Massive bone marrow necrosis associated with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia

Here, we report a rare case of massive bone marrow necrosis, which – from the clinical findings and images – mimics disseminated bone metastasis. The patient was suffering from severe bone pain with elevated levels of serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH); moreover, strong incorporation of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose in multiple bones was observed by positron emission tomography/computed tomography.The underlying disease was Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, which was thought to transform to cluster of differentiation 5 (CD5)-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The case showed a highly aggressive course, although the original Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia was in the stable state.Clinicians should be aware of the co-occurrence of non-immunoglobulin-producing immature lymphoma, even with good course of Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, and should pay attention to accompanying massive bone marrow necrosis, which mimics multiple cancer metastases to the bone. To the best of our knowledge, the present case is the first report of CD5-positive DLBCL transformed from CD5-negative Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia

Complete Genomic Structure of the Bloom-forming Toxic Cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa NIES-843

The nucleotide sequence of the complete genome of a cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa NIES-843, was determined. The genome of M. aeruginosa is a single, circular chromosome of 5 842 795 base pairs (bp) in length, with an average GC content of 42.3%. The chromosome comprises 6312 putative protein-encoding genes, two sets of rRNA genes, 42 tRNA genes representing 41 tRNA species, and genes for tmRNA, the B subunit of RNase P, SRP RNA, and 6Sa RNA. Forty-five percent of the putative protein-encoding sequences showed sequence similarity to genes of known function, 32% were similar to hypothetical genes, and the remaining 23% had no apparent similarity to reported genes. A total of 688 kb of the genome, equivalent to 11.8% of the entire genome, were composed of both insertion sequences and miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements. This is indicative of a plasticity of the M. aeruginosa genome, through a mechanism that involves homologous recombination mediated by repetitive DNA elements. In addition to known gene clusters related to the synthesis of microcystin and cyanopeptolin, novel gene clusters that may be involved in the synthesis and modification of toxic small polypeptides were identified. Compared with other cyanobacteria, a relatively small number of genes for two component systems and a large number of genes for restriction-modification systems were notable characteristics of the M. aeruginosa genome

ホウシャセン ショウシャ ニ ヨル ハイ センイ ガサイボウ ノ ゾウショク ニ オケル インターロイキン 6 オ カイシタ All - trans retinoic acid ノ ヨクセイ コウカ

京都大学0048新制・課程博士博士(医学)甲第12195号医博第2948号新制||医||917(附属図書館)24031UT51-2006-J188京都大学大学院医学研究科内科系専攻(主査)教授 湊 長博, 教授 富樫 かおり, 教授 平岡 眞寛学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Medical ScienceKyoto UniversityDA

Cloning of a cDNA encoding a putative metal-transporting P-type ATPase from Arabidopsis thaliana1The nucleotide sequence data reported in this paper will appear in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under the accession number D89981.1

AbstractMetal-transporting P-type ATPases were recently proposed to constitute a newly emerged sub-family of cation-transporting P-type ATPases, and are known to occur widely in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. However, no instance has been reported for higher plants. A cDNA clone encoding a metal-transporting P-type ATPase was thus searched for, if present, and was identified in Arabidopsis thaliana. The amino acid sequence, predicted from the determined nucleotide sequence for the cloned cDNA, shows all the critical features common to known metal-transporting P-type ATPases. This plant P-type ATPase has a typical metal-binding motif at its N-terminal portion. The newly isolated Arabidopsis gene, named PAA1, provides us with the first instance of putative metal-transporting P-type ATPases in higher plants. Some results of genomic analyses for this gene are also presented

Histidine Kinase Homologs That Act as Cytokinin Receptors Possess Overlapping Functions in the Regulation of Shoot and Root Growth in Arabidopsis

Cytokinins are plant hormones that may play essential and crucial roles in various aspects of plant growth and development. Although the functional significance of exogenous cytokinins as to the proliferation and differentiation of cells has been well documented, the biological roles of endogenous cytokinins have remained largely unknown. The recent discovery of the Arabidopsis Histidine Kinase 4 (AHK4)/CRE1/WOL cytokinin receptor in Arabidopsis thaliana strongly suggested that the cellular response to cytokinins involves a two-component signal transduction system. However, the lack of an apparent phenotype in the mutant, presumably because of genetic redundancy, prevented us from determining the in planta roles of the cytokinin receptor. To gain insight into the molecular functions of the three AHK genes AHK2, AHK3, and AHK4 in this study, we identified mutational alleles of the AHK2 and AHK3 genes, both of which encode sensor histidine kinases closely related to AHK4, and constructed a set of multiple ahk mutants. Application of exogenous cytokinins to the resultant strains revealed that both AHK2 and AHK3 function as positive regulators for cytokinin signaling similar to AHK4. The ahk2 ahk4 and ahk3 ahk4 double mutants and the ahk single mutants grew normally, whereas the ahk2 ahk3 double mutants exhibited a semidwarf phenotype as to shoots, such as a reduced leaf size and a reduced influorescence stem length. The growth and development of the ahk2 ahk3 ahk4 triple mutant were markedly inhibited in various tissues and organs, including the roots and leaves in the vegetative growth phase and the influorescence meristem in the reproductive phase. We showed that the inhibition of growth is associated with reduced meristematic activity of cells. Expression analysis involving AHK:β-glucuronidase fusion genes suggested that the AHK genes are expressed ubiquitously in various tissues during postembryonic growth and development. Our results thus strongly suggest that the primary functions of AHK genes, and those of endogenous cytokinins, are triggering of the cell division and maintenance of the meristematic competence of cells to prevent subsequent differentiation until a sufficient number of cells has accumulated during organogenesis