Myshkin mice heterozygous for an inactivating mutation in the neuron-specific Na(+) ,K(+) -ATPase α3-isoform show behavior analogous to mania, including an abnormal endogenous circadian period. Agrin is a proteoglycan implicated as a regulator of synapses that has been proposed to inhibit activity of Na(+) ,K(+) -ATPase α3. We examined whether ...

Object Various kinds of trunk braces have been used to achieve bone healing in cases of pediatric lumbar spondylolysis. However, the optimal brace for achieving bone healing is unclear. The purpose of the present study was to determine in what types of spondylolysis bone healing can be achieved and how ...

OBJECTIVE: An assessment of the rate of surgical site infections associated with elective paediatric otolaryngology surgical procedures. METHODS: Prospective data was collected for a 3-week period for all children undergoing surgery where either mucosa or skin was breached. The parents of the children were requested to complete a questionnaire at ...

PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH: Review the oncology and clinical nutrition literature to highlight the synergies between those two subjects. This review focuses on diagnostic of lean body wasting and the recent improvements in measuring body composition to monitor the response to nutrition during optimal oncology treatment. PRINCIPAL RESULTS: Nutrition support ...

Outcomes research serves as a mechanism to assess the quality of care, cost effectiveness of treatment, and other aspects of health care. The use of administrative databases in outcomes research is increasing in all medical specialties, including hand surgery. However, the real value of databases can be maximized with a ...

This paper reports our works on the preparation of the silver-nanoparticle-incorporated ultrafine polyimide (PI) ultrafine fibers via a direct ion exchange self-metallization technique by using silver ammonia complex cation ([Ag(NH3)2]+) as the silver precursor and pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA)/4,4'-oxydianiline (4,4'-ODA) polyimide as the matrix. The polyimide precursor, poly(amic acid) (PAA), was ...

Multinuclear Cu/Zn complex-catalyzed efficient asymmetric conjugate addition of organozinc reagents to acyclic and cyclic enones has been developed in the presence of a wide variety of regioisomeric chiral diols bearing phosphorus moieties as ligands. The regioisomeric SPINOL-PHOS ligands based on a SPINOL architecture showed an unexpected inversion of stereoselectivity.

Schistosomula, the larval stage of schistosomes in vertebrate hosts, are highly vulnerable and considered an ideal target for vaccine and drug development. Although the schistosomule stage is essential for biological studies, collecting sufficient numbers of schistosomula from their definitive hosts in vivo is difficult to accomplish. However, in vitro collection ...

Destruxins have been implicated in the infection process by entomopathogenic fungi and have been also found to be highly toxic when applied topically or ingested by different insect species. To gain insight into the mechanism of action of this toxin on insect internal organs, we have evaluated the effects of ...

A new flexible porous coordination polymer (PCP), {[Gd(2) (L)(3) (dmf)(4) ]⋅4 DMF⋅3 H(2) O}(n) (1), was synthesized under solvothermal condition by reacting [Gd(NO(3) )(3) ]⋅6 H(2) O with the ligand 2,6,2',6'-tetranitro-biphenyl-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid (H(2) L). Compound 1 had a 3D coordination polymeric structure with two types of 1D channels (A and B) that were occupied ...

BackgroundGroup B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of neonatal sepsis in developed countries. Its burden in the developing world is less clear.MethodsStudies reporting neonatal GBS disease incidence from developing countries were identified from five literature databases. Studies were assessed with respect to case finding and culture methods.ResultsOnly twenty studies ...

The oxygen dependence of respiration in striated muscle in situ was studied by measuring the rate of decrease of interstitial Po(2) [oxygen disappearance curve (ODC)] following rapid arrest of blood flow by pneumatic tissue compression, which ejected red blood cells from the muscle vessels and made the ODC independent from ...

Falls are a common geriatric syndrome and are the third leading cause of chonic disability worldwide. Falls are not random events and occur, at least in part, due to impaired physiological function, such as impaired balance, and cognitive impairment. The clinical syndrome of falls is important for Sports and Exercise ...

Many studies have reported that schizophrenic patients show a Bias Against Disconfirmatory Evidence (BADE). This cognitive bias has been related to the formation and maintenance of delusion. The aim of this paper was to study whether BADE was present in healthy people displaying psychometric schizotypy, and to compare a closure ...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous, ~22-nucleotide-long, noncoding RNAs that play critical roles in physiology and disease via mechanisms that remain obscure. Although numerous studies implicate miRNAs in repression of translation, more recent reports suggest that the major role of miRNAs is in reduction of target mRNA stability. Because mRNA translation and ...

Resistant hypertension (RHTN) is defined as a blood pressure remaining above goal despite the concurrent use of 3 antihypertensive medications of different classes, including, ideally a diuretic. RHTN is an important health problem with a prevalence rate expected to increase as populations become older, more obese, and at higher risk ...

Psychiatric disorders are fairly common comorbidities of epilepsy in humans. Following pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE), experimental animals not only developed spontaneous recurrent seizures, but also exhibited significantly elevated levels of aggressive behavior. The cellular and molecular mechanism triggering these behavioral alterations remains unclear. In the present study, we found that ...

A novel polypeptide (Mere15) was purified from Meretrix meretrix Linnaeus by ammonium sulfate fractionation, ion exchange, gel filtration and reversed phase chromatography. Mere15 exhibited selective cytotoxicity to several human cancer cells. In vivo study showed that Mere15 significantly suppressed the growth of human lung adenocarcinoma A549 xenograft in nude mice. ...

Thyroid hormones regulate brain development and function through the control of gene expression, mediated by binding of T(3) to nuclear receptors. Brain T(3) concentration is tightly controlled by homeostatic mechanisms regulating transport and metabolism of T(4) and T(3). We have examined the role of the inactivating enzyme type 3 deiodinase ...

BACKGROUNDSpermatogenesis culminates in production of one of the most highly differentiated cells in biology, the spermatozoon. The gametes that emerge from the testes are, however, functionally immature and only acquire full functionality once they have completed a process of post-testicular maturation in the epididymis and female reproductive tract. Remarkably, this ...

We evaluated midterm patient-reported outcomes and satisfaction with total hip arthroplasty in patients who had severe juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Thirty-one patients (49 hips), with a mean age of 29 years (range, 16-43 years), reported low hip pain and stiffness at follow-up (mean, 7 years; range, 3-17 years). Up to 92% ...

In order to illustrate the main biotransformation pathways of vaccarin in vivo, metabolites of vaccarin in rats were identified using a specific and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization linear ion trap mass spectrometry (LTQ XL™) method. The rats were administered a single dose (200 mg/kg) of vaccarin by oral gavage. By ...

Studies of the impact of long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution on prevalence of respiratory symptoms and lung function in children have yielded mixed results, partly related to differences in study design, exposure assessment, confounder selection and data analysis.We assembled respiratory health and exposure data for more than 45,000 children ...

It is unclear whether or not the ciliary function following lung transplantation is normal. Our aim was to study the ciliary function and ultrastructure of epithelium above and below the airway anastomosis and the peripheral airway of children following lung transplantation.We studied the ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and beat pattern ...

Clinical research informatics is the rapidly evolving sub-discipline within biomedical informatics that focuses on developing new informatics theories, tools, and solutions to accelerate the full translational continuum: basic research to clinical trials (T1), clinical trials to academic health center practice (T2), diffusion and implementation to community practice (T3), and 'real ...

Clostridium difficile causes a potentially fatal diarrheal disease through the production of its principal virulence factors, toxin A and toxin B. The tcdC gene is thought to encode a negative regulator of toxin production. Therefore, increased toxin production, and hence increased virulence, is often inferred in strains with an aberrant ...

To investigate whether cellular imaging by using ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging can allow detection and quantification of adipose tissue macrophage-related inflammation within adipose tissue in a mouse model. Experimental protocols were conducted in accordance with French government policies. Adipose tissue macrophages were detected and quantified ...

Besides acetogenic bacteria, only Desulfitobacterium has been described to utilize and cleave phenyl methyl ethers under anoxic conditions; however, no ether-cleaving O-demethylases from the latter organisms have been identified and investigated so far. In this study, genes of an operon encoding O-demethylase components of Desulfitobacterium hafniense strain DCB-2 were cloned ...

Bioassay is considered the most sensitive method for evaluating prion inactivation procedures. Because prions are resistant to methods effective at inactivating conventional microorganisms, prion inactivation research has focused on relatively harsh alternatives, such as concentrated sodium hypochlorite or sodium hydroxide. Often, bioassay for residual infectivity in these studies requires dilution ...

The inflammatory process seen in multiple sclerosis is due to an excess production of proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, interferons, macrophage migration inhibitory factor, HMGB1 (high mobility group B1), and, possibly, a reduction in antiinflammatory cytokines IL-10, IL-4, and transforming growth factor-β that leads to increased secretion ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Presently, tuberculosis (TB) poses a global threat to human health. The development of reliable laboratory tools is vital to the diagnosis and treatment of TB. MPT64, a protein secreted by Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, is highly specific for TB, making antibody to MPT64 a reagent specific for the diagnosis ...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is increasingly prevalent in children, together with obesity. Transaminases, tests for insulin resistance, ultrasonography and MRI are variably used as surrogates markers of steatosis. Other liver diseases, such as Wilson disease, should be excluded. A liver biopsy is performed in selected cases: young children, familial history ...

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus, classified into types 1 and 2, is a chronic disease that shows high comorbidity with psychiatric disorders. Insulin-dependent patients show a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders than do patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS: This research involved the participation of 200 subjects divided into 2 groups: 100 ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Studies of HIV-related risk in trans (transgender, transsexual, or transitioned) people have most often involved urban convenience samples of those on the male-to-female (MTF) spectrum. Studies have detected high prevalences of HIV-related risk behaviours, self-reported HIV, and HIV seropositivity. METHODS: The Trans PULSE Project conducted a multi-mode survey ...

Diabetes mellitus is a major risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease and oxidative stress plays an important role in this process. Therefore, we investigated the effects of hyperglycemia on the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide/cGMP signaling in two different endothelial cell cultures. Human umbilical ...

The aim of this study was to determine whether the type of bilingualism affects neural organisation. We performed identification experiments and mismatch negativity (MMN) registrations in Finnish and Swedish language settings to see, whether behavioural identification and neurophysiological discrimination of vowels depend on the linguistic context, and whether there is ...

Purpose:  To assess and correlate the levels of inflammatory mediators in the eyes from non-diabetic and diabetic subjects without retinopathy (NDR), with non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) or with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) to corresponding erum levels. Methods:  The levels of interleukin 1β, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were ...

Inborn errors of the genes encoding two of the four human JAKs (JAK3 and TYK2) and three of the six human STATs (STAT1, STAT3, and STAT5B) have been described. We review the disorders arising from mutations in these five genes, highlighting the way in which the molecular and cellular pathogenesis ...

The purpose of the study was to validate two measures of muscle dysmorphia (MD) into the Italian language. The sample included three participant groups: (1) competing body builders, (2) non-competing body builders, and (3) non-body building controls. In general the Italian versions of the scales showed psychometric utility that is ...

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), are proteinases that participate in extracellular matrix remodelling and degradation. Under normal physiological conditions, the activities of MMPs are regulated at the level of transcription, of activation of the pro-MMP precursor zymogens and of inhibition by endogenous inhibitors (tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases; TIMPs). Alteration in the regulation ...

Total knee arthroplasty in post-traumatic arthritis of the knee joint is a challenging situation. Difficulties are linked to malalignment, joint stiffness, or wound complications. The authors report on a case of post-traumatic intra-articular knee arthritis with tibial malalignment and a skin defect. Using computer-assisted surgery for implant positioning, and simultaneous ...

Now cisplatin and its analogs are some of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents in clinical use as the first line of treatment in testicular and ovarian cancers. Unfortunately, they have several major drawbacks, such as cumulative toxicities of nephrotoxicity and ototoxicity, inherent or treatment-induced resistance. This has provided the motivation ...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: To evaluate mechanisms of discrepant responses to the nondepolarizing muscle relaxant rocuronium among normal and injured facial nerve-innervated orbicularis oris and tibial nerve-innervated gastrocnemius, and to provide information for the proper use of muscle relaxants to balance evoked electromyography (EEMG) monitoring and immobility in general anesthesia. STUDY DESIGN: Randomized ...

This study investigated whether sensitivity to nociceptive stimuli is altered in obese rats using established models of inflammatory pain, and profiled alterations in mRNA expression of key adipokines and inflammatory mediators (adiponectin, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β, cyclooxygenase-2, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS)) in spinal cord with obesity using real-time PCR. ...

Congest Heart Fail. ****;**:**-**. ©2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The authors sought to assess the impact on survival of demographic, clinical, and echo-Doppler parameters in patients with chronic heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction divided according to age groups. This study included 734 patients (age 69±11 years) who were classified ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of live births following spontaneous pregnancy (BSP) and to examine their associated factors among couples who have unsuccessfully or successfully experienced fertility treatments. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort. SETTING: Eight IVF centers. PATIENT(S): A total of 2,134 couples who began IVF treatment in the centers in 2000-2002 ...

Serotonin (5-HT) and fibronectin (FN) have been associated with pulmonary hypertension (PH). We previously reported that FN is posttranslationally modified by tissue transglutaminase (TGase) to form serotonylated FN (s-FN) in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells and that serotonylation stimulates their proliferation and migration, hallmarks of PH. We hypothesized that s-FN ...

Herd protection and serotype replacement disease following introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) are attributable to the vaccine's impact on colonization. Prior to vaccine introduction in Kenya, we did an epidemiological study to estimate the rate of pneumococcal acquisition, by serotype, in an uncolonized population. Nasopharyngeal swab specimens were taken ...

BackgroundSindbis virus (SINV) is a mosquito-borne alphavirus found in Eurasia, Africa and Oceania. Clinical SINV infection, characterized by arthropathic disease that may persist for years, is primarily reported in Northern Europe where the disease has considerable public health importance in endemic areas. The aim of this study was to investigate ...

Elite athletes, particularly those engaged in endurance sports and those exposed chronically to airborne pollutants/irritants or allergens, are at increased risk for upper and lower airway dysfunction. Airway epithelial injury may be caused by dehydration and physical stress applied to the airways during severe exercise hyperpnoea and/or by inhalation of ...