106 research outputs found
A Case of Vascular Graft Infection Caused by Staphylococcus lugdunensis after Femoropopliteal Bypass Operation
A 79-year-old man who had undergone a right femoropopliteal (FP) bypass operation 6 weeks previously was diagnosed with vascular graft infection caused by Staphylococcus lugdunensis. Another FP bypass operation was performed, with long-term administration of antibiotics, and the patient eventually recovered well without any recurrences for over 2 years. Although S. lugdunens is classified as coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, its pathogenicity has been reported to be equal to that of S. aureus. Based on the literature review, the organism characteristically colonizes the inguinal area of human skin;thus, operations such as FP bypass grafting may place patients at a relatively high risk for infection by S. lugdunensis, a potentially high-pathogenicity organism
Japanese People with Vision Disabilities Rate their Experiences with Information Resources Pertaining to Guide Dogs
Autopsy of a patient with restrictive cardiomyopathy with and MYH7 mutation
Restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM) is a rare type of primary myocardial disease, and its pathological features remain unclear. We report the case of a 78-year-old Japanese woman with RCM and MHY7 mutation who died of heart failure 13 years after the diagnosis. Upon autopsy, focal myocyte amorphous degeneration positive for ubiquitin was revealed, as well as myocardial disarrangement and interstitial fibrosis. Electron microscope demonstrated electron-dense structure in the cardiac myocytes. These may be one of the pathological features of RCM
Vortex structure in chiral p-wave superconductors
We investigate the vortex structure in chiral p-wave superconductors by the
Bogoliubov-de Gennes theory on a tight-binding model. We calculate the spatial
structure of the pair potential and electronic state around a vortex, including
the anisotropy of the Fermi surface and superconducting gap structure. The
differences of the vortex structure between -wave
and -wave superconductors are clarified in the
vortex lattice state. We also discuss the winding case of the
-wave superconductivity.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Measurement of low-energy antiproton detection efficiency in BESS below 1 GeV
An accelerator experiment was performed using a low-energy antiproton beam to
measure antiproton detection efficiency of BESS, a balloon-borne spectrometer
with a superconducting solenoid. Measured efficiencies showed good agreement
with calculated ones derived from the BESS Monte Carlo simulation based on
GEANT/GHEISHA. With detailed verification of the BESS simulation, the relative
systematic error of detection efficiency derived from the BESS simulation has
been determined to be 5%, compared with the previous estimation of
15% which was the dominant uncertainty for measurements of cosmic-ray
antiproton flux.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Precise Measurement of Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra with the BESS Spectrometer
We report cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra in energy ranges of 1 to 120
GeV and 1 to 54 GeV/nucleon, respectively, measured by a balloon flight of the
BESS spectrometer in 1998. The magnetic-rigidity of the cosmic-rays was
reliably determined by highly precise measurement of the circular track in a
uniform solenoidal magnetic field of 1 Tesla. Those spectra were determined
within overall uncertainties of +-5 % for protons and +- 10 % for helium nuclei
including statistical and systematic errors.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Measurements of atmospheric muon spectra at mountain altitude
We report new measurements of the atmospheric muons at mountain altitude. The
measurement was carried out with the BESS detector at the top of Mt. Norikura,
Japan. The altitude is 2,770 m above sea level. Comparing our results and
predictions given by some interaction models, a further appropriate model has
been investigated. These studies would improve accuracy of atmospheric neutrino
calculations.Comment: Mean momentum in Table 1 was correcte
Measurements of Cosmic-ray Low-energy Antiproton and Proton Spectra in a Transient Period of the Solar Field Reversal
The energy spectra of cosmic-ray low-energy antiprotons and protons have been
measured by BESS in 1999 and 2000, during a period covering the solar magnetic
field reversal. Based on these measurements, a sudden increase of the
antiproton to proton flux ratio following the solar magnetic field reversal was
observed, and it generally agrees with a drift model of the solar modulation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revised version accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev. Let
The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force
「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection
DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19
「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target
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