High Serum Levels of Procollagen Type III-N-terminal Amino Peptide in Patients with Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract Objective: The serum concentration of amino-terminal procollagen type III (PIIIP) is considered a useful marker of tissue fibrogenesis. The present study tested the hypothesis that: 1) serum PIIIP levels are elevated in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) and abnormal hemodynamic loading and/or hypoxemia, 2) PIIIP levels are associated with severity of hemodynamic load or hypoxemia, both of which enhance myocardial fibrosis. Methods and Results: Serum PIIIP levels were measured in 5 groups of CHD patients [42 patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD), 26 with coarctation of the aorta (COA, n=19) or aortic stenosis (AS, n=7), 36 with atrial septal defect (ASD), 39 with pulmonary stenosis (PS) and 20 with tetralogy of Fallot (TOF)]. PIIIP levels of CHD patients were significantly higher than those of 42 control subjects (p<0.05, each). Serum PIIIP levels increased in parallel with increased ventricular volume load in VSD and ASD, and with severity of PS. In TOF patients, PIIIP levels correlated negatively with arterial oxygen saturation. Treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) was associated with low levels of PIIIP in COA/AS patients despite existing hemodynamic load. Conclusion: The increased serum PIIIP levels in proportion with the severity of ventricular load or cyanosis suggest enhanced myocardial synthesis of collagen type III in patients with CHD. Suppression of PIIIP level by ACEI suggests the involvement of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in myocardial fibrosis. These data provide the basis for the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in patients with CHD

Lyman Break Galaxies at z~5: Rest-Frame UV Spectra. III

We present results of optical spectroscopic observations of candidates of Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) at $z \sim 5$ in the region including the GOODS-N and the J0053+1234 region by using GMOS-N and GMOS-S, respectively. Among 25 candidates, five objects are identified to be at $z \sim 5$ (two of them were already identified by an earlier study) and one object very close to the color-selection window turned out to be a foreground galaxy. With this spectroscopically identified sample and those from previous studies, we derived the lower limits on the number density of bright ($M_{UV}<-22.0$ mag) LBGs at $z \sim 5$. These lower limits are comparable to or slightly smaller than the number densities of UV luminosity functions (UVLFs) that show the smaller number density among $z \sim 5$ UVLFs in literature. However, by considering that there remain many LBG candidates without spectroscopic observations, the number density of bright LBGs is expected to increase by a factor of two or more. The evidence for the deficiency of UV luminous LBGs with large Ly$\alpha$ equivalent widths was reinforced. We discuss possible causes for the deficiency and prefer the interpretation of dust absorption.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Research and Design of a Routing Protocol in Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

无线传感器网络，作为全球未来十大技术之一，集成了传感器技术、嵌入式计算技术、分布式信息处理和自组织网技术，可实时感知、采集、处理、传输网络分布区域内的各种信息数据，在军事国防、生物医疗、环境监测、抢险救灾、防恐反恐、危险区域远程控制等领域具有十分广阔的应用前景。 本文研究分析了无线传感器网络的已有路由协议，并针对大规模的无线传感器网络设计了一种树状路由协议，它根据节点地址信息来形成路由，从而简化了复杂繁冗的路由表查找和维护，节省了不必要的开销，提高了路由效率，实现了快速有效的数据传输。 为支持此路由协议本文提出了一种自适应动态地址分配算——ADAR（AdaptiveDynamicAddre...As one of the ten high technologies in the future, wireless sensor network, which is the integration of micro-sensors, embedded computing, modern network and Ad Hoc technologies, can apperceive, collect, process and transmit various information data within the region. It can be used in military defense, biomedical, environmental monitoring, disaster relief, counter-terrorism, remote control of haz...学位：工学硕士院系专业：信息科学与技术学院通信工程系_通信与信息系统学号：2332007115216

本学教員執筆書籍の紹介 小児・新生児診療ゴールデンハンドブック(藤枝憲二・梶野浩樹編)

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Tissue hypoxia inhibits prostaglandin and nitric oxide production and prevents ductus arteriosus reopening.

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An EP4 receptor agonist prevents indomethacin-induced closure of rat ductus arteriosus in vivo

This is a non-final version of an article published in final form in Kajino, Hiroki ; Taniguchi, Takanobu ; Fujieda, Kenji ; Ushikubi, Fumitaka ; Muramatsu, Ikunobu, An EP4 receptor agonist prevents indomethacin-induced closure of rat ductus arteriosus in vivo, Pediatric Research 54(6), OCT 2004, pp. 586-590.Indomethacin exerts a strong tocolytic effect by suppressing uterine contractions mediated by prostaglandins. However, indomethacin also induces in utero closure of fetal ductus arteriosus (DA), leading to serious neonatal consequences. Using rats, we tested the effect of an agonist for a subtype of prostaglandin E2 receptor (EP4), ONO-AE1-437 and its prodrug ONO-4819, as a DA dilator during indomethacin treatment. In vitro, ONO-AE1-437 exhibited a potent dilatory effect on DA against O_2^- and indomethacin-induced contractions in a concentration-dependent manner. In vivo, rat dams were given indomethacin (10 mg/kg, p.o.) alone or with ONO-4819 (0.3 μg/kg/h, s.c.) on d 21 of gestation and pups were delivered 4 h later through cesarean section to evaluate the ratio of diameter of DA to that of pulmonary artery. Pups from dams with no drug had DA/PA ratio of 0.9 ± 0.05, whereas those from dams with indomethacin alone had a decreased ratio of 0.2 ± 0.03. When ONO-4819 was co-administered to the dams, the ratio recovered significantly to 0.7 ± 0.06. The administration of ONO-4819 to the dams did not induce any increase in the uterine activity. These results suggest that administration of an EP4 agonist in addition to indomethacin might prevent adverse reactions of indomethacin on fetal DA without restricting its tocolytic effects

Volume Overload and Pressure Overload due to Left-to-Right Shunt-Induced Myocardial Injury: Evaluation Using a Highly Sensitive Cardiac Troponin-I Assay in Children With Congenital Heart Disease (左-右短絡による容量負荷と圧負荷により誘発される心筋障害-高感度心臓トロポニン-I測定を利用した先天性心疾患小児の評価)

雑誌掲載版心臓トロポニンI(cTnI)急性冠症候群や急性心筋梗塞における最も感度と特異度が高い生物標識である。本研究では、小児の心房中隔欠損症(ASD)30例、心室中隔欠損症(VSD)32例と健康小児350例の血清cTnIを測定した。血清cTnIはASD及びVSDの小児では健康小児より有意に高値で(それぞれP<0.05、P<0.01)、VSD小児では血清cTnIは心カテーテル法で測定した肺動脈血/全身動脈圧比と有意の相関があった(r=0.745、P<0.001

Ring formation by Vibrio fusion protein composed of FliF and FliG, MS-ring and C-ring component of bacterial flagellar motor in membrane

The marine bacterium Vibrio alginolyticus has a single flagellum as a locomotory organ at the cell pole, which is rotated by the Na+-motive force to swim in a liquid. The base of the flagella has a motor composed of a stator and rotor, which serves as a power engine to generate torque through the rotor–stator interaction coupled to Na+ influx through the stator channel. The MS-ring, which is embedded in the membrane at the base of the flagella as part of the rotor, is the initial structure required for flagellum assembly. It comprises 34 molecules of the two-transmembrane protein FliF. FliG, FliM, and FliN form a C-ring just below the MS-ring. FliG is an important rotor protein that interacts with the stator PomA and directly contributes to force generation. We previously found that FliG promotes MS-ring formation in E. coli. In the present study, we constructed a fliF–fliG fusion gene, which encodes an approximately 100 kDa protein, and the successful production of this protein effectively formed the MS-ring in E. coli cells. We observed fuzzy structures around the ring using either electron microscopy or high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM), suggesting that FliM and FliN are necessary for the formation of a stable ring structure. The HS-AFM movies revealed flexible movements at the FliG region