Variations of the cephalic vein anterior to the clavicle in humans

Background: Clinicians should understand that jugulocephalic vein (JCV) variants may be occasionally found. This study aims to classify JCV variants and obtain their frequency.   Materials and methods: We investigated anatomical variants of the cephalic vein in 55 human cadavers during a gross anatomy course at our medical school.   Results: The percentage of JCVs that pass through the anterior part of the clavicle and anastomose to the jugular vein as per previous studies and our study was 2–5%. Five cases with anastomosis between the cephalic and external jugular veins that pass through the anterior part of the clavicle were found. The courses were classified into 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B. Type 1 extends beyond the clavicle and anastomoses with the external jugular vein. Type 2 follows the same course as type 1, but anastomoses with the subclavian vein. Subtype A does not have a branch that anastomoses with the axillary vein, whereas subtype B does. We encountered two cases of type 1A and three of type 1B.   Conclusions: Four anatomical variants of the cephalic vein around the clavicle were identified. Clinicians’ knowledge of these variants is expected to decrease possible complications if venous access via the cephalic vein is needed

Common and separate origins of the left and right inferior phrenic artery with a review of the literature

In a 94-year-old male cadaver, upon which routine dissection was being conducted, a rare variation was found in the gastrophrenic trunk (GPT), the common trunk of the left gastric artery (LGA), right inferior phrenic artery (RIPA), and left inferior phrenic artery (LIPA); the GPT arises from the abdominal aorta. A hepatosplenic trunk accompanied the variation. In this variation, the RIPA first branched from the GPT and then to the LIPA and LGA. Variations in the common trunk of the LIPA and RIPA in the GPT are common, but to our knowledge, a variation (separate inferior phrenic artery in the GPT) similar to our findings has not been previously reported. We discuss the incidence and developmental and clinical significance of this variation with a detailed review of the literature. Knowledge of such a case has important clinical significance for invasive and non-invasive arterial procedures. Therefore, different variations concerning the LGA and inferior phrenic artery should be considered during surgical and non-surgical evaluations

The Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2016 (J-SSCG 2016)

Background and purposeThe Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2016 (J-SSCG 2016), a Japanese-specific set of clinical practice guidelines for sepsis and septic shock created jointly by the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine, was first released in February 2017 and published in the Journal of JSICM, [2017; Volume 24 (supplement 2)] https://doi.org/10.3918/jsicm.24S0001 and Journal of Japanese Association for Acute Medicine [2017; Volume 28, (supplement 1)] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jja2.2017.28.issue-S1/issuetoc.This abridged English edition of the J-SSCG 2016 was produced with permission from the Japanese Association of Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Intensive Care Medicine.MethodsMembers of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine were selected and organized into 19 committee members and 52 working group members. The guidelines were prepared in accordance with the Medical Information Network Distribution Service (Minds) creation procedures. The Academic Guidelines Promotion Team was organized to oversee and provide academic support to the respective activities allocated to each Guideline Creation Team. To improve quality assurance and workflow transparency, a mutual peer review system was established, and discussions within each team were open to the public. Public comments were collected once after the initial formulation of a clinical question (CQ) and twice during the review of the final draft. Recommendations were determined to have been adopted after obtaining support from a two-thirds (> 66.6%) majority vote of each of the 19 committee members.ResultsA total of 87 CQs were selected among 19 clinical areas, including pediatric topics and several other important areas not covered in the first edition of the Japanese guidelines (J-SSCG 2012). The approval rate obtained through committee voting, in addition to ratings of the strengths of the recommendation, and its supporting evidence were also added to each recommendation statement. We conducted meta-analyses for 29 CQs. Thirty-seven CQs contained recommendations in the form of an expert consensus due to insufficient evidence. No recommendations were provided for five CQs.ConclusionsBased on the evidence gathered, we were able to formulate Japanese-specific clinical practice guidelines that are tailored to the Japanese context in a highly transparent manner. These guidelines can easily be used not only by specialists, but also by non-specialists, general clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, clinical engineers, and other healthcare professionals

Sox17 Promotes Cell Cycle Progression and Inhibits TGF-β/Smad3 Signaling to Initiate Progenitor Cell Behavior in the Respiratory Epithelium

The Sry-related high mobility group box transcription factor Sox17 is required for diverse developmental processes including endoderm formation, vascular development, and fetal hematopoietic stem cell maintenance. Expression of Sox17 in mature respiratory epithelial cells causes proliferation and lineage respecification, suggesting that Sox17 can alter adult lung progenitor cell fate. In this paper, we identify mechanisms by which Sox17 influences lung epithelial progenitor cell behavior and reprograms cell fate in the mature respiratory epithelium. Conditional expression of Sox17 in epithelial cells of the adult mouse lung demonstrated that cell cluster formation and respecification of alveolar progenitor cells toward proximal airway lineages were rapidly reversible processes. Prolonged expression of Sox17 caused the ectopic formation of bronchiolar-like structures with diverse respiratory epithelial cell characteristics in alveolar regions of lung. During initiation of progenitor cell behavior, Sox17 induced proliferation and increased the expression of the progenitor cell marker Sca-1 and genes involved in cell cycle progression. Notably, Sox17 enhanced cyclin D1 expression in vivo and activated cyclin D1 promoter activity in vitro. Sox17 decreased the expression of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β)-responsive cell cycle inhibitors in the adult mouse lung, including p15, p21, and p57, and inhibited TGF-β1-mediated transcriptional responses in vitro. Further, Sox17 interacted with Smad3 and blocked Smad3 DNA binding and transcriptional activity. Together, these data show that a subset of mature respiratory epithelial cells retains remarkable phenotypic plasticity and that Sox17, a gene required for early endoderm formation, activates the cell cycle and reinitiates multipotent progenitor cell behavior in mature lung cells

HPV カンセン ジョウキョウ ト シキュウ ケイガン ケンシン ニオケル サイボウ シン ト HPV ケンサ ヘイヨウ ノ イギ

Human papillomavirus (HPV) 中高リスク型の感染が,子宮頸部の前癌病変や子宮頸癌の発症に関与していることが明らかにされた.HPV 感染の一部は持続感染し,子宮頸癌のリスクとなる.そこでHPV 感染状況と子宮頸癌検診における細胞診とHPV 検査併用の意義について検討した.対象は3 年以上経過観察可能であった細胞診正常81 例と細胞診異常で組織診を施行した80 例である.HPV 検出にはHybrid Capture AssayII®( HC-II®) 法を用いた.細胞診正常11 例,細胞診異常61 例でHPV が検出され,細胞診異常の程度が進むほどHPV 検出率は上昇した.組織診でも病変が進行するほどHPV 検出率は高くなった.細胞診正常ではHPV陽性持続で病変の進行を認めた.組織診別では,慢性子宮頸管炎(Chronic Cervicitis:CC) ではHPV 陽性持続1 例と陽性化1 例に,子宮頸部上皮内病変(Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia:CIN) IではHPV 陽性持続2 例に,CIN IIでは陽性持続3 例と陽性化した1 例に,CIN IIIでは陽性持続2 例に病変の進行が認められた.HPV 感染が認められなかった例では病変の進行を認めない結果から,細胞診とHPV 検査を併用することにより,細胞診正常でHPV 検査陰性であれば検診間隔を3 年に延ばすことが可能であると示唆された.またHPV持続感染が病変進行の原因となると考えられ,HPV 検査の導入は子宮頸癌の早期発見,早期治療に有用である.Persistent infection with intermediate or high risk subtypesof human papillomavirus (HPV) is associated withuterine cervical neoplasia and cervical cancer. Over a3-year period, we followed up 161 patients with normal( 81cases) and abnormal (80 cases) results of cytologicalscreening tests to determine the status of persistent HPVinfection and the significance of combined uterine cervicalcancer cytological screenings and HPV tests. The hybridcapture assay II® method was used to test for intermediateor high risk of HPV infection. HPV infection was detectedin 11 patients with normal results and 61 patients with abnormalresults of cytological screening tests. The positiverate of HPV infection was associated with the status of cytologicaland pathological lesion progression. Lesions of 2patients with persistent HPV infection who had normal resultsin cytological screening tests had been diagnosed withprogressive lesions. Lesions of patients in whom HPV infectionwas negative or negative conversion were determinedto be non-progressive. Disease progression was seen in theform of chronic cervicitis in 1 patient with persistent HPVinfection and 1 patient with HPV positive conversion;inthe form of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) I in 2patients with persistent HPV infection;in the form of CINII in 3 patients with persistent HPV infection and 1 patientwith HPV positive conversion;and in the form of CIN IIIin 2 patients with persistent HPV infection. In conclusion,combined cytological screening and HPV tests will increasethe precision of uterine cervical cancer screening and willbe valuable for the early detection and a rapid treatment ofuterine cervical cancer. Moreover, the interval between 2consecutive uterine cervical cancer screenings can be extendedto at least 3 years in patients who have normal resultsof cytology and no HPV infection

Ferramentas para análise filogenética e de distribuição taxonômica de genes ortólogos

Exportado OPUSMade available in DSpace on 2019-08-13T18:07:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_tetsu_sakamoto.pdf: 6738546 bytes, checksum: 55ba691a47adfa0df6d0243e62bcf804 (MD5) Previous issue date: 29Estudar as relações evolutivas entre os organismos é um tema que fascina a ciência há vários anos e o seu modo de analisar e inferir a história evolutiva vem se modificando conforme surgem os adventos tecnológicos e novos tipos de dados ao longo da história. O que era, a princípio, analisado por meio de dados morfológicos e de desenvolvimento embrionário, agora pode ser pesquisado com dados moleculares, como sequências nucleotídicas ou de aminoácidos, uma abordagem que domina o campo da filogenia desde a criação da tecnologia de sequenciamento automático de DNA em meados dos anos 80. Durante esse tempo, os métodos de filogenia molecular vêmrecebendo aperfeiçoamentos significativos, mas ainda não resolvem todas as lacunas presentes em vários pontos da árvore da vida. Os métodos de sequenciamento em largaescala vieram para auxiliar na inferência da história evolutiva, mas eles também impõem novos desafios metodológicos, já que muitos procedimentos comuns dafilogenia molecular não conseguem lidar com grande volume de sequências geradas por estas máquinas. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo gerar ferramentas que atentem com as atuais demandas da filogenia molecular. O presente trabalho gerou três aplicativos: (1) TaxOnTree, (2) HyperTriplets e (3) ELDOgraph. A TaxOnTree é uma ferramenta que incorpora os dados taxonômicosem uma árvore filogenética. A partir das árvores geradas por esta ferramenta, o usuário pode ter um acesso fácil e rápido a todas as informações taxonômicas das amostras presentes na árvore, assim como a relação evolutiva entre elas, tendo como base a árvore taxonômica do NCBI Taxonomy. O HyperTriplets é uma ferramenta queprocessa várias árvores de genes e gera uma superárvore a partir da análise de tripletos. Abordagens que preenchem lacunas do método de superárvore, como a restrição do uso de árvores de genes contendo parálogos na análise e a não inclusão de dados de distância nos ramos da superárvore, foram desenvolvidas e implementadas nesta ferramenta. Por fim, o ELDOgraph é uma ferramenta que utiliza as distâncias filogenéticas para realizar análises comparativas entre as espécies presentes na árvore. Esta ferramenta oferece ao usuário uma forma de verificar e visualizar as proximidades evolutivas diferente da abordagem das árvores filogenéticas. As três ferramentas estãodisponíveis no endereço http://biodados.icb.ufmg.br/taxonphylotools.Studying the evolutionary relationships between organisms is a subject that has fascinated scientists for a long time and the approaches to analyze and infer the evolutionary history has been modified as new technologies and new data types emerge. At first, the morphological and embryogenic data were the main source for phylogenetic analysis, but molecular data, such as nucleotide or amino acid sequences, have ruled the field of phylogenetic studies since the introduction of automated DNA sequencer in the mid 80s. Although molecular phylogenetic had received significant methodological improvements during this time, there are still several unresolved parts in the tree of life. Development and popularization of large-scale sequencing technologies came to help inelucidating the gaps in the evolutionary history, but they also impose newmethodological challenges, since several common procedures in molecular phylogeny do not deal with a large amount of sequences generated by these machines. In this context, the objectives of the present work were to develop molecular phylogenetic tools that meet the current demands in molecular phylogeny. We developed three applications in this work: (1) TaxOnTree, (2) HyperTriplets and (3) ELDOgraph. TaxOnTree is a tool that includes taxonomic data into a phylogenetic tree. The trees generated by this tool provide users with an easy and fast way to access all taxonomic information of the samples in the tree, as well as the evolutionary relationship between them based on the taxonomic tree from NCBI Taxonomy. The HyperTriplets is a tool that reads and processes several gene trees to reconstruct a supertree based on analysis of triplets. Approaches that fill some gaps in the supertree methodology, as the restriction on using gene trees with paralogs and the lack of distance values in the supertree branches, were developed and implemented in this tool. Finally, the ELDOgraph is a tool that extracts the phylogenetic distances in several gene trees to perform a comparative analysis amongst the sampled species. This tool provides a new approach to verify and visualize the evolutionary proximity in adistinct way from the tree structure approach. All three tools are available at http://biodados.icb.ufmg.br/taxonphylotools

A superfamília RLK de tomate: filogenia e predição funcional do papel da subfamília LRRII-RLK na defesa antiviral

Receptores cinases (RLKs) compõem uma grande famíla de proteínas transmembrânicas que possuem funções importantes na propagação e percepção de sinais celulares nas plantas. Em Arabidopsis thaliana, a superfamília de RLK é composta de mais de 600 membros e vários destes, principalmente aqueles que possuem repetições ricas em leucina (LRR), são considerados excelentes alvos para manipulação molecular em cultivares superiores no intuito de aumentar a produtividade e a resistência contra estresses bióticos e abióticos. A subfamília LRRII é particularmente relevante neste aspecto uma vez que seus membros apresentam funções duplas tanto no desenvolvimento quanto na resposta de defesa da planta. Apesar da relevância desta superfamília e da recente finalização do sequenciamento do genoma de tomateiro, a superfamília de RLK de tomate ainda não se encontra caracterizada e são poucos os trabalhos que analisaram a função biológica de seus membros. Neste trabalho, foi construído um inventário completo dos membros da superfamília de RLK de tomate. Para identificar os membros da superfamília RLK em tomate, foi realizado uma análise filogenética utilizando a superfamília de RLK de Arabidopsis como modelo. Um total de 647 RLKs foram recuperados do genoma de tomate e estes encontravam- se organizados no mesmo clado das subfamílias de RLKs de Arabidopsis. Apenas oito das 58 subfamílias exibiram expansão/redução específica no número de menbros comparado com Arabidopsis e apenas seis RLKs foram específicos em tomate, indicando que os RLKs de tomate compartilham aspectos funcionais e estruturais com os RLKs de Arabidopsis. Também foi caracterizado a subfamília LRRII através de análises filogenéticos, genômico, expressão gênica e interação com o fator de virulência de begomovírus, o nuclear shuttle protein (NSP). Os membros da subfamília LRRII de tomate e Arabidopsis demonstraram-se altamente conservados tanto em sequência quanto em estrutura. No entanto, a maioria dos pares ortólogos não mostraram conservados em relação à expressão gênica, indicando que estes ortólogos tenham se divergido na função após a especiação do ancestral comum entre o tomate e Arabidopsis. Baseado no fato de que membros de RLKs de Arabidopsis (NIK1, NIK2, NIK3 e NsAK) interagem com o NSP de begomovirus, foi verificado se ortólogos de NIKs, BAK1 e NsAK interagem com o NSP de Tomato Yellow Spot Virus (ToYSV). Os ortólogos dos genes que interagem com o NSP em tomate, SlNIKs e SlNsAK, interagiram especificamente com NSP na levedura e demonstraram um padrão de expressão consistente com o padrão de infecção de geminivírus. Além de sugerir uma analogia funcional entre estes ortólogos, estes resultados confirmam a observação anterior de que as interações NSP-NIK não são específicos para um vírus ou para um hospedeiro. Portanto, a sinalização antiviral mediado por NIK provavelmente ocorre em tomate, sugerindo que NIKs de tomate sejam alvos potenciais para manipular a resistência contra begomovírus que infectam esta planta.Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas GeraisReceptor-like kinases (RLKs) represent a large family of transmembrane proteins that play important roles in cellular signaling perception and propagation in plants. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the RLK superfamily is made-up of over 600 proteins and many of these RLKs, mainly those bearing leucine-rich repeats (LRR), have been considered as excellent targets for engineering superior crops with enhancement of yield and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. The LRRII-RLK subfamily is particularly relevant due to the dual function of its members in both development and defense. In spite of the relevance of the RLK family and the completion of the tomato genome sequencing, the tomato RLK family has not been characterized and a framework for functional predictions of the members of the family is lacking. In this investigation we disclosed a complete inventory of the members of the tomato RLK family. To generate a complete list of all members of the tomato RLK superfamily, we performed a phylogenetic analysis using the Arabidopsis RLKs as a template. A total of 647 RLKs were identified in the tomato genome, which were organized into the same RLK subfamily clades as Arabidopsis. Only eight of 58 RLK subfamilies exhibited specific expansion/reduction compared to their Arabidopsis counterparts and only six proteins were lineage-specific in tomato, indicating that the tomato RLKs share functional and structural conservation with Arabidopsis. We also characterized the LRRII-RLK family by phylogeny, genomic analysis, expression profile and interaction with the virulence factor from begomoviruses, the nuclear shuttle protein (NSP). The LRRII subfamily members from tomato and Arabidopsis were highly conserved in both sequence and structure. Nevertheless, the majority of the orthologous pairs did not display similar conservation in the gene expression profile, indicating that these orthologs may have diverged in function after speciation of tomato and Arabidopsis common ancestor. Based on the fact that members of the Arabidopsis RLK superfamily (NIK1, NIK2, NIK3 and NsAK) interact with the begomovirus nuclear shuttle protein (NSP), we examined whether the tomato orthologs of NIK, BAK1 and NsAK genes interacted with NSP of Tomato Yellow Spot Virus (ToYSV). The tomato orthologs of NSP interactors, SlNIKs and SlNsAK, interacted specifically with NSP in yeast and displayed an expression pattern consistent with the pattern of geminivirus infection. In addition to suggesting a functional analogy between these phylogenetically classified orthologs, these results expand our previous observation that NSP-NIK interactions are neither virus-specific nor host-specific. Therefore, NIK-mediated antiviral signalling is also likely to operate in tomato, suggesting that tomato NIKs may be good targets for engineering resistance against tomato-infecting begomoviruses

Development of an environmental education program using place-based outdoor learning for elementary school children in Malaysia: a pilot project in Johor Bahru

This study aims to develop a new environmental education program as part of formal primary education in Malaysia. The program involves various place-based outdoor learning activities such as scientific field measurement. As the first attempt, a pilot project comprising three workshops on neighborhood greening was conducted with about 50 elementary school children in one of the typical neighborhoods in the city of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, followed by a tree-planting program. Almost all the children continued to participate in all the workshops with very high satisfaction levels as well as high levels of understanding. The improvements were seen in most of the items on children's environmental interests, activities and intentions. It was implied that the place-based outdoor learning activities including the scientific measurement improved their interests particularly in terms of the invisible environmental issues