Medical Hypotheses

The cause of pyloric stenosis of infancy

Dataset generated for the article entitled "Hematuria at dipstick on first versus second morning voiding: a screening for patients with persistent isolated hematuria?"

This study present two new concepts and definitions to the medical literature. One of those is “endogenous retinoic acid theory” and the other “retinoic acid depletion syndrome”. A new classification will be provided for the immune system: “retinoic acid dependent component” and “retinoic acid non-dependent component”. If this theory is verified, all the diseases where the retinoic acid metabolism is defective and retinoic acid levels are low will be identified and new approaches will be developed fortreating such diseases. Prevention, through intrinsic mechanisms or medications, of the excretion of pre-stored retinoic acids through liver cytochrome oxidase enzymes and increasing retinoic acid levels to therapeutic levels in cases where the body’s need for retinoic acids increases, such as acute infection, high fever, extreme catabolic process and continuous antigenic impulse, is called “Endogenous Retinoic Acid Theory”. Retinoic acids also manage their own metabolisms with feedback mechanisms. Despite such compensatory mechanisms, the retinoic acid stores of the body get depleted due to overuse of the RIG-I pathway and the Type-I interferon synthesis patway, which include retinoic acid receptors, because of reasons such as high fever, severe catabolic process and oversized viral genome (SARS-CoV-2). As a result, the RIG-I path is passivated, causing excessive TNFα and cytokine discharge over the NFκB arm by shifting to TLR3, TLR7, TLR8, TLR9, MDA5 and UPS pathways in the mechanism, adaptive immune defense neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells. Depletion of retinoic acid stores as a result of such overuse, leading to shifting of the immune defense mechanism to the NFκB arm, where retinoic acid cannot be used and which results in cytokine release, is called ‘’retinoic acid depletion syndrom’’. COVID-19 and each of the previously defined sepsis, SIRS and ARDS are essential a retinoic acid depletion syndrome. We claim that retinoic acid metabolism is defective especially in COVID-19 (cytokine storm) most inflammatory diseases such as sepsis, SIRS and ARDS. Finding a solution to this mechanism will require a new perspective and treatment approach to such diseases.

The present paper is based on this data base.

STATA DATA file. You can upload data directly to STATA.

The NCBI pBlast tool was used to test the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 contains a calcium-dependent fusion domain(s) similar to those that were recently discovered in both Rubella and SARS-CoV-1. An Amino Acids comparison of the two relevant amino acid regions in S protein of SARS-CoV-1 representing fusion loop 1 (FL1 = Amino Acids 798- 819) and fusion loop 2 (FL2 = Amino Acids 835 -855) was conducted using the Protein Blast program from the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Specifically, Table 1 and Table 2 exhibit the data from the Protein Blast Alignment Tool data from the calcium binding fusion domains, labeled FL1 and FL2 respectively, that compare the spike proteins of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) with SARS-COV and Rubella utilizing cited reference data; GenBank: QHD43416.1 (CoV-2), NCBI Reference Sequence: NP_828851.1(CoV-1), GenBank: ACN50046.1. (Rubella), GenBank: NP_828851(Human coronavirus229E) and GenBank: AD177360.1 (hemagglutinin [Influenza A virus (A/Boston/136/2009(H1N1))]). The results demonstrated a 100% and a 95% correspondence respectively between the postulated FL1 and FL2 domains in SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) compared to the known FL regions for SARS-CoV-1 described in 2017. Additionally, the less pathogenic Alpha coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) has a solitary FL2 domain and a reduced homology length compared to the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) FL2. Similarly, amino acids 49 to 55 of the Rubella Virus membrane glycoprotein E2 virus also have a smaller, but significant homology with the FL2 domain. In contrast, the Influenza H1N1 hemagglutinin (HA) protein has no significant similarity to any of the CoV FL domains. The reduced homology of HCoV-229E’s single calcium-binding domain to SARS-CoV-2 suggests attenuation of HCoV-229E, which is consistent with HC0V-229E having crossed species barriers to infect humans decades or centuries ago.

a new publicly available database of PPG and PEPG signals collected during rest, respiration, and motion for the creation and validation of signal processing algorithms for analysis and feature extraction from PPG and PEPG signals. PPG and PEPG signals are recorded from the fingertip of ring finger from left and right hand respectively are recorded together with limbs electrocardiography (ECG) to allow a reference/comparison to be found. The new database provides a benchmark for current algorithms or could assist in the development of algorithms to be tested on two different plethysmography technologies instead of only one technology.

GSEA on SARS-CoV interacting genes (Homo Sapiens)

Mean oxygenated haemoglobin concentration at different experimental and control conditions

Research data