Some clinical aspects of rheumatoid arthritis

In our department we have been placing a special emphasis on the treatment and study of rheumatoid arthritis, and during the last four years we have handled about 1,600 cases visiting our outpatient clinic and approximately 100 hospitalized cases. Our experiences with these patients are only what might be called an introductory phase in the study and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis when compared with those in Europe and America. In estimating the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis in Japan from various available data, although it would not reach the level of England and U.S.A., it will be about 100 cases per 100,000 population, matching more or less the incidence in the northern Europe. As regards sex and the predisposing age we find no great difference from those in Europe and America. One striking difference that we find is the fact that patients in our country have very little resistance against salicylic acid drug used in treatment. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a good anti-inflammatory action by administering a large dosage of 5-10g of such a drug as aspirin per day. It must be limited within a comparatively small dosage of 1.0 to 2.0 g or with concomitant administration of prednisolone and aspirin in the hope of utilizing its analgesic effect. Furthermore, it is not feasible to introduce the results of studies made in Europe and America on the salicylic drug and its prescription all of them showing the concentration in blood 35 mg%, which is on the borderline of intoxicating dosage. This is only one example, and with some more experiences we shall undoubtedly encounter many dissimilar points. Therefore, it is essential that rheumatology specific to Japan needs to be established.</p

Redshift Dependent Lag-Luminosity Relation in 565 BASTE Gamma Ray Bursts

We compared redshifts $z_Y$ from Yonetoku relation and $z_{lag}$ from the lag-luminosity relation for 565 BASTE GRBs and were surprised to find that the correlation is very low. Assuming that the luminosity is a function of both $z_Y$ and the intrinsic spectral lag $\tau_{lag}$, we found a new redshift dependent lag-luminosity relation as $L=7.5\times 10^{50}{\rm erg/s}(1+z)^{2.53}\tau_{lag}^{-0.282}$ with the correlation coefficient of 0.77 and the chance probability of $7.9\times 10^{-75}$. To check the validity of this method, we examined the other luminosity indicator, Amati relation, using $z_Y$ and the observed fluence and found the correlation coefficient of 0.92 and the chance probability of $5.2\times 10^{-106}$. Although the spectral lag is computed from two channels of BATSE, our new lag-luminosity relation suggests that a possible lag-luminosity relation in the \swift era should also depend on redshift

Constraints on w0w_0 and waw_a of Dark Energy from High Redshift Gamma Ray Bursts

We extend the Hubble diagram up to $z = 5.6$ using 63 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) via peak energy-peak luminosity relation (so called Yonetoku relation), and obtain constraints on cosmological parameters including dynamical dark energy parametrized by $P/\rho\equiv w(z) = w_0 + w_a \cdot z/(1+z)$. It is found that the current GRB data are consistent with the concordance model, ($\Omega_m = 0.28, \Omega_{\Lambda} = 0.72, w_0 = -1, w_a = 0$), within two sigma level. Although constraints from GRBs themselves are not so strong, they can improve the conventional constraints from SNeIa because GRBs have much higher redshifts. Further we estimate the constraints on the dark-energy parameters expected by future observations with GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) and \swift by Monte-Carlo simulation. Constraints would improve substantially with another 150 GRBs.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures. Submitted tu MNRA

Gamma-Ray Bursts in 1.8<z<5.61.8 < z < 5.6 Suggest that the Time Variation of the Dark Energy is Small

We calibrated the peak energy-peak luminosity relation of GRBs (so called Yonetoku relation) using 33 events with the redshift $z < 1.62$ without assuming any cosmological models. The luminosity distances to GRBs are estimated from those of large amount of Type Ia supernovae with $z<1.755$. This calibrated Yonetoku relation can be used as a new cosmic distance ladder toward higher redshifts. We determined the luminosity distances of 30 GRBs in $1.8 < z < 5.6$ using the calibrated relation and plotted the likelihood contour in $(\Omega_m,\Omega_\Lambda)$ plane. We obtained $(\Omega_m, \Omega_{\Lambda})= (0.37^{+0.14}_{-0.11}, 0.63^{+0.11}_{-0.14})$ for a flat universe. Since our method is free from the circularity problem, we can say that our universe in $1.8 < z < 5.6$ is compatible with the so called concordance cosmological model derived for $z < 1.8$. This suggests that the time variation of the dark energy is small or zero up to $z\sim 6$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted to MNRA

The read-through transcription-mediated autoactivation circuit for virulence regulator expression drives robust type III secretion system 2 expression in Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Anggramukti D.S., Ishii E., Pratama A., et al. (2004) The read-through transcription-mediated autoactivation circuit for virulence regulator expression drives robust type III secretion system 2 expression in Vibrio parahaemolyticus. PLoS Pathogens 20(3): e1012094. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1012094.Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the leading cause of seafood-borne gastroenteritis in humans worldwide. The major virulence factor responsible for the enteropathogenicity of this pathogen is type III secretion system 2 (T3SS2), which is encoded on the 80-kb V. parahaemolyticus pathogenicity island (Vp-PAI), the gene expression of which is governed by the OmpR-family transcriptional regulator VtrB. Here, we found a positive autoregulatory feature of vtrB transcription, which is often observed with transcriptional regulators of bacteria, but the regulation was not canonically dependent on its own promoter. Instead, this autoactivation was induced by heterogeneous transcripts derived from the VtrB-regulated operon upstream of vtrB. VtrB-activated transcription overcame the intrinsic terminator downstream of the operon, resulting in transcription read-through with read-in transcription of the vtrB gene and thus completing the autoregulatory loop for vtrB gene expression. The dampening of readthrough transcription with an exogenous strong terminator reduced vtrB gene expression. Furthermore, a V. parahaemolyticus mutant with defects in the vtrB autoregulatory loop also showed compromises in T3SS2 expression and T3SS2-dependent cytotoxicity in vitro and enterotoxicity in vivo, indicating that this autoregulatory loop is essential for sustained vtrB activation and the consequent robust expression of T3SS2 genes for pathogenicity. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the regulatory loop for vtrB gene expression based on read-through transcription from the upstream operon is a crucial pathway in T3SS2 gene regulatory network to ensure T3SS2-mediated virulence of V. parahaemolyticus