硝子体の構造とその液化との関係

The aim of the study is to clarify the vitreous body structure and liquefaction phenomena. It was found that when melting a frozen rabbit vitreous body, the gel-sol transition phenomenon occurs and the gel structure is broken. This is almost like the liquefaction of the vitreous body in vivo. We try to clarify the liquefaction phenomenon by using this animal model. The native vitreous body has three dimensional meshwork structures. After liquefaction, it is changed into two parts, namely fiber aggregates and soluble amorphous aggregates. The surface of native vitreous body meshwork is mucopolysacharide, but that of fiber aggregates after liquefaction is changed into connective tissue, which means the conformational change of vitreous body in liquefaction. The soluble proteins after liquefaction were analyzed and identified as crystallin family. It is suggested that the liquefaction is induced by detachment of non-collagenous protein beads containing crystallins, resulting in the collapse of the three dimensional structure to release watery liquid trapped within. And the new gel-sol transition model of vitreous bod is proposed.博士（医学）・乙1330号・平成26年3月17

Oral Tolerance Induced by Transfer of Food Antigens via Breast Milk of Allergic Mothers Prevents Offspring from Developing Allergic Symptoms in a Mouse Food Allergy Model

We examined whether maternal exposure to food antigens during lactation and maternal allergic status would affect the development of food allergy in offspring. OVA-sensitized or OVA-nonsensitized BALB/c female mice were exposed or unexposed to OVA during lactation. After weaning, their offspring were systemically sensitized twice with OVA and repeatedly given OVA by oral intubation. While 97.1% of the mice breastfed by OVA-nonsensitized and OVA-unexposed mothers developed allergic diarrhea, 59.7% of the mice breastfed by OVA-exposed nonallergic mothers during lactation and 24.6% of the mice breastfed by OVA-exposed allergic mothers during lactation developed food allergy. Furthermore, OVA was detected in breast-milk from OVA-exposed nonallergic mothers during lactation (4.6 ± 0.5 μg/mL). In addition, OVA-specific IgG1 titers were markedly increased in breast milk from allergic mothers (OVA-sensitized and OVA-unexposed mother: 11.0 ± 0.5, OVA-sensitized and OVA-exposed mother: 12.3 ± 0.3). Our results suggest that oral tolerance induced by breast milk-mediated transfer of dietary antigens along with their specific immunoglobulins to offspring leads to antigen-specific protection from food allergy

Oral granuloma with chronic graft-vs-host disease

BACKGROUND Oral mucositis is often observed with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD); however, the occurrence of oral granuloma is rare. The rapid increase in granulomatous lesions should be distinguished from malignant tumors in patients with GVHD because malignant diseases can develop in those patients. This case is the youngest pediatric patient with granuloma associated with GVHD. CASE SUMMARY The patient was a 1-year and 5-mo-old girl who presented to our department for the management of oral nodules. At the age of 5 mo, she was diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency disease, cord blood transplant was performed at 11 mo and bone marrow transplant at 1 year of age. After transplantation, GVHD and oral mucositis developed, and tacrolimus was administered. Interestingly, nodules appeared on the lower lip and buccal mucosa, which spontaneously disappeared. Then, a new nodule appeared on the left lateral border of the tongue. Resection was performed and the histopathological diagnosis was granuloma. The origin of these nodules were considered to be the fibroblasts activated under inflammation caused by GVHD because the calcineurin inhibitor tacrolimus acted on their proliferation. CONCLUSION It is very important to distinguish oral granulomatous lesions from malignancies if GVHD is present at the base and if immunosuppressive agents and steroids are being administered

Establishment of a monoclonal antibody for human LXRα: Detection of LXRα protein expression in human macrophages

Liver X activated receptor alpha (LXRα) forms a functional dimeric nuclear receptor with RXR that regulates the metabolism of several important lipids, including cholesterol and bile acids. As compared with RXR, the LXRα protein level in the cell is low and the LXRα protein itself is very hard to detect. We have previously reported that the mRNA for LXRα is highly expressed in human cultured macrophages. In order to confirm the presence of the LXRα protein in the human macrophage, we have established a monoclonal antibody against LXRα, K-8607. The binding of mAb K-8607 to the human LXRα protein was confirmed by a wide variety of different techniques, including immunoblotting, immunohistochemistry, and electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). By immunoblotting with this antibody, the presence of native LXR protein in primary cultured human macrophage was demonstrated, as was its absence in human monocytes. This monoclonal anti-LXRα antibody should prove to be a useful tool in the analysis of the human LXRα protein

Analysis of the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation beyond Planck Scale and Dimensional Reduction

We solve the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for {\it four}-dimensional Einstein gravity as an expansion in powers of the Planck mass by means of a heat kernel regularization. Our results suggest that in the universe with a very small radius or with a very large curvature beyond a Planck scale expectation values of operators are reduced to calculations in a path integral representation of {\it three}-dimensional Einstein gravity.Comment: 9 pages, latex file, KOBE-TH-94-0

H dibaryon in the QCD sum rule

The QCD sum rule is applied to the H dibaryon and is compared to the flavor non-singlet di-nucleon. We find that the H dibaryon is almost degenerate to the di-nucleon in the $SU(3)_{flavor}$ limit and therefore is not deeply bound as far as th\ e threshold parameter is adjusted not to have a di-nucleon bound state. After introducing the $SU(3)_{f}$ breaking effects, the H dibaryon is found to be bound by $40 MeV$ below the $\Lambda \Lambda$ threshold.Comment: 10 pages 4 uuencoded figures containe

Spectral evolution of GRB 060904A observed with Swift and Suzaku -- Possibility of Inefficient Electron Acceleration

We observed an X-ray afterglow of GRB 060904A with the Swift and Suzaku satellites. We found rapid spectral softening during both the prompt tail phase and the decline phase of an X-ray flare in the BAT and XRT data. The observed spectra were fit by power-law photon indices which rapidly changed from $\Gamma = 1.51^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$ to $\Gamma = 5.30^{+0.69}_{-0.59}$ within a few hundred seconds in the prompt tail. This is one of the steepest X-ray spectra ever observed, making it quite difficult to explain by simple electron acceleration and synchrotron radiation. Then, we applied an alternative spectral fitting using a broken power-law with exponential cutoff (BPEC) model. It is valid to consider the situation that the cutoff energy is equivalent to the synchrotron frequency of the maximum energy electrons in their energy distribution. Since the spectral cutoff appears in the soft X-ray band, we conclude the electron acceleration has been inefficient in the internal shocks of GRB 060904A. These cutoff spectra suddenly disappeared at the transition time from the prompt tail phase to the shallow decay one. After that, typical afterglow spectra with the photon indices of 2.0 are continuously and preciously monitored by both XRT and Suzaku/XIS up to 1 day since the burst trigger time. We could successfully trace the temporal history of two characteristic break energies (peak energy and cutoff energy) and they show the time dependence of $\propto t^{-3} \sim t^{-4}$ while the following afterglow spectra are quite stable. This fact indicates that the emitting material of prompt tail is due to completely different dynamics from the shallow decay component. Therefore we conclude the emission sites of two distinct phenomena obviously differ from each other.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ (Suzaku 2nd Special Issue

Long-term monitoring of the short period SU UMa-type dwarf nova, V844 Herculis

We report on time-resolved CCD photometry of four outbursts of a short-period SU UMa-type dwarf nova, V844 Herculis. We successfully determined the mean superhump periods to be 0.05584(64) days, and 0.055883(3) for the 2002 May superoutburst, and the 2006 April-May superoutburst, respectively. During the 2002 October observations, we confirmed that the outburst is a normal outburst, which is the first recorded normal outburst in V844 Her. We also examined superhump period changes during 2002 May and 2006 April-May superoutbursts, both of which showed increasing superhump period over the course of the plateau stage. In order to examine the long-term behavior of V844 Her, we analyzed archival data over the past ten years since the discovery of this binary. Although photometry is not satisfactory in some superoutbursts, we found that V844 Her showed no precursors and rebrightenings. Based on the long-term light curve, we further confirmed V844 Her has shown almost no normal outbursts despite the fact that the supercycle of the system is estimated to be about 300 days. In order to explain the long-term light curves of V844 Her, evaporation in the accretion disk may play a role in the avoidance of several normal outbursts, which does not contradict with the relatively large X-ray luminosity of V844 Her.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, accepted for PAS