Acupuncture Regulates Leukocyte Subpopulations in Human Peripheral Blood

Acupuncture has recently been attracting more and more people throughout the world as an alternative treatment, however little is known about its physiological activities (i.e. immune system). We examined acupuncture both quantitatively and qualitatively by measuring CD-positive cell counts and cytokine expression levels in the blood, to determine the activity of T cells, B cells, macrophages and natural killer (NK) cells. Fifteen milliliters of peripheral blood obtained from 17 healthy volunteers aged 21–51 years, were analyzed using flow cytometry before and after acupuncture treatment. There was a statistically significant increase in the number of CD2+, CD4+, CD8+, CD11b+, CD16+, CD19+, CD56+ cells as well as IL-4, IL-1β and IFN-γ levels in the cells after acupuncture stimulation of meridian points. These observations indicate that acupuncture may regulate the immune system and promote the activities of humoral and cellular immunity as well as NK cell activity. In this article, we discussed how acupuncture regulated leukocyte numbers and functions since they are considered to be potential indicators for evaluating complementary and alternative medicine

Dynamics of proteins with different molecular structures under solution condition

Incoherent quasielastic neutron scattering (iQENS) is a fascinating technique for investigating the internal dynamics of protein. However, low flux of neutron beam, low signal to noise ratio of QENS spectrometers and unavailability of well-established analyzing method have been obstacles for studying internal dynamics under physiological condition (in solution). The recent progress of neutron source and spectrometer provide the fine iQENS profile with high statistics and as well the progress of computational technique enable us to quantitatively reveal the internal dynamic from the obtained iQENS profile. The internal dynamics of two proteins, globular domain protein (GDP) and intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) in solution, were measured with the state-of-the art QENS spectrometer and then revealed with the newly developed analyzing method. It was clarified that the average relaxation rate of IDP was larger than that of GDP and the fraction of mobile H atoms of IDP was also much higher than that of GDP. Combined with the structural analysis and the calculation of solvent accessible surface area of amino acid residue, it was concluded that the internal dynamics were related to the highly solvent exposed amino acid residues depending upon protein’s structure

Recurrent malignant melanoma of the palate successfully treated by gamma knife radiosurgery

The prognosis of oral malignant melanoma is reported to be extremely poor. In this report, a patient with recurrent oral melanoma in the skull base that was successfully treated by gamma knife radiosurgery (GKS) is described. A 53-year-old man was referred with a chief complaint of a mass of the hard palate. The histological diagnosis of a biopsy specimen was malignant melanoma. He underwent a wide local resection with bilateral neck dissection, followed by immunochemotherapy with DAV-Feron. At 13 months postoperatively, a recurrent tumor was found in the posterior lower region of the nasal septum. The patient underwent resection of the lesion, followed by immunochemotherapy with DAC-Tam-Feron. However, at 9 months after the last chemotherapy, local recurrence occurred again in the skull base, and he underwent GKS. The recurrent tumor disappeared completely and he is well with no signs of recurrence or metastasis at 57 months after GKS

Visualization 1: Integral 3D display using multiple LCD panels and multi-image combining optical system

Changes in the appearance of image from different viewpoints. Originally published in Optics Express on 06 February 2017 (oe-25-3-2805

The use of human mesenchymal stem cell-derived feeder cells for the cultivation of transplantable epithelial sheets. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual

PURPOSE. To report the efficacy of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells as a source of feeder cells for the cultivation of transplantable corneal epithelial cell sheets. METHODS. Human mesenchymal stem cells (marrow adherent stem cells; MASCs) were cultured in ␣-modified Eagle's medium with 10% serum and were treated with mitomycin C. Expression of cytokines in MASCs was confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Human limbal epithelial cells were cocultured with MASCs or 3T3 feeder cells to compare colony-forming efficiency (CFE). Limbal epithelial cells were cultured on MASCs or 3T3 feeder cells at the airliquid interface to allow stratification, and stratified epithelial sheets were analyzed by immunohistochemistry against cytokeratin 3 (K3), K15, p63␣, and ABCG2. Rabbit limbal epithelial cell sheets were cultivated with MASC feeder cells and transplanted to the ocular surface of the limbal-deficient rabbits. Epithelial grafts were observed by slit lamp microscopy for 4 weeks and then evaluated by histology and immunohistochemistry against K3 and K4. RESULTS. MASC feeder cells expressed keratinocyte growth factor, hepatocyte growth factor, and N-cadherin. The CFE of human limbal epithelial cells was similar in MASC and 3T3 feeder groups. Stratified cell sheets were successfully cultivated with MASC feeder cells expressing K3, K15, p63␣, and ABCG2. Transplanted epithelial sheets regenerated the corneal phenotype in limbal-deficient rabbits. CONCLUSIONS. MASC-derived feeder cells are suitable for the engineering of epithelial sheets, avoiding the use of potentially hazardous xenologic feeder cells. (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci