Effects of substitutions of glycine and asparagine for serine132 on activity and binding of human lipoprotein lipase to very low density lipoproteins

AbstractFor studying the role of Ser132 in the putative catalytic site of human lipoprotein lipase (LPL), mutant LPL cDNAs expressing LPLs with amino acid substitutions of Gly or Asn for Ser132 were obtained by site-directed mutagenesis, and were expressed in COS-1 cells. Considerable amounts of LPL enzyme protein mass were detected in the culture medium of COS-1 cells transfected with wild-type LPL, LPL-Gly132, or LPL-Asn132. LPL-Gly132 hydrolyzed Triton X-100-triolein and tributyrin as effectively as wild-type LPL, whereas LPL-Asn132 showed no activity. LPL-Asn132 bound to very low density lipoproteins as effectively as wild-type LPL

Characteristics and disease severity of healthcare-associated pneumonia among patients in a hospital in Kitakyushu, Japan.

Healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) is a newly identified condition, and epidemiologic studies in Japan are still limited. We retrospectively observed patients with HCAP and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) who were hospitalized between December 2004 and March 2005, and compared their disease characteristics. A total of 34 patients (14 with HCAP and 20 with CAP) were evaluated. Of the patients with HCAP, seven (50%) were hospitalized for at least 2 days in the preceding 90 days and five (35.7%) resided in a nursing home or extended care facility. Compared with patients with CAP, patients with HCAP were older, had more complications, including central nerve diseases, had greater disease severity, but lower serum albumin level. More methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas spp., and anaerobes were isolated from patients with HCAP than from those with CAP. Conversely, more Streptococcus pneumoniae was detected and more penicillin was used in patients with CAP. This study provides additional evidence that HCAP should be distinguished from CAP and suggests the pathogenesis and therapeutic strategy for HCAP may be similar to those for hospital-acquired pneumonia

Intensive endoscopic resection for downstaging of polyp burden in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (J-FAPP Study III) : a multicenter prospective interventional study

Background Total colectomy is the standard treatment for familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). Recently, an increasing number of young patients with FAP have requested the postponement of surgery or have refused to undergo surgery. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of intensive endoscopic removal for downstaging of polyp burden (IDP) in FAP. Method A single-arm intervention study was conducted at 22 facilities. Participants were patients with FAP, aged ≥ 16 years, who had not undergone colectomy or who had undergone colectomy but had ≥ 10 cm of large intestine remaining. For IDP, colorectal polyps of ≥ 10 mm were removed, followed by polyps of ≥ 5 mm. The primary end point was the presence/absence of colectomy during a 5-year intervention period. Results 222 patients were eligible, of whom 166 had not undergone colectomy, 46 had undergone subtotal colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis, and 10 had undergone partial resection of the large intestine. During the intervention period, five patients (2.3 %, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.74 %–5.18 %) underwent colectomy, and three patients died. Completion of the 5-year intervention period without colectomy was confirmed in 150 /166 patients who had not undergone colectomy (90.4 %, 95 %CI 84.8 %–94.4 %) and in 47 /56 patients who had previously undergone colectomy (83.9 %, 95 %CI 71.7 %–92.4 %). Conclusion IDP in patients with mild-to-moderate FAP could have the potential to be a useful means of preventing colorectal cancer without implementing colectomy. However, if the IDP protocol was proposed during a much longer term, it may not preclude the possibility that a large proportion of colectomies may still need to be performed

Comparison of rapid immunochromatographic assays using sputum and urine for Streptococcus pneumoniae detection in adult patients with respiratory tract infection

Aim: Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most frequently detected bacterium in pneumonia. RAPIRUN Streptococcus pneumoniae (RAPIRUN) using sputum and BinaxNow Streptococcus pneumoniae (BinaxNow) using urine have been used as rapid diagnostic methods for S. pneumoniae detection in Japan; however, their correlation with quantitative culture tests has not been well evaluated.Methods: A prospective study was conducted on adult patients with respiratory tract infections whose sputum and urine samples were available in six hospitals. Sputum and urine samples were tested at each site, and quantitative sputum cultures were performed. The performance of RAPIRUN and BinaxNow was compared in cases in which quantitative culture showed S. pneumoniae.Results: A total of 192 patients were analyzed. Of these, 167 were diagnosed with pneumonia (87.0%) including 161 of community-acquired pneumonia. Of the 192 cases, 86 (44.8%) were culture-proven for S. pneumoniae. There were 83 and 57 RAPIRUN- and BinaxNow-positive cases, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of RAPIRUN were 84.9% and 90.6%, respectively, and those of BinaxNOW were 55.8% and 91.5%, respectively, indicating that RAPIRUN was significantly superior in sensitivity (p < 0.0001) with almost equal specificity (p = 0.317). Positive and negative percent agreements of both tests were 59.3% (κ, 0.114 [95% CI, 0.053–0.281]) and 99.1% (κ, 0.942 [95% CI, 0.830–1]), respectively, indicating they were well matched in specificity but not in sensitivity. The positivity rate of RAPIRUN increased with an increase in the number of bacteria (p< 0.0001) but not BinaxNow (p = 0.275).Conclusion: In adult patients with respiratory tract infections in whom sputum collection is feasible, RAPIRUN will increase the diagnostic efficacy of S. pneumoniae infection

Structural Evolution Mechanism of Crystalline Polymers in the Isothermal Melt-Crystallization Process: A Proposition Based on Simultaneous WAXD/SAXS/FTIR Measurements

Time-resolved simultaneous measurements of wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) (and FTIR spectra) were performed for various kinds of crystalline polymers in isothermal melt-crystallization processes, from which the common features of the structural evolution process as well as the different behaviors intrinsic to the individual polymer species were extracted. The polymers targeted here were polyethylene, isotactic polypropylene, polyoxymethylene, aliphatic nylon, vinylidene fluoride copolymer, trans-polyisoprene, and poly(alkylene terephthalate). A universal concept of the microscopically viewed structural evolution process in isothermal crystallization may be described as follows: (i) the small domains composed of locally regular but more or less disordered helical chain segments are created in the melt (this important information was obtained by the IR spectral data analysis); (ii) these domains grow larger as the length and number of more regular helical segments increase with time; (iii) the correlation among the domains becomes stronger and they approach each other; and (iv) they merge into the stacked lamellar structure consisting of the regularly arranged crystalline lattices. The inner structure of the domains is different depending on the polymer species, as known from the IR spectral data