Comparison of early outcomes after primary stenting in Japanese patients with acute myocardial infarction between clopidogrel and ticlopidine in concomitant use with proton-pump inhibitor

SummaryBackgroundRecent studies have reported that concomitant use of clopidogrel with proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) might decrease antiplatelet effects and increase the risk of adverse outcomes after coronary stenting. However, little is known about the difference between clopidogrel and ticlopidine in concomitant use with PPIs, especially within the Asian population.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed 302 consecutive patients (248 males, mean age 66±12 years) undergoing primary stenting for acute myocardial infarction from July 2006 to June 2010. PPIs were administered to 92% (278/302) of the patients. The patients were divided into two groups on the basis of clopidogrel (clopidogrel group, n=187) or ticlopidine (ticlopidine group, n=91) with PPI. Their characteristics, medications, and 30-day clinical outcomes were examined.ResultsThere were no significant differences in 30-day major adverse cardiac events (cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and definite stent thrombosis), bleeding events, and stroke between the two groups. The discontinuation of clopidogrel due to side effects was significantly less frequent than that of ticlopidine (1.1% vs 7.7%, p=0.003, respectively).ConclusionOur findings suggest that concomitant use of clopidogrel with PPIs might be safer than ticlopidine with PPIs in patients undergoing primary stenting for acute myocardial infarction

Galaxy-dark matter connection of photometric galaxies from the HSC-SSP Survey: Galaxy-galaxy lensing and the halo model

We infer the connection between the stellar mass of galaxies from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey, and their dark matter halo masses and its evolution in two bins of redshifts between $[0.3, 0.8]$. We use the measurements of the weak lensing signal of galaxies using background sources from the Year 1 shape catalog from the HSC survey. We bin galaxies in stellar mass with varying thresholds ranging from $8.6 \leq \log [ M_*/(h^{-2} {M_\odot})] \leq 11.2$ and use stringent cuts in the selection of source galaxies to measure the weak lensing signal. We model these measurements of the weak lensing signal together with the abundance of galaxies in the halo occupation distribution framework. We obtain constraints on the halo occupation parameters of central galaxies $M_{\rm min}$ and $\sigma_{\log M}$, which correspond to the halo mass at which central galaxies for each threshold sample reach half occupancy, and its scatter, respectively, along with parameters that describe the occupation of the satellite galaxies. The measurements of abundance and weak lensing individually constrain different degeneracy directions in the $M_{\rm min}$ and $\sigma_{\log M}$ plane, thus breaking the degeneracy in these parameters. We demonstrate that the weak lensing measurements are best able to constrain the average central halo masses, $\langle M_{\rm cen} \rangle$. We compare our measurements to those obtained using the abundance and clustering of these galaxies as well as the subhalo abundance matching measurements and demonstrate qualitative agreement. We find that the galaxy-dark matter connection does not vary significantly between redshift bins we explore in this study. Uncertainties in the photometric redshift of the lens galaxies imply that more efforts are required to understand the true underlying stellar mass-halo mass relation of galaxies and its evolution over cosmic epoch

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray structural studies of human prouroguanylin. Corrigendum

A corrigendum to the article by Ito et al. [Acta Cryst. (2008). F64, 531–532]

Nonstop Lose-Less Data Acquisition and Storing Method for Plasma Motion Images

Plasma diagnostic data analysis often requires the original raw data as they are, in other words, at the same frame rate and resolution of the CCD camera sensor. As a non-interlace VGA camera typically generates over 70 MB/s video stream, usual frame grabber cards apply the lossy compression encoder, such as mpeg-1/-2 or mpeg-4, to drastically lessen the bit rate. In this study, a new approach, which makes it possible to acquire and store such the wideband video stream without any quality reduction, has been successfully achieved. Simultaneously, the real-time video streaming is even possible at the original frame rate. For minimising the exclusive access time in every data storing, it has adopted the directory structure to hold every frame files separately, instead of one long consecutive file. The popular ‘zip’ archive method improves the portability of data files, however, the JPEG-LS image compression is applied inside by replacing its intrinsic deflate/inflate algorithm that has less performances for image data

Effect of cyclodextrins on the thermal epimerization of tea catechins

金沢大学理工研究域物質化学系The epimerization reaction of tea catechins was investigated at pH 5.5 and 120°C in the absence/presence of cyclodextrins (CDs). In the absence of CDs, a considerable quantity (∼20%) of products originating from reactions other than the epimerization ("other products") was formed during the epimerization of gallated catechins. In the case of (-)-EGCg, addition of β-CD to the reaction solution reduced the quantity of these other products to just a few percent, but other CDs with different cavity sizes had little effect. Generally, the addition of β-CD increased the ratio of non-epi type catechins, that is, [non-epi type catechin] / ([epi type catechin]+[non-epi type catechin]). Molecular orbital (MO) calculations using the PM3 method suggested that non-epi type catechins are more thermodynamically stable than their epi-type counterparts, moving the equilibrium position in favor of non-epi type catechins in the epimerization process

Radically Different Thioredoxin Domain Arrangement of ERp46, an Efficient Disulfide Bond Introducer of the Mammalian PDI Family

SummaryThe mammalian endoplasmic reticulum (ER) contains a diverse oxidative protein folding network in which ERp46, a member of the protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) family, serves as an efficient disulfide bond introducer together with Peroxiredoxin-4 (Prx4). We revealed a radically different molecular architecture of ERp46, in which the N-terminal two thioredoxin (Trx) domains with positively charged patches near their peptide-binding site and the C-terminal Trx are linked by unusually long loops and arranged extendedly, forming an opened V-shape. Whereas PDI catalyzes native disulfide bond formation by the cooperative action of two mutually facing redox-active sites on folding intermediates bound to the central cleft, ERp46 Trx domains are separated, act independently, and engage in rapid but promiscuous disulfide bond formation during early oxidative protein folding. Thus, multiple PDI family members likely contribute to different stages of oxidative folding and work cooperatively to ensure the efficient production of multi-disulfide proteins in the ER