Plasma of argon enhances the adhesion of murine osteoblasts on different graft materials

OBJECTIVE Plasma of argon treatment was demonstrated to increase material surface energy leading to stronger and faster interaction with cells. The aim of the present in vitro study was to test the effect of plasma treatment on different graft materials. MATERIALS AND METHODS Synthetic hydroxyapatite (Mg-HA), biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP), cancellous and cortical xenogeneic bone matrices (CaBM, CoBM) were used representing commonly used classes of bone substitute materials. Fifty serially numbered disks with a 10mm-diameter from each graft material were randomly divided into two groups: test group (argon plasma treatment) and control group (absence of treatment). Cell morphology (using pre-osteoblastic murine cells) and protein adsorption were analyzed at all samples from both the test and control group. Differences between groups were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test setting the level of significance at p<0.05. RESULTS Plasma treatment significantly increased the protein adsorption at all samples. Similarly, plasma treatment significantly increased cell adhesion in all groups. CONCLUSIONS Data confirmed that non-atmospheric plasma of argon treatment led to an increase of protein adsorption and cell adhesion in all groups of graft material to a similar extent. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Plasma of argon is able to improve the surface conditions of graft materials

Twisted mass transport enabled by the angular momentum of light

The authors acknowledge support in the form of KAKENHI Grants-in-Aid (Grant Nos. JP 16H06507, JP 17K19070, and JP 18H03884) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) CREST Grant No. (JPMJCR1903), and the U.S. National Science Foundation Award #1809518. KD and YA thank the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for funding (through Grant No. EP/P030017/1).Light may carry both orbital angular momentum (AM) and spin AM. The former is a consequence of its helical wavefront, and the latter is a result of its rotating transverse electric field. Intriguingly, the light–matter interaction with such fields shows that the orbital AM of light causes a physical “twist” in a range of materials, including metal, silicon, azopolymer, and even liquid-phase resin. This process may be aided by the light’s spin AM, resulting in the formation of various helical structures. The exchange between the AM of light and matter offers not only unique helical structures at the nanoscale but also entirely novel fundamental phenomena with regard to the light–matter interaction. This will lead to the future development of advanced photonics devices, including metamaterials for highly sensitive detectors as well as reactions for chiral chemical composites. Here, we focus on interactions between the AM of light and azopolymers, which exhibit some of the most diverse structures and phenomena observed. These studies result in helical surface relief structures in azopolymers and will leverage next-generation applications with light fields carrying optical AM.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Ectopic adrenal adenoma causing gross hematuria: Steroidogenic enzyme profiling and literature review

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149375/1/iju512068.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149375/2/iju512068_am.pd

後筋筋電図法

The posterior cricoarytenoid muscle (PCA) is the major laryngeal vocal cord abductor, and electromyography (EMG) of this muscle plays an important role in investigating the mechanism of speech and respiration. However, the EMG study of this muscle has been limited, because it's location makes it difficult to record a signal from the muscle. Different PCA recording techniques have been developed. The approach to the muscle developed along three main lines: per oral, percutaneous and per nasal approach. Three kinds of electrodes; a bipolar needle electrode, a surface electrode and a hooked wire electrode have been used for the recording. Techniques of electrode placement in the PCA are reviewed

喉頭ストロボスコピー所見の定量的評価

A computer system was introduced for quantitative evaluation of laryngeal images in normal volunteers and laryngeal paralysis patients. The subjects consisted of 10 normal volunteers and 10 patients with unilateral laryngeal paralysis (5 median fixation cases and 5 paramedian fixation cases). For phonatory examination, the sustained vowel /e/ with an easy phonation level was used. A glottal area was measured in digitized laryngeal stroboscopic images and normalized by the square of the vocal fold length. The average glottal area was defined to be as the average of the maximum and the minimum normalized glottal areas. In laryngeal paralysis patients, the average glottal area became larger as the paralyzed vocal fold position deviated from the median. Furthermore, the observation methods for vocal fold vibration was reveiwed and discussed. It emphasized that laryngeal stroboscopy was the most useful clinical testing methods

Phylogenetic analysis of Malagasy Gastrorchis and Phaius （Orchidaceae）based on internal transcribed spacer（ITS）sequence

The molecular phylogenetics among five species of Gastrorchis and Phaius pulchellus all endemic to Madagas-car and additional four species of non-Malagasy Phaius was studied on the basis of the sequence analysis of ITS region of rDNA. The species of Gastrorchis and those of Phaius studied constituted two respective clades, except-ing Malagasy P . pulchellus was placed in the clade of Gastrorchis. This fact suggests that Malagasy P . pulchell-us might be shared and originated from the common ancestor of Gastrorchis

Expression of enhancer of zeste homolog 2 correlates with survival outcome in patients with metastatic breast cancer: exploratory study using primary and paired metastatic lesions

Evaluation of immunostaining of EZH2 and Ki67. (DOC 52 kb

Serum Antibody Against NY-ESO-1 and XAGE1 Antigens Potentially Predicts Clinical Responses to Anti–Programmed Cell Death-1 Therapy in NSCLC

Introduction: Programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibitors effectively treat NSCLC and prolong survival. Robust biomarkers for predicting clinical benefits of good response and long survival with anti-PD-1 therapy have yet to be identified; therefore, predictive biomarkers are needed to select patients with benefits. Methods: We conducted a prospective study to explore whether serum antibody against NY-ESO-1 and/or XAGE1 cancer-testis antigens predicted primarily good clinical response and secondarily long survival with anti-PD-1 therapy for NSCLC. The serum antibody was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and tumor immune microenvironment and mutation burden were analyzed by immunohistochemistry and next-generation sequencing. Results: In the discovery cohort (n = 13), six antibody-positive NSCLC cases responded to anti-PD-1 therapy (two complete and four partial responses), whereas seven antibody-negative NSCLC cases did not. Antibody positivity was associated with good response and survival, regardless of tumor programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, mutation burden, and CD8+ T-cell infiltration. In the validation cohort (n = 75), 17 antibody-positive NSCLC cases responded well to anti-PD-1 therapy as compared with 58 negative NSCLC cases (objective response rate 65% versus 19%, p = 0.0006) and showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival and overall survival. Antibody titers highly correlated with tumor reduction rates. In the multivariate analysis, response biomarkers were tumor programmed death ligand 1 expression and antibody positivity, and only antibody positivity was a significantly better predictive biomarker of progression-free survival (hazard ratio = 0.4, p = 0.01) and overall survival (hazard ratio = 0.2, p = 0.004). Conclusions: Our results suggest that NY-ESO-1 and/or XAGE1 serum antibodies are useful biomarkers for predicting clinical benefits in anti-PD-1 therapy for NSCLC and probably for other cancers

Heparin cofactor II reduces albuminuria

Aims/Introduction: Thrombin exerts various pathophysiological functions by activating protease-activated receptors (PARs). Recent data have shown that PARs influence the development of glomerular diseases including diabetic kidney disease (DKD) by regulating inflammation. Heparin cofactor II (HCII) specifically inactivates thrombin; thus, we hypothesized that low plasma HCII activity correlates with DKD development, as represented by albuminuria. Materials and Methods: Plasma HCII activity and spot urine biomarkers, including albumin and liver-type fatty acid-binding protein (L-FABP), were determined as the urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) and the urine L-FABP-to-creatinine ratio (uL-FABPCR) in 310 Japanese patients with diabetes mellitus (176 males and 134 females). The relationships between plasma HCII activities and those DKD urine biomarkers were statistically evaluated. In addition, the relationship between plasma HCII activities and annual uACR changes was statistically evaluated for 201/310 patients (115 males and 86 females). Results: The mean plasma HCII activity of all participants was 93.8 ± 17.7%. Multivariate-regression analysis including confounding factors showed that plasma HCII activity independently contributed to the suppression of the uACR and log-transformed uACR values (P = 0.036 and P = 0.006, respectively) but not uL-FABPCR (P = 0.541). In addition, plasma HCII activity significantly and inversely correlated with annual uACR and log-transformed uACR increments after adjusting for confounding factors (P = 0.001 and P = 0.014, respectively). Conclusions: The plasma HCII activity was inversely and specifically associated with glomerular injury in patients with diabetes. The results suggest that HCII can serve as a novel predictive factor for early-stage DKD development, as represented by albuminuria