Medication Reminder Device for the Elderly Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment

Reminder devices reportedly improve medication adherence in the elderly patients with mild dementia; however, the efficacy of such devices remains unexplored. Therefore, a 3-month before and after study with convenience sampling was conducted to determine the efficacy of a medication reminder device used by 18 participants (aged 81.2 +/- 6.2 years) with Clinical Dementia Rating scores of 0.5 or 1. At the onset of device use, examiners visited the users' homes to ensure that they and their caregivers understood how to use the device. Caregivers monitored its use during the first week. Values of the self-administration medication rate during 1 week for 13 (72.2%) users showed improvement at 3 months. This result revealed that reminder devices can improve medication adherence in the elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment. Further study is needed to assess the magnitude of this improvement and to enhance its support for users with mild cognitive impairment.ArticleAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ALZHEIMERS DISEASE AND OTHER DEMENTIAS. 27(4):238-242 (2012)journal articl

Histone variant H2A.B-H2B dimers are spontaneously exchanged with canonical H2A-H2B in the nucleosome

精子形成に重要なヒストンによるDNAの新たな折りたたみを解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-02-22.H2A.B is an evolutionarily distant histone H2A variant that accumulates on DNA repair sites, DNA replication sites, and actively transcribing regions in genomes. In cells, H2A.B exchanges rapidly in chromatin, but the mechanism has remained enigmatic. In the present study, we found that the H2A.B-H2B dimer incorporated within the nucleosome exchanges with the canonical H2A-H2B dimer without assistance from additional factors, such as histone chaperones and nucleosome remodelers. High-speed atomic force microscopy revealed that the H2A.B nucleosome, but not the canonical H2A nucleosome, transiently forms an intermediate “open conformation”, in which two H2A.B-H2B dimers may be detached from the H3-H4 tetramer and bind to the DNA regions near the entry/exit sites. Mutational analyses revealed that the H2A.B C-terminal region is responsible for the adoption of the open conformation and the H2A.B-H2B exchange in the nucleosome. These findings provide mechanistic insights into the histone exchange of the H2A.B nucleosome

Hydrogen Supplementation of Preservation Solution Improves Viability of Osteochondral Grafts

Allogenic osteochondral tissue (OCT) is used for the treatment of large cartilage defects. Typically, OCTs collected during the disease-screening period are preserved at 4°C; however, the gradual reduction in cell viability during cold preservation adversely affects transplantation outcomes. Therefore, improved storage methods that maintain the cell viability of OCTs are needed to increase the availability of high-quality OCTs and improve treatment outcomes. Here, we evaluated whether long-term hydrogen delivery to preservation solution improved the viability of rat OCTs during cold preservation. Hydrogen-supplemented Dulbecco’s Modified Eagles Medium (DMEM) and University of Wisconsin (UW) solution both significantly improved the cell viability of OCTs during preservation at 4°C for 21 days compared to nonsupplemented media. However, the long-term cold preservation of OCTs in DMEM containing hydrogen was associated with the most optimal maintenance of chondrocytes with respect to viability and morphology. Our findings demonstrate that OCTs preserved in DMEM supplemented with hydrogen are a promising material for the repair of large cartilage defects in the clinical setting

Inhibitory effects of local anesthetics on the proteasome and their biological actions

Local anesthetics (LAs) inhibit endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation, however the mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we show that the clinically used LAs pilsicainide and lidocaine bind directly to the 20S proteasome and inhibit its activity. Molecular dynamic calculation indicated that these LAs were bound to the β5 subunit of the 20S proteasome, and not to the other active subunits, β1 and β2. Consistently, pilsicainide inhibited only chymotrypsin-like activity, whereas it did not inhibit the caspase-like and trypsin-like activities. In addition, we confirmed that the aromatic ring of these LAs was critical for inhibiting the proteasome. These LAs stabilized p53 and suppressed proliferation of p53-positive but not of p53-negative cancer cells

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Au seuil de la catastrophe : entretien avec Yukari, auto-évacuée de l'accident nucléaire de Fukushima

International audienceEn 2011, YUKARI habitait avec ses enfants à 50 kilomètres de la centrale nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi. Suite à son explosion, elle a décidé de quitter la zone irradiée de son propre chef, entrant par là dans la catégorie des "auto-évacué·es", le nom donné aux victimes non reconnues par l'État

Cold- or Heat-Tolerance of Leaves and Roots in Perennial Ryegrass Determined by 1H-NMR

Dynamic states of water in the leaves and roots of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) exposed to cold and heat stresses were studied by using 1H-NMR. NMR spin-lattice relaxation times (T1) of leaves in Arrhenius plots linearly decreased but increased as temperature decreased below 0°C. However, spin-spin relaxation times (T2) of the leaves increased as temperature decreased from 20 to –20°C. The T2 value of the long fraction (associated with vacuole) in leaves decreased to about 600 µs at –25°C, but that of the short fraction was about 10 µs, and the relative value of signal intensity of the long fraction decreased to about 0.2 at –25°C. The T2 values of the two fractions in roots decreased to about 1ms at –10°C. Judging from T2 and electrolyte leakage, both vacuolar and cytoplasmic compartments of leaves and roots froze at these temperatures. T1 of the leaves decreased slightly as temperatureincreased from 20 to 40°C but greatly decreased as temperature increased further. On the other hand, T1 of the roots decreased linearly as temperature increased from 20 to 50°C. The levels of electrolyte leakage from leaves exposed to the above heat stress was low suggesting that membrane was not severely injured. In conclusion, analysis of Arrhenius plots of T1 and T2 is a sensitive and non-invasive method to evaluate primary responses of perennial ryegrass organs to the temperature stresses