprepared communities but only 1% well organised
- Kills 6 million a year
What is the mortality associated with smoking?
320+ UK deaths every day from smoking
1/5 all deaths across all ages
7.5 years average loss of life expectancy
What are the major health consequences of smoking?
- Cancer (lung, mouth, bladder, pancreas)
- Respiratory disease (COPD)
- Vascular disease (Coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral vascular disease)
- Pregnancy and birth complications (premature birth)
- Pulmonary emphysema
What is pulmonary emphysema?
- Breakdown of extracellular matrix in lungs
- Alveoli burst
- Macrophages secrete chemotactic factors and secrete proteases which digest lungs
- Oxidants and free radicals in smoke release antitrypsin making proteases more active
- Increased risk of infection
Discuss the addictive quality of smoking
- Heroin and cocaine users say smoking is harder to quit
- 70% want to quit
- 50% with a removed lung smoke again
- Social influence
- Associates with memories
- Nicotine is the driving force behind addiction
What are the two broad responses of different occupational lung diseases?
- Allergic
- Pneumoconiosis
What is Pneumoconioses?
- Lung disease caused by inhaled dust
- Dust can be organic or inorganic
- Could cause inert reactions
- May aggravate co existing disease
What is asbestosis?
- Asbestos fibre + iron and calcium causes a ferruginous body
- Macrophage fibre ingested increased fibrogenic response (collagen deposition by fibroblasts)
What are the different types of pathogens?
Obligate pathogens - Can only survive in host usually very specific to host species
Facuitative pathogens - Present in the environment waiting for host
Opportunistic pathogens - Normally benign but cause disease in compromised host
Discuss the life cycle of fungi and how it utilises the host
- In its solid form its mold
- In warm body - switches to the yeast morphology
- Consumed by macrophages in host
- Once consumed fungus responds by growing a ‘germ tube’
- This projection eventually pierces the macrophage from inside killing it
Discuss the life cycle of protozoa and how it utilises the host
- Often has more than one host
Malaria - Mosquito picks up gamete which fertilise and invade the gut and move to the the salivary gland
- Mosquito injects this into the blood of another host, it replicates and infects red blood cells
Can two closely related species be virulent or non pathogenic?
Yes - only takes a differ of a few genes (virulent genes) to make them pathogenic
e.g. Vibrio cholerae needs to be infected by a certain bacteriophage to become virulent - the bacteriophages transfer genes that encode cholera toxin to the bacteria
What external barriers need to be overcome by pathogens to enter a host?
- Flora, epithelia and mucous
- Epithelia is densely packed with flora
- Held together by tight junctions
- Epithelia secrete mucus
- Bacteria have p pili - stick proteins that anchor them to epithelia
- Breaks in epithelia are quickly recognised by white blood cells
Why do pathogens need to breach the cell membrane?
Cell membrane needs to be breached so pathogens can inject toxins into the host cell or replicate inside it
Toxins are often used to kill host cells to provide the pathogen nutrients and killing white blood cells help the pathogens invade the immune system
What is an actin pedestal?
E.coli form an actin pedestal on a host cell to hold them in place
- E.coli inject TIR through type 3 secretion into the host cell
- Causes growth of actin filaments from the host which holds the e.coli in place and stops it from being flushed away into the gut
- TIR is sufficient to change cells morphology
Why do bacteria hide in cells?
Pathogens can evade the immune system by hiding in a cell
e. g.. Legionnaires disease
- bacteria phagocytose by macrophages but replicate inside
How does listeria enter the cell?
- Uses adhesions to enter the host cellls
- Engulfed in a phagosome
- Secretes hemolysin, a protein that breaks down the membrane of the phagosome
- The protein is broken down by the PEST amino acid sequence
- They then assemble actin tails to push them into the neighbouring cells
How do antibiotics work?
They disrupt cellular processes that are different to ours
-eg. protein synthesis, RNA polymerase, cell wall synthesis
What is one way to overcome antibiotic resistance?
Addition of different side chains to the antibiotics
What is the basic structure of a virus?
A simple genome encapsulated in a coat protein (capsid)
What is type 1 class of virus and how does it replicate?
- Adenoviruses such as conjunctivitis and respiratory disease
- Herpes viruses
- Papilloma viruses - genital warts, cervical cancer
Replicates similar to normal cells
What is type 2 class of virus and how does it replicate?
Small - single stranded DNA
- Parvoviruses: fifth disease
Replicated via DNA polymerase making the single strand double stranded
What is type 3 class of virus and how does it replicate?
RNA virus
-Rotavirus: Acute gastroenteritis
Replicated via RNA transcriptase unique to virus and replicates RNA - produces proteins
What is type 4 class of virus and how does it replicate?
- Polio viruses, yellow fever
- SARS viruses
Replicated via mRNA making polyproteins that are cleaved
What is type 5 class of virus and how does it replicate?
Single stranded RNA
- Ebola viruses, influenza viruses, measles
Replicated via RNA transcriptase (from virus)
What is type 6 class of virus and how does it replicate?
Retroviruses
- Leukaemia, AIDS
Replicated via reverse transcriptase - converts RNA to DNA
What is type 7 class of virus and how does it replicate?
Double stranded DNA
- Hepatits B virus
Replicated via reverse transcriptase - DNA is made into genomic RNA
How can a virus form a tumour?
Proteins produced by the viral genome unregulated DNA replication and proliferation by the host cell to allow more production of the viral genome
Accidental integration of the virus can result in too much proliferation and is the first step in malignant tom out formation - E6 and E7 bind to Rb and p53 proteins and inactivate them taking of the constraints on DNA replication
Causes 6% of cancers
What type of viruses cause cancer?
Papilomaviruses contain several oncogenes
How do retroviruses cause cancer?
by incorporating human proto-oncogenes into their genome
How does the presence of proto-onogenes cause tumour formation in retroviruses?
Proto-oncogenes are proteins involved in cell proliferation
What are the bodies physical barriers?
- Skin epithelia - hairy skin (prevents organisms reaching the skin), tight junctions
- Chemical defences (sweat, lactic acid, sebum, lysosomes, Stomach pH
What is the roll of defensins?
They are positively charged peptides
- Act on viruses, microbes and parasites
- Target their membranes and create channels and secrete cryptdin
What is a weak point of the epithelia (to let pathogens in)?
Most membranes - Eye - Respiratory system - GI system - GU system Can lead to conjunctivitis, TB, Syphilis
What are the principle cells, tissues and organs if the immune system?
- Lymphatic and cardiovascular systems
- Effector and signalling molecules
- Lymphatic system - vessels, thymus gland (t lymphocytes), lymph nodes , lymphoid tissue, bone marrow (B cells)
- Phagocytes
- Natural killer cells
- Interferons
- Complement
- Inflammation
What are the differences between general recognition and pattern recognition of pathogens?
General recognition - pathogen associated immunostimulants - e.g. prokaryote proteins - F met - Lipopolysaccharides - from gram negative - enough to recognise as foreign - Foreign nucleic acids Pattern recognition receptors - Soluble - Membrane - bound
What are collectins?
- Soluble plasma components (and surfactant)
- Bind to specific carbohydrates and phagocytes
- Interact with complement
- Are pattern recognition receptors
- From a family of collagenous Ca2+ dependant defence lectins
What is the complement system?
- Part of the immune system that enhances the ability of antibodies and phagocytic cells, promotes inflammation
- 20+ soluble proteins
- Evoke lysis, phagocytosis and inflammation