Chondroitin Sulfate Iron Colloid-Enhanced MR Imaging in Patients with Small Hepatocellular Carcinomas: Correlations with Hemodynamic and Pathologic Examinations

To determine the usefulness of chondroitin sulfate iron colloid (CSIC)-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in evaluation of the histologic grade of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we performed a comparative study with computed tomography during arterial portography (CTAP) and CT arteriography. Twenty-one surgically resected HCCs 3 cm or less in diameter were examined. There were five well- differentiated, six well- to moderately-differentiated and ten moderately- or poorly-differentiated HCCs. T2-weighted spin echo images (repetition time: 2,000 ms, echo time: 90 ms) were taken before and after intravenous injection of 23.6 ?mol Fe/kg of CSIC. The differences between precontrast and postcontrast contrast-to-noise ratios (enhancement index) was correlated with the findings of CTAP, CT arteriography and histological examination. The enhancement index increased with statistical significance as the intranodular arterial perfusion increased (P < 0.01), and as the intranodular portal perfusion decreased (P < 0.01). Though the enhancement index tended to increase as the grade of malignancy increased, no statistical significance was found. CSIC-enhanced MRI allowed a noninvasive evaluation of the intranodular reticuloendothelial function. We consider this procedure as a supplementary method for evaluation of the histologic grade of HCC prior to performing invasive procedures such as angiography and biopsy

Identification of an Anti–Integrin αvβ6 Autoantibody in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis

指定難病「潰瘍性大腸炎」の自己抗体発見 --新たな診断や治療開発へ--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-03-09.Background and Aims: Ulcerative colitis is the most frequent type of inflammatory bowel disease and is characterized by colonic epithelial cell damage. Although involvement of autoimmunity has been suggested in ulcerative colitis, specific autoantigens/antibodies have yet to be elucidated. Methods: Using 23 recombinant integrin proteins, we performed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays on sera from patients with ulcerative colitis and controls. Integrin expression and IgG binding in the colon tissues of patients with ulcerative colitis and controls were examined using immunofluorescence and coimmunoprecipitation, respectively. The blocking activity of autoantibodies was examined using solid-phase binding and cell adhesion assays. Results: Screening revealed that patients with ulcerative colitis had IgG antibodies against integrin αvβ6. In the training and validation groups, 103 of 112 (92.0%) patients with ulcerative colitis and only 8 of 155 (5.2%) controls had anti–integrin αvβ6 antibodies (P < .001), resulting in a sensitivity of 92.0% and a specificity of 94.8% for diagnosing ulcerative colitis. Anti–integrin αvβ6 antibody titers coincided with ulcerative colitis disease activity, and IgG1 was the major subclass. Patient IgG bound to the integrin αvβ6 expressed on colonic epithelial cells. Moreover, IgG of patients with ulcerative colitis blocked integrin αvβ6–fibronectin binding through an RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) tripeptide motif and inhibited cell adhesion. Conclusions: A significant majority of patients with ulcerative colitis had autoantibodies against integrin αvβ6, which may serve as a potential diagnostic biomarker with high sensitivity and specificity

Imaging the inner structure of a nuclear reactor by cosmic muon radiography

We studied the inner structure of the nuclear reactor of the Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) at Tokai, Japan, by muon radiography. Muon detectors were placed outside the reactor building. By detecting cosmic muons penetrating the wall of the reactor building, we could successfully identify objects such as the containment vessel, pressure vessel, and other structures of the reactor. We also observed a concentration of heavy material which can be attributed to the nuclear fuel assemblies stored in the nuclear fuel storage pool

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