Reduced Expression of the Survivin Gene in PBMC from Silicosis Patients

To explore the mechanism involved in immunological disorders associated with silicosis, the expression of IAP family genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from silicosis patients was examined. Relative gene expression was assayed using the multiplex RT-PCR for the XIAP and survivin genes. The correlation between those expression levels and various clinical parameters was then analyzed. The relative expression level of the survivin gene was reduced in silicosis patients as compared with that of healthy volunteers. The expression level of survivin positively correlated with PCO_2 values. These results support the existence of two populations of T lymphocytes in silicosis patients, one resistant to Fas-mediated apoptosis (a self-recognizing long-surviving fraction) and the other one sensitive to silica-induced apoptosis and repeatedly undergoing death and recruitment

Antenatal antiarrhythmic treatment for fetal tachyarrhythmias: a study protocol for a prospective multicentre trial

Introduction Several retrospective or single-centrestudies demonstrated the efficacy of transplacentaltreatment of fetal tachyarrhythmias. Our retrospectivenationwide survey showed that the fetal therapy willbe successful at an overall rate of 90%. For fetuseswith hydrops, the treatment success rate will be 80%.However, standard protocol has not been established.The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy andsafety of the protocol-defined transplacental treatment offetal tachyarrhythmias. Participant recruitment began inOctober 2010.Methods and analysis The current study is a multicentre,single-arm interventional study. A total of 50 fetuseswill be enrolled from 15 Japanese institutions. Theprotocol-defined transplacental treatment is performed forsingletons with sustained fetal tachyarrhythmia ≥180 bpm,with a diagnosis of supraventricular tachycardia or atrialflutter. Digoxin, sotalol, flecainide or a combination is usedfor transplacental treatment. The primary endpoint isdisappearance of fetal tachyarrhythmias. The secondaryendpoints are fetal death related to tachyarrhythmia,proportion of preterm birth, rate of caesarean sectionattributable to fetal arrhythmia, improvement in fetalhydrops, neonatal arrhythmia, neonatal central nervoussystem disorders and neonatal survival. Maternal, fetal andneonatal adverse events are evaluated at 1 month afterbirth. Growth and development are also evaluated at 18and 36 months of corrected age.Ethics and dissemination The Institutional Review Boardof the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center ofJapan has approved this study. Our findings will be widelydisseminated through conference presentations and peerreviewedpublications

Novel and robust transplantation reveals the acquisition of polarized processes by cortical cells derived from mouse and human pluripotent stem cells

Current stem cell technologies have enabled the induction of cortical progenitors and neurons from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells in vitro. To understand the mechanisms underlying the acquisition of apico-basal polarity and the formation of processes associated with the stemness of cortical cells generated in monolayer culture, here, we developed a novel in utero transplantation system based on the moderate dissociation of adherens junctions in neuroepithelial tissue. This method enables (1) the incorporation of remarkably higher numbers of grafted cells and (2) quantitative morphological analyses at single-cell resolution, including time-lapse recording analyses. We then grafted cortical progenitors induced from mouse ESCs into the developing brain. Importantly, we revealed that the mode of process extension depends on the extrinsic apico-basal polarity of the host epithelial tissue, as well as on the intrinsic differentiation state of the grafted cells. Further, we successfully transplanted cortical progenitors induced from human ESCs, showing that our strategy enables investigation of the neurogenesis of human neural progenitors within the developing mouse cortex. Specifically, human cortical cells exhibit multiple features of radial migration. The robust transplantation method established here could be utilized both to uncover the missing gap between neurogenesis from ESCs and the tissue environment and as an in vivo model of normal and pathological human corticogenesis.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe