Diagnosis and management of intestinal Behçet’s disease

Behçet’s disease (BD) is a chronic relapsing disease with multiple organ system involvement characterized clinically by oral and genital aphthae, cutaneous lesions, and ophthalmological, neurological, and/or gastrointestinal manifestations. Little clinical evidence is available regarding the management of patients with intestinal BD, despite recognition that the presence of intestinal lesions is a poor prognostic factor, causing perforation and massive bleeding. Many recent case reports have suggested that anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF)α monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are effective in patients with intestinal BD. Adalimumab, a fully human anti-TNFα mAb, has been approved in Japan for the treatment of intestinal BD. Here, we review the pathogenesis, diagnosis and management of intestinal BD, including evidence of the efficacy of anti-TNFα mAbs

Designing Novel Breeding Strategies for Producing High-Oil Crops Based on a Molecular Understanding of Triacylglycerol Metabolism

Seeds are storage organ in plants and main resource of plant oils to human civilization and the demand of plant oils are increasing yearly and expansion of the production capacity is an urgent issue worldwide. Thus, it is necessary to improve oil yields per unit area and generation of crops with high-oil content is needed. Arabidopsis thaliana plays a vital role in advancement of genetics and molecular biology in plant sciences. The forward and reverse genetic approaches with Arabidopsis have provided an overview of triacylglycerol metabolism. The elucidation of the overview contributes to understanding of spatiotemporal regulation of a metabolic flow of triacylglycerol metabolism in plant cell. This understanding sheds light on bottlenecks in triacylglycerol biosynthesis and provides novel clues for increasing seed triacylglycerol content. Recent advance in metabolic engineering approaches demonstrate several evidences that triacylglycerol metabolism is coordinated with other metabolisms. Most notably, triacylglycerol biosynthesis competes with biosynthesis of starch or seed storage proteins. These studies indicate that alterations of the metabolic pathways to avoid the competitions could be a novel concept for increasing seed oil content

Current new challenges in the management of ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the cause of UC is postulated to be multifactorial in nature, including genetic predisposition, epithelial barrier defects, dysregulation of immune responses, and environmental factors, the specific pathogenesis of UC is still incompletely understood. In the treatment of UC so far, a method of suppressing immunity and treating it has been mainstream. Immunosuppressant drugs, including thiopurines (azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine), anti-tumor necrosis factor-α (anti-TNF-α) antibody (infliximab and adalimumab), and calcineurin inhibitor, can be used in treat patients with corticosteroid-dependent and/or corticosteroid-refractory moderate-to-severe UC. Recently, in addition to such a conventional therapeutic agent, golimumab, which is the first transgenic human monoclonal anti-TNF-α antibody to be fabricated, anti α-4/β-7 integrin antibody, and Janus kinase inhibitor have been reported to novel immunosuppressant therapy. Furthermore, other treatments with unique mechanisms different from immunosuppression, have also been suggested, including fecal microbiota transplantation and Indigo naturalis, which is a Chinese herbal medicine. We compared the features and efficacy of these new treatments. In this issue, the features and treatment options for these new treatments is reviewed

Imaging the decay of quantized vortex rings to decipher quantum dissipation

Like many quantum fluids, superfluid helium-4 (He II) can be considered as a mixture of two miscible fluid components: an inviscid superfluid and a viscous normal fluid consisting of thermal quasiparticles [1]. A mutual friction between the two fluids can emerge due to quasiparticles scattering off quantized vortex lines in the superfluid [2]. This quantum dissipation mechanism is the key for understanding various fascinating behaviors of the two-fluid system [3,4]. However, due to the lack of experimental data for guidance, modeling the mutual friction between individual vortices and the normal fluid remains an unsettled topic despite decades of research [5-10]. Here we report an experiment where we visualize the motion of quantized vortex rings in He II by decorating them with solidified deuterium tracer particles. By examining how the rings spontaneously shrink and accelerate, we provide unequivocal evidences showing that only a recent theory [9] which accounts for the coupled motion of the two fluids with a self-consistent local friction can reproduce the observed ring dynamics. Our work eliminates long-standing ambiguities in our theoretical description of the vortex dynamics in He II, which will have a far-reaching impact since similar mutual friction concept has been adopted for a wide variety of quantum two-fluid systems, including atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) [11,12], superfluid neutron stars [13-15], and gravity-mapped holographic superfluid [16,17].Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Predicting the Route of Delivery in Women with Low-Lying Placenta Using Transvaginal Ultrasonography: Significance of Placental Migration and Marginal Sinus

Background/Aims: To examine the significance of placental migration and the presence of a placental marginal sinus to predict the eventual route of delivery in low-lying placenta. Methods: 49 women with a low-lying placenta after 30 weeks' gestation were studied. The distance between the internal os and leading edge of the placenta was measured weekly using transvaginal ultrasonography until 37 weeks' gestation. The relationship between the rate of placental migration, the presence of a placental marginal sinus and the eventual mode of delivery was investigated. Results: Although the cesarean section rate was 56.3% (9/16) in the 'slow' migration (0-2.0 mm/week) group, no patient (0/33) in the 'fast' (>2.0 mm/week) migration group underwent a cesarean section (p<0.01). The cesarean section rate was 71.4% (5/7) in patients with a placental marginal sinus, significantly greater than the rate of 9.5% (4/42) in patients without a marginal sinus (p<0.01). Conclusion:A decreased rate of placental migration until 37 weeks' gestation and the presence of a placental marginal sinus were associated with subsequent cesarean delivery because of antepartum vaginal bleeding. These parameters may be useful for predicting the route of delivery in women with a low-lying placenta.ArticleGYNECOLOGIC AND OBSTETRIC INVESTIGATION. 73(3):217-222 (2012)journal articl

Autonomic Nervous System Changes in Term Infants during Early Skin-to-skin Contact (SSC) : Examination of SSC Effectiveness and the Influence of Meconium-stained Amniotic Fluid

Article信州医学雑誌 67(2): 91-103(2019)journal articl

A Case of Vaginal Varices that Caused Massive Bleeding after Vaginal Delivery

Article信州医学雑誌 64(1):35-39 (2016)journal articl

Placental Mesenchymal Dysplasia: Chronological Observation of Placental Images during Gestation and Review of the Literature

Placental mesenchymal dysplasia (PMD) is characterized by multiple hypoechoic vesicles which are similar to molar changes in the placenta; however, the process of such morphological changes of PMD during pregnancy has not been fully understood. We performed a review of all PMD cases published in English and identified 49 articles including 110 cases. With regard to the gestational age at which the multicystic pattern was seen, approximately 70% of cases were diagnosed at 13-20 weeks of gestation. Another characteristic feature of PMD is varicose dilation of fetal chorionic vessels. As many as 90% of cases were diagnosed as placenta with dilated fetal chorionic vessels in the third trimester. We also report a case of PMD which was found at 10 weeks of gestation according to ultrasonic molar patterns. Serial observations of the placenta using ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging revealed that multicystic lesions became smaller after 23 weeks. In contrast, dilated placental vessels on the fetal side became apparent at 38 weeks. The present review highlights that placental vesicular lesions of PMD may precede dilation of fetal chorionic vessels during pregnancy. It also indicates the potential of a gradual reduction in size of PMD's placental vesicular lesions by serial study of placental images.ArticleGYNECOLOGIC AND OBSTETRIC INVESTIGATION. 75(4):217-223 (2013)journal articl