Successful treatment with positive airway pressure ventilation for tension pneumopericardium after pericardiocentesis in a neonate: a case report

Background Pneumopericardium in neonates is often associated with respiratory diseases, of which positive pressure ventilation (PPV) is an exacerbating factor. Here, we present a neonate case of pneumopericardium after cardiac surgery which was resolved after applying PPV. Case presentation A 28-day-old neonate with left recurrent nerve palsy after aortic reconstruction for interrupted aortic arch developed pericardial effusion. Pericardiocentesis was performed under general anesthesia, and a drainage tube was left in the pericardium. After extubation, stridor gradually exacerbated, following hemodynamic deterioration. A chest X-ray demonstrated pneumopericardium. Upper airway stenosis due to recurrent nerve palsy developed excessive negative pleural pressure, and air was drawn into pericardium via the insertion site of the drainage tube. After tracheal intubation and applying PPV, the pneumopericardium improved. Conclusion PPV does not always exacerbate pneumopericardium. In a patient with pericardial-atmosphere communication, increased inspiration effort can cause pneumopericardium, and PPV is a therapeutic option to alleviate the pneumopericardium

Cherenkov-Phase-Matched Nonlinear Optical Detection and Generation of Terahertz Radiation via GaAs With Metal-Coating

Terahertz (THz) wave detection and emission via Cherenkov-phase-matched nonlinear optical effects at 1.55-μm optical wavelength were demonstrated using a GaAs with metal-coating (M-G-M) and bare GaAs as a reference sample in conjunction with a metallic tapered parallel-plate waveguide (TPPWG). The metal-coated GaAs is superior to the bare wafer both as a THz electro-optic detector and as an emitter. Significant improvements in the detection and emission efficiency were obtained by utilizing a metal-coating due to better confinement and lower loss of the THz waves propagating in the M-G-M compared with bare GaAs

Morphologic studies of bone marrow cells exposed to the phospholipid fraction from the liver of irradiated animal, an experiment in vitro

With the purpose of revealing the biological effects of the X-ray irradiation the authors extracted phospholipids from the liver of irradiated animals and proved that this substance has the action to inhibit the growth of the bone marrow cells, the motility of pseudo-eosinophilis and the erythropoiesis in tissue culture, suggesting that the injury will mainly be induced by the toxic substances produced by irradiation.</p

Elevation of macrophage-derived chemokine in eosinophilic pneumonia : a role of alveolar macrophages

Macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC/CCL22) and thymus-and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC/CCL17) are ligands for CC chemokine receptor 4. Recently, TARC has been reported to play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic eosinophilic pneumonia (IEP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of MDC in IEP and other interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). MDC and TARC in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were measured by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay in patients with ILDs and healthy volunteers (HV). We also examined the expression of MDC mRNA in alveolar macrophages (AM) by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Both MDC and TARC were detected only in BALF obtained from IEP patients. The concentration of MDC was higher than that of TARC in all cases. The level of MDC in IEP correlated with that of TARC. AM from IEP patients expressed a significantly higher amount of MDC than that from HV at the levels of protein and mRNA. MDC in BALF from IEP dramatically decreased when patients achieved remission. These findings suggest that MDC, in addition to TARC, might be involved in the pathogenesis of IEP, and AM play a role in the elevation of MDC in IEP

Development of Real-Time MR Image guided Surgery

科学研究費補助金研究成果報告書研究種目: 基盤研究(B)研究期間: 2002～2004課題番号: 14370352研究代表者: 来見 良誠（滋賀医科大学・医学部・講師）研究分担者: 谷 徹（滋賀医科大学・医学部・教授）研究分担者: 森川 茂廣（滋賀医科大学・MR医学総合研究センター・助教授）研究分担者: 遠藤 善裕（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究分担者: 仲 成幸（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究分担者: 花澤 一芳（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助教授）研究協力者: 犬伏 俊郎（滋賀医科大学・MR医学総合研究センター・教授）研究協力者: 阿部 元（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究協力者: 塩見 尚礼（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究協力者: 清水 智治（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究協力者: 田畑 貴久（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手）研究協力者: 向所 賢一（滋賀医科大学・医学部・助手

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

Output-size Sensitiveness of OBDD Construction Through Maximal Independent Set Problem

. This paper investigates output-size sensitiveness of construction of OBDD by analyzing the maximal independent set problem of a graph, which would give several insights to efficient manipulation of Boolean functions by OBDD and graph theory. 1 Introduction Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDD, in short) are useful representations for Boolean functions [1, 2]. OBDDs have been investigated and applied to various fields such as design and formal verification of digital systems, combinatorics, and so on. In previous methods, an OBDD is obtained by applying Boolean operations between OBDDs iteratively [1]. One of difficulties in such a construction is that the target OBDD may not be obtainable when intermediate OBDDs become very large, even if its size (= the number of its nodes; we use the word &quot;node&quot; in OBDDs to distinguish from &quot;vertex&quot; in other graphs) is acceptable. In [5], a breadth first algorithm is proposed to resolve this difficulty by constructing the target OBDD directly. T..