In 22 cases of either adult polycystic liver (PLD) or polycystic kidney (APCD) disease, considered as one dominantly inherited entity, both diseases occurred together only once. Early microscopical cystic lesions that are typical of PLD were found in another case of APCD. In this medicolegal autopsy series the incidence of PLD was 0.05% and that of APCD 0.08%.Cerebrdl haemorrhage or cerebral aneurysms wcrc found in 50% of APCD cases but in none of the cases with only PLD (~(0.01). Of the cases with PLD, 50% had associated renal cysts and 10% of the cases with APCD had associated liver cysts. The same medicolegal autopsy material yielded a prospective series of 95 male cases, where, however, kidney cysts were normally present in over 50% and liver cysts in about 20% of the cases of similar age. Thus, a part of the association between cystic disease of the liver and kidney may have been based on the common occurrence of cysts in old age.V. Meyenburg's complex was the microscopic alteration associated with cysts in PLD. It was associated as well with liver cysts in APCD suggesting that an intricate relation between PLD and APCD does occur in part of the cases, in this series characterized by large size APCD kidneys.The results indicate that in adults PLD is an entity of its own, expressed in most of the cases independently of APCD.

M4 macrophages are a possible source for HDAC9 and MMP12 expression in advanced human plaques.

We introduce a modification of the tissue microarray technique in which several frozen brain tissue specimens are collected to a single frozen brain array block. In the present application, we use it for the detection of neuronal paraneoplastic anti-Hu autoantibodies. Representative samples from 15 different brain regions were collected according to a standard neuropathological autopsy protocol. Cryostat sections from each block were cut and conventionally stained. From representative areas, cylinder tissue samples from each specimen were punched and then arrayed into a recipient array block. Using the cryostat sections of this brain array, autoantibodies from seven anti-Hu-positive patient sera (confirmed by immunoblotting) were screened by immunohistochemistry. Neuronal architecture was well preserved and immunohistochemical staining was comparable to that of conventional cryostat sections. Because of the variable staining pattern in different brain areas, two anti-Hu-positive sera could be detected immunohistochemically by the one brain array. With the present array technique, it is possible to characterize the variable staining patterns of neuronal paraneoplastic autoantibodies in different locations of the human brain. The frozen brain array also allows the detection of RNA and DNA targets involved in neurological diseases.

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