Effect of surgical treatment on the cellular immune response of gastric cancer patients

Patients with gastric cancer have a variety of immunological abnormalities. In the present study the lymphocytes and their subsets were determined in the peripheral blood of patients with gastric cancer (N = 41) both before and after surgical treatment. The percent of helper/inducer CD4 T cells (43.6 ± 8.9) was not different after tumor resection (43.6 ± 8.2). The percent of the cytotoxic CD8+ T cell population decreased significantly, whether patients were treated surgically (27.2 ± 5.8%, N = 20) or not (27.3 ± 7.3%, N = 20) compared to individuals with inflammatory disease (30.9 ± 7.5%) or to healthy individuals (33.2 ± 7.6%). The CD4/CD8 ratio consequently increased in the group of cancer patients. The peripheral blood lymphocytes of gastric cancer patients showed reduced responsiveness to mitogens. The defective blastogenic response of the lymphocytes was not associated with the production of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-ß) since the patients with cancer had reduced production of TGF-ß1 (269 ± 239 pg/ml, N = 20) in comparison to the normal individuals (884 ± 175 pg/ml, N = 20). These results indicate that the immune response of gastric cancer patients was not significantly modified by surgical treatment when evaluated four weeks after surgery and that the immunosuppression observed was not due to an increase in TGF-ß1 production by peripheral leukocytes.33934

Construction status and prospects of the Hyper-Kamiokande project

The Hyper-Kamiokande project is a 258-kton Water Cherenkov together with a 1.3-MW high-intensity neutrino beam from the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The inner detector with 186-kton fiducial volume is viewed by 20-inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and multi-PMT modules, and thereby provides state-of-the-art of Cherenkov ring reconstruction with thresholds in the range of few MeVs. The project is expected to lead to precision neutrino oscillation studies, especially neutrino CP violation, nucleon decay searches, and low energy neutrino astronomy. In 2020, the project was officially approved and construction of the far detector was started at Kamioka. In 2021, the excavation of the access tunnel and initial mass production of the newly developed 20-inch PMTs was also started. In this paper, we present a basic overview of the project and the latest updates on the construction status of the project, which is expected to commence operation in 2027

TCDD-induced chick cardiotoxicity is abolished by a selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor NS398

Halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons, including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), are known to cause severe heart defects in avian species. However, the mechanism of TCDD-induced chick cardiovascular toxicity is unclear. In this study, we investigated cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) as a possible mechanism of TCDD-induced cardiotoxicity. Fertile chicken eggs were injected with TCDD and a COX-2 selective inhibitor, NS398, and we investigated chick heart failure on day 10. We found that the chick heart to body weight ratio and atrial natriuretic factor mRNA expression were increased, but this increase was abolished with treatment of NS398. In addition, the morphological abnormality of an enlarged ventricle resulting from TCDD exposure was also abolished with co-treatment of TCDD and NS398. Our results suggested that TCDD-induced chick heart defects are mediated via the nongenomic pathway and that they do not require the genomic pathway