Primary Thymic Mucosa-Associated Lymphoid Tissue Lymphoma: Diagnostic Tips

AbstractMucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma arising in the thymus is extremely rare and little is known regarding its clinicopathological features. This study examined the clinicopathological features of nine cases of thymic MALT lymphoma. Most patients had autoimmune disease or hyperglobulinemia, and they also had cysts in the tumors. Both increased serum autoantibody levels and polyclonal serum immunoglobulin levels remained essentially unchanged after total thymectomy in all patients. Thymic MALT lymphoma needs to be included in the differential diagnosis in Asian patients with a cystic thymic mass accompanied by autoimmune disease or hyperglobulinemia

Is Black Carbon an Unimportant Ice-Nucleating Particle in Mixed-Phase Clouds?

It has been hypothesized that black carbon (BC) influences mixed‐phase clouds by acting as an ice‐nucleating particle (INP). However, the literature data for ice nucleation by BC immersed in supercooled water are extremely varied, with some studies reporting that BC is very effective at nucleating ice, whereas others report no ice‐nucleating ability. Here we present new experimental results for immersion mode ice nucleation by BC from two contrasting fuels (n‐decane and eugenol). We observe no significant heterogeneous nucleation by either sample. Using a global aerosol model, we quantify the maximum relative importance of BC for ice nucleation when compared with K‐feldspar and marine organic aerosol acting as INP. Based on the upper limit from our laboratory data, we show that BC contributes at least several orders of magnitude less INP than feldspar and marine organic aerosol. Representations of its atmospheric ice‐nucleating ability based on older laboratory data produce unrealistic results when compared against ambient observations of INP. Since BC is a complex material, it cannot be unambiguously ruled out as an important INP species in all locations at all times. Therefore, we use our model to estimate a range of values for the density of active sites that BC particles must have to be relevant for ice nucleation in the atmosphere. The estimated values will guide future work on BC, defining the required sensitivity of future experimental studies

The limits of fiction: politics and absent scenes in Susumu Hani’s Bad Boys (Furyōshōnen, 1960). A film re-reading through its script

This text proposes an updated analysis of Susumu Hani’s Bad Boys (1960) through the director’s theoretical contribution and the re-reading of his script. This film, made within the limits of reality and fiction, was instrumental in the cinematic language of the sixties in Japan. Hani implemented herein a style that he developed during his earlier decade as a documentary maker for Iwanami Eiga studios. Hani based his filmmaking method on a philosophical pragmatism extracted from the practices of an amateur writing called seikatsu kiroku (life document) that appeared in the early 1950s. In fact, Bad Boys is a loose adaptation of Tobenai Tsubasa (Wings that Cannot Fly) an example of seikatsu kiroku consisting of a compilation of experiences written by inmates from the Kurihama reformatory. Hani responded to the demands for a new realism of the time with this film, which he made collectively with the former inmates of that reformatory. Additionally, a close analysis of the script reveals significant ‘absent scenes’ of student demonstrations, which are similar to those Oshima and Yoshida used in 1960. This fact evidences Hani’s shared concern with other filmmakers of the time about the necessities of bringing cinema closer to topical issues

Head-head interactions of resting myosin crossbridges in intact frog skeletal muscles, revealed by synchrotron x-ray fiber diffraction.

The intensities of the myosin-based layer lines in the x-ray diffraction patterns from live resting frog skeletal muscles with full thick-thin filament overlap from which partial lattice sampling effects had been removed were analyzed to elucidate the configurations of myosin crossbridges around the thick filament backbone to nanometer resolution. The repeat of myosin binding protein C (C-protein) molecules on the thick filaments was determined to be 45.33 nm, slightly longer than that of myosin crossbridges. With the inclusion of structural information for C-proteins and a pre-powerstroke head shape, modeling in terms of a mixed population of regular and perturbed regions of myosin crown repeats along the filament revealed that the myosin filament had azimuthal perturbations of crossbridges in addition to axial perturbations in the perturbed region, producing pseudo-six-fold rotational symmetry in the structure projected down the filament axis. Myosin crossbridges had a different organization about the filament axis in each of the regular and perturbed regions. In the regular region that lacks C-proteins, there were inter-molecular interactions between the myosin heads in axially adjacent crown levels. In the perturbed region that contains C-proteins, in addition to inter-molecular interactions between the myosin heads in the closest adjacent crown levels, there were also intra-molecular interactions between the paired heads on the same crown level. Common features of the interactions in both regions were interactions between a portion of the 50-kDa-domain and part of the converter domain of the myosin heads, similar to those found in the phosphorylation-regulated invertebrate myosin. These interactions are primarily electrostatic and the converter domain is responsible for the head-head interactions. Thus multiple head-head interactions of myosin crossbridges also characterize the switched-off state and have an important role in the regulation or other functions of myosin in thin filament-regulated muscles as well as in the thick filament-regulated muscles

Axial intensity profiles of the C-protein-associated meridional reflections.

<p>The x-ray diffraction pattern was obtained at the Advanced Photon Source. (A) Those of the C1/M1 region. (B–E) Those of the clusters of the C2 to C5 meridional reflections. The experimental intensity profiles are denoted by red dotted curves and the fitted Gaussian functions are shown by black curves. (F) Axial spacings of each C-protein and each myosin reflection when divided by their reflection index. They are shown by blue and red full circles, respectively. Bars on the circles are the standard deviation of the mean from four data sets. The average period of C-protein is 45.33±0.58 nm and that of myosin is 42.96±0.11 nm. In (F), the spacing (44.5 nm) of the reflection which was enhanced by labeling antibody to C-protein <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0052421#pone.0052421-Rome1" target="_blank">[40]</a> is shown by the blue open circle. In (A), there are triplet of reflections in 0.0205 nm⁻¹< <i>Z</i><0.0245 nm⁻¹ with a main peak at 1/44.5 nm⁻¹, and the axial positions of the reflections assigned as C1 and M1 are depicted by vertical lines. TN1 denotes the sampled first order troponin-based reflection.</p

The cylindrically-averaged difference Patterson function and the corrected layer line intensities.

<p>(A) The <i>r</i>-<i>z</i> map of the cylindrically-averaged difference Patterson function [Δ<i>Q</i>(<i>r, z</i>)] calculated from the observed M1 to M11 layer line intensities. The map is contoured at levels between 0 and 410 at the intervals of 4.1. Only positive peaks are shown and negative peaks are omitted. The borderline (a red curve) is drawn distinguishing the region of inter-crossbridge vectors within a single filament from that of inter-filament crossbridge vectors. (B) Comparisons of the intensities (black curves) corrected by the cut-off method and the original layer line intensities from full-overlap muscles (gray curves). The layer line intensities are normalized so that the sum of the intensities except for the region close to the meridian (<i>R</i><0.0254 nm⁻¹) is identical between the corrected and original intensities (see text).</p

Modeling crossbridge structure of the frog skeletal thick myosin filament.

<p>(A) Distributions of the perturbed region (blue), the regular region (green) of myosin crossbridge arrays and the C-protein region (red) along the thick filament in resting frog muscles. (B) Overview of the thick filament model including C-proteins. Members of paired heads constituting a single myosin crossbridge are distinguished by a red or purple color. C-protein is bound to the thick filament backbone every at the level of crown 1. Eleven domains of a C-protein having a molecular weight of ∼130 kDa are shown by white spheres, each having a diameter of 4 nm <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0052421#pone.0052421-Luther1" target="_blank">[18]</a>. The backbone of the myosin filament is shown as a gray cylinder. Upper, a top view and lower, a side view. (C) Parameters describing the arrangement of a two-headed myosin crossbridge in terms of a 68-sphere model on the filament backbone in ADP and Pi-bound state. The <i>z</i>-axis is parallel to the filament axis. <i>φ</i> is the rotation angle of crossbridges about the filament axis and <i>ε</i> is the rotation angle of the two heads of a crossbridge about the <i>z-</i>axis. <i>r_h</i> is the average of helical radii of myosin crossbridges. Paired heads of a single crossbridge and the backbone are denoted as in (B).</p