Craniopagus Twins

This picture was taken from the following website:
http://baylorlariat.com/files/2011/09/britain-twins_jams1-ftw.jpg

This picture was taken from the following website:
http://baylorlariat.com/files/2011/09/britain-twins_jams-ftw2.jpg

My dad has a rule that we have to watch, and sometimes even listen to, the news. Thus, I get very excited when I can actually relate to something that I hear and/or watch. This week, Yahoo News broke a story about the successful separation of conjoined twin girls from Sudan - Rital and Ritag. This interested me because, for the past year, these girls were craniopagus, meaning they were joined at the head. The story also stated they were using more of one girl's heart. It was simply amazing to me that these girls had shared blood flow in the brain, and yet, doctors were able to separate them successfully. The first picture above shows the girls before their surgery, while the second picture shows the babies after their surgery. I love pediatrics, so this story caught my attention initially, however, I also work with lots of transplant babies, some of whom do not survive. Thus, it is very uplifting to hear about success stores. Overall, this story opened my eyes to how wonderfully God created us. While these twins may have been deemed unfortunate in the past, their separation will serve as one of the biggest success stories in the surgical world due to the kindness of a British charity. The cells, tissues, and even the organs these girls once shared have now been separated in such a way that each of them is able to benefit through the use of their own bodies. God created us so that our bodies can function specifically for our needs -- a truly wonderful thought.

House

This picture was taken from the following website:
http://nynjbengali.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/gregory-house-md.jpg

This past Sunday, September 11th, I watched an episode of "House." The episode was entitled "Sleeping Dogs Lie" and the original air date was April 18, 2006. Although it was an old episode, I found a startling connection with histology. 


The episode was about a lesbian couple, where one partner, Hannah, was deathly ill. She ends up at the hospital where House and his team work to cure her. She had various symptoms, one of which was insomnia. She was unable to sleep for almost ten days. This symptom put an extra rush on the doctors, though, because the human brain can only function for a maximum for ten days without sleep (or so they said on the show). Eventually, Hannah got worse and started bleeding. The blood sample, however, indicated the presence of nasal epithelia. Here's the link to histology. This wouldn't have been a startling connection with histology if the blood had come from her nose. She was, however, having rectal bleeding, which brings great surprise as to why nasal epithelia could be found here. The rest of the episode was filled with yet more drama, which is no surprise for this show, and eventually ended with Hannah needing a liver transplant. Being the ever loving and faithful partner, Max, the other partner in the relationship, donated half her liver to keep Hannah alive. Yet another "House" episode had a happy ending.


So...back to the histology connection presented. The rectal blood contained nasal epithelial cells, simply explaining that the blood came from the nose. This is logical because the patient developed a nose bleed before she was given a blood transfusion. The striking feature in all this to me was not the fact that nasal epithelial cells were found in the rectal blood, but rather, the fact that they were able to detect the presence of the nasal epithelial cells in her blood. This would, clearly, be an unlikely place to look for these cells. It occurred to me, however, after our many discussions in class, just how specialized this epithelium truly is and how creatively we were designed. As much room as there is for blood to move around in our bodies, each type of cell was specially and uniquely designed to fulfill an exact purpose. In this case, ciliated epithelium is suspected to be found in the nasal passages because the cilia help sweep out foreign substances from the beginning of the respiratory tract. Watching this episode was just a great reminder that something as simple as epithelium can teach us so much.

Desmosomal Attachment Plaque

The picture above shows the desmosomal attachment plaque and highlights the placement of the desmoplakins and plakoglobins.


This week in Histology class, we discussed epithelial tissue. One of the terms I was unfamiliar with was "desmosomal attachment plaque." Upon reading this word, it is obvious that this term is related to desmosomes, which are part of the anchoring junctions that participate in cell to cell communication in epithelial tissue. The desmosomal attachment plaque, however, is "a disc-shaped structure consisting of very dense material on the cytoplasmic side of the plasma membrane of each adjoining cell." This structure also "anchors intermediate filaments, which play a role in dissipating physical forces throughout the cell from the attachment site. Each attachment plaque is composed of several constitutive proteins, mainly desmoplakins and plakoglobins, which are capable of anchoring the intermediate filaments." "Desmoplakins" and "plakoglobins" were also unfamiliar to me until I encountered them this week in our textbook, along with "desmosomal attachment plaque." The desmosomal attachment plaque, then, is really a structure on the cytomplasmic side of the plasma membrane that anchors intermediate filaments, and desmoplakins and plakoglobins are the proteins associated with this structure that anchor these intermediate filaments.


The textual information above was taken from the following reference: 
Ross, Michael H., and Wojciech Pawlina. "Anchoring Junctions." Histology: A Text and Atlas: With Correlated Cell and Molecular Biology. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Health, 2011. 131. Print.


The pictorial information above was taken from the following reference:
http://heart.bmj.com/content/97/7/530/F1.large.jpg