Incidence rates of in-hospital carpal tunnel syndrome in the general population and possible associations with marital status

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a socially relevant condition associated with biomechanical risk factors. We evaluated age-sex-specific incidence rates of in-hospital cases of CTS in central/northern Italy and explored relations with marital status.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Seven regions were considered (overall population, 14.9 million) over 3–6-year periods between 1997 and 2002 (when out-of-hospital CTS surgery was extremely rare). Incidence rates of in-hospital cases of CTS were estimated based on 1) codified demographic, diagnostic and intervention data in obligatory discharge records from all Italian public/private hospitals, archived (according to residence) on regional databases; 2) demographic general population data for each region. We compared (using the χ_scoretest) age-sex-specific rates between married, unmarried, divorced and widowed subsets of the general population. We calculated standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for married/unmarried men and women.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Age-standardized incidence rates (per 100,000 person-years) of in-hospital cases of CTS were 166 in women and 44 in men (106 overall). Married subjects of both sexes showed higher age-specific rates with respect to unmarried men/women. SIRs were calculated comparing married vs unmarried rates of both sexes: 1.59 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.57–1.60) in women, and 1.42 (95% CI, 1.40–1.45) in men. As compared with married women/men, widows/widowers both showed 2–3-fold higher incidence peaks during the fourth decade of life (beyond 50 years of age, widowed subjects showed similar trends to unmarried counterparts).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This large population-based study illustrates distinct age-related trends in men and women, and also raises the question whether marital status could be associated with CTS in the general population.</p

Assembled IgG molecules are exported from the endoplasmic reticulum in myeloma cells despite the retention signal SEKDEL.

The KDEL retention signal, when added at the C-terminal of the constant region of light and heavy chains of immunoglobulins is able to efficiently retain assembled immunoglobulins only in cells of nonlymphoid origin. In transfected myeloma cells the wild type and the KDEL-Ig mutants are secreted with the same efficiency. This phenomenon is not due to a proteolytic cleavage of the KDEL signal nor to a lack of intermolecular disulfide bond formation and is not due to an impaired recognition of the KDEL signal in myeloma cells. Thus, the constitutive secretion of assembled immunoglobulins, currently considered to follow a default process, appears to be regulated by a mechanism that is able to overcome an efficient ER retention system

Oleanolic and ursolic acid in dammar and mastic resin: Isomer discrimination by using ToF-SIMS and multivariate statistics

Triterpenoid resins, such as dammar resin and mastic resin, are natural products used as protective varnishes on paintings. Dammar resin consists of a large amount of triterpenoid molecules including two triterpenic acids: oleanolic acid and ursolic acid. Similarly, mastic resin is a complex blend of terpenoids but containing oleanolic acid. In this paper, high-mass-resolution time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) has been used to characterize the fragmentation patterns of oleanolic acid and ursolic acid. The hypothesized fragmentation pathways for these triterpenic acids have also been discussed. In order to distinguish between these two structural isomers, principal component analysis (PCA) has been adopted. This multivariate statistical analysis technique permits to identify the characteristic fragments and discriminates between very similar mass spectra. In addition, dammar resin and mastic resin have been characterized. A selection of characteristic peaks from ursolic and oleanolic acids mass spectra has been used to build a dataset for a multivariate analysis to compare triterpenoid resins and triterpenic acids. The results of PCA have revealed that mastic resin is strictly related to oleanolic acid, whereas dammar resin is differentiated by ursolic acid fragments. This study confirms that, in the cultural heritage field, the time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry technique combined with PCA can be a powerful tool to investigate the chemical composition of organic compounds with very complex composition

Post-translational selective intracellular silencing of acetylated proteins with de novo selected intrabodies

The ability to selectively interfere with post-translationally modified proteins would have many biological and therapeutic applications. However, post-translational modifications cannot be selectively targeted by nucleic-acid-based interference approaches. Here we describe post-translational intracellular silencing antibody technology (PISA), a method for selecting intrabodies against post-translationally modified proteins. We demonstrate our method by generating intrabodies against native acetylated proteins and showing functional interference in living cells