Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease in pregnancy: Case report and review of 32 patients in the literature

A 30-year-old woman in 31 weeks of pregnancy with metamorphopsia and headache was diagnosed Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease. She underwent steroid pulse therapy and oral prednisolone 20 mg daily for 3 weeks until complete resolution of serous retinal detachment monitored by optical coherence tomography. Oral prednisolone was tapered and discontinued until uneventful delivery

Effects of understory dwarf bamboo on soil water and the growth of overstory trees in a dense secondary Betula ermanii forest, northern Japan

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comArticleECOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 18(6):767-774(2003)journal articl

Protection of mice from LPS-induced shock by CD14 antisense oligonucleotide.

CD14 is a pattern recognition receptor on myeloid cells and plays a pivotal role in an innate immune system that is responsible for Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria infection. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a cell wall component of Gram-negative bacteria, can induce production of a large quantity of proinflammatory cytokines into the circulation mediated by CD14-mediated macrophages and monocytes. These cytokines eventually cause septic shock. Several in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that suppression of a CD14 function by a CD14 antibody led to an inhibition of the production of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta, and IL-8. In the present study, we found that CD14 antisense oligonucleotide (ODN) can prevent lethal LPS shock in D-galactosamine-sensitized mice. This ODN inhibited CD14 expression in a mouse macrophage cell line, RAW264.7, and suppressed production of TNF-alpha in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. Furthermore, we designed a consensus antisense ODN that could hybridize human and mouse CD14 RNA, and we evaluated its efficacy. The consensus antisense ODN rescued mice primed with Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) from the LPS-induced lethal shock. In this model, the CD14 antisense ODN down-regulated LPS-elicited CD14 expression in the liver, resulting in a decrease in LPS-induced TNF-alpha production. These findings suggest that the CD14 antisense ODN is distributed in the liver and efficiently suppresses LPS-induced TNF-alpha production by reducing CD14 expression on Kupffer cells. This CD14 antisense ODN may be useful for the development of a therapeutic agent against sepsis and septic shock.</p

Cytokine profiles in an extremely preterm infant with congenital syphilis

We report the cytokine profiles of an infant with congenital syphilis as a first case. This female infant was born by vaginal delivery at a gestational age of 27 weeks during her mother's treatment for syphilis. Elevation of T helper (Th)-1 cytokines (interleukin (IL)-2, IL-12) and IL-17, which supports immunological mechanisms of Th-1, was similar to that in cases of syphilis in adults. IL-6 and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), the synergistic effects of which cause the leukemoid reaction, were also elevated. The levels of interferon-γ and IL-17 in cerebral spinal fluid, which are elevated in neurosyphilis in adults, were slightly elevated

Peripheral platelet phagocytosis in an extremely low birth weight infant: a case report

A 768 g female neonate, born at 25 weeks' gestation, developed sepsis due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis on day 14. Severe thrombocytopenia was observed, and hemophagocytic macrophages were identified in her peripheral blood smear. Cytokine profiles at the time of onset suggested that an inflammatory cytokine storm had activated lymphocytes and macrophages, leading to platelet phagocytosis. After administration of vancomycin for 14 days and immunoglobulin therapy, she improved without any complications. Considering the results of cytokine profiles, early intervention for infection may have prevented progression to hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and reduced the severity of clinical symptoms

THE EFFECT OF OVALBUMIN ON THE PROTEASE ACTIVITY

Chicken egg white is generally used in the industry because of its excellent effect to improve physical property of surimi products. The effects of egg white are believed to be derived from its inhibitory activity on surimi endogenous proteases which reduce gel forming ability. However, there are no detailed investigations about inhibitory effects of egg white on the proteases. The effect of ovalbumin (OVA), which is the main protein of egg white, on trypsin activity was investigated in the present study. N-OVA was purified from fresh chicken egg white by ammonium sulfate fractionation and anion-exchange chromatography (Q-sepharose). S-OVA and I-OVA were prepared by heating N-OVA solution at pH10, 55°C for 24h and at 97°C for 30min (pH was not controlled) respectively. To investigate the effect of OVA on the trypsin activity, casein-trypsin mixture solution was heated with or without OVAs at 40°C and the content of peptide generated from casein was measured. SDS-PAGE of casein was also conducted. The amount of peptide from casein was decreased in the presence of OVAs, regardless of OVA types. SDS-PAGE showed all types of OVA inhibited casein degradation. Those suggest that all types of OVA have inhibitory effect on the trypsin activity. Keywords : Surimi, Ovalbumin, Proteases, Egg white

Temperature based segmentation for spectral data of laser-induced plasmas for quantitative compositional analysis of brass alloys submerged in water

This study describes a method to quantify the composition of brass alloys submerged in water using laser-induced plasmas. Principal component regression (PCR) analysis and partial least squares (PLS) regression analysis are applied to spectral measurements of plasmas generated using a long-ns duration pulse. The non-linear effects of excitation temperature fluctuations on the signals are treated as systematic errors in the analysis. The effect of these errors on the analytical performance is evaluated by applying PCR and PLS with a temperature segmented database. The results of the analysis are compared to conventional methods that do not consider the excitation temperature and it is demonstrated that the proposed database segmentation improves accuracy, with root-mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) of 2.7% and 2.8% for Cu and Zn in the PCR model and 2.9% and 1.8% for Cu and Zn in the PLS model, respectively. The results indicate that systematic effects contribute to fluctuation of underwater plasmas, where appropriate database segmentation can improve the performance of the PCR and PLS methods

HLA-A*0201-restricted CTL epitope of a novel osteosarcoma antigen, papillomavirus binding factor

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To develop peptide-based immunotherapy for osteosarcoma, we previously identified papillomavirus binding factor (PBF) as a CTL-defined osteosarcoma antigen in the context of HLA-B55. However, clinical application of PBF-based immunotherapy requires identification of naturally presented CTL epitopes in osteosarcoma cells in the context of more common HLA molecules such as HLA-A2.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Ten peptides with the HLA-A*0201 binding motif were synthesized from the amino acid sequence of PBF according to the BIMAS score and screened with an HLA class I stabilization assay. The frequency of CTLs recognizing the selected PBF-derived peptide was determined in peripheral blood of five HLA-A*0201⁺patients with osteosarcoma using limiting dilution (LD)/mixed lymphocyte peptide culture (MLPC) followed by tetramer-based frequency analysis. Attempts were made to establish PBF-specific CTL clones from the tetramer-positive CTL pool by a combination of limiting dilution and single-cell sorting. The cytotoxicity of CTLs was assessed by ⁵¹Cr release assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Peptide PBF A2.2 showed the highest affinity to HLA-A*0201. CD8+ T cells reacting with the PBF A2.2 peptide were detected in three of five patients at frequencies from 2 × 10^-7to 5 × 10^-6. A tetramer-positive PBF A2.2-specific CTL line, 5A9, specifically lysed allogeneic osteosarcoma cell lines that expressed both PBF and either HLA-A*0201 or HLA-A*0206, autologous tumor cells, and T2 pulsed with PBF A2.2. Five of 12 tetramer-positive CTL clones also lysed allogeneic osteosarcoma cell lines expressing both PBF and either HLA-A*0201 or HLA-A*0206 and T2 pulsed with PBF A2.2.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings indicate that PBF A2.2 serves as a CTL epitope on osteosarcoma cells in the context of HLA-A*0201, and potentially, HLA-A*0206. This extends the availability of PBF-derived therapeutic peptide vaccines for patients with osteosarcoma.</p

AKARI Infrared Camera Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. I. Point Source Catalog

We present a near- to mid-infrared point source catalog of 5 photometric bands at 3.2, 7, 11, 15 and 24 um for a 10 deg2 area of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) obtained with the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard the AKARI satellite. To cover the survey area the observations were carried out at 3 separate seasons from 2006 May to June, 2006 October to December, and 2007 March to July. The 10-sigma limiting magnitudes of the present survey are 17.9, 13.8, 12.4, 9.9, and 8.6 mag at 3.2, 7, 11, 15 and 24 um, respectively. The photometric accuracy is estimated to be about 0.1 mag at 3.2 um and 0.06--0.07 mag in the other bands. The position accuracy is 0.3" at 3.2, 7 and 11um and 1.0" at 15 and 24 um. The sensitivities at 3.2, 7, and 24 um are roughly comparable to those of the Spitzer SAGE LMC point source catalog, while the AKARI catalog provides the data at 11 and 15 um, covering the mid-infrared spectral range contiguously. Two types of catalog are provided: a Catalog and an Archive. The Archive contains all the detected sources, while the Catalog only includes the sources that have a counterpart in the Spitzer SAGE point source catalog. The Archive contains about 650,000, 140,000, 97,000, 43,000, and 52,000 sources at 3.2, 7, 11, 15, and 24 um, respectively. Based on the catalog, we discuss the luminosity functions at each band, the color-color diagram, and the color-magnitude diagram using the 3.2, 7, and 11 um band data. Stars without circumstellar envelopes, dusty C-rich and O-rich stars, young stellar objects, and background galaxies are located at distinct regions in the diagrams, suggesting that the present catalog is useful for the classification of objects towards the LMC.Comment: 59 pages, 12 figures, accepted for the Astronomical Journa