Computed tomography of the brain in the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome

Computed tomographic (CT) scans of the brain in a child with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome revealed enlargement of the ventricular system, hypoplasia of the cerebellum, and abnormal thickening of the gray matter, consistent with pachygyria. These findings have been previously noted in autopsies performed on patients with this disorder. We conclude that CT scanning is a valuable tool in the evaluation of children suspected of having the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.     

港九海底铁路建设中的减压病——工作条件与发病关系探讨

本文介绍香港九龙海底铁路建设中高气压作业与减压病发病情况。该工程有11条坑道,共计259 448个高压工作日,减压288 140人次,发生减压病1 534例。根据不同的工作压力,以暴露次数、高压工作日数及暴露4小时以上次数3种方法分别计算减压病发病率。结果表明:各种方法计算出的发病率都有随工作压力增高而上升的趋势,说明现用的减压表对不同的工作压力达不到同样的预防效果。本文还对3大主要工种和14个小工种的减压病作了分析。     

Cytophotometric investigations on atypical epithelial cells of the human seminal vesicle

Normal seminal vesicles were studied histologically in 80, and by Feulgen’s cytophotometric method in 10 autopsied cases (males, 44–82 years of age). In every case large, hyperchromatic nuclei were found. By cytophotometry euploid polyploid atypia was also shown in every case, which is characteristic of benign hormonal dysplasia.     

胞嘧啶脱氨酶的原核表达和多克隆抗体的制备

目的：在原核系统中表达并纯化大肠杆菌胞嘧啶脱氨酶（cytosine deaminase,CD)，制备鼠抗大肠杆菌CD多克隆抗体，方法：亚克隆CD基因到原核表达载体pMAL-c2和pBV222中，并转化入大肠杆菌DH5α内，诱导表达并纯化MBP-CD和6his-CD融合蛋白，用纯化的MBP-CD融合蛋白免疫小鼠制备多克隆抗体。结果：通过重组质粒的酶切筛选出重组阳性克隆，成功地表达和纯化出MBP-CD和6his-CD融合蛋白，用纯化的MBP-CD成功制备了鼠抗CD多克隆抗体，并用6his-CD和GST-CD重组蛋白进行Western印迹分析，证实了抗体的正确性，结论：应用多克隆抗体可以检测体内外CD基因的表达，为临床前和临床上深入开展CD基因的生物治疗研究提供重要的实验材料。     

Allergy to laboratory animals: a retrospective and a prospective study.

Twenty four volunteers who had been allergic to laboratory animals for some years were examined by means of a questionnaire paying particular attention to symptoms associated with rats and by serological and skin tests with extracts of rat urine (retrospective study). Nasal and eye symptoms were reported by 21 and 16 individuals respectively: 13 had asthma. Positive skin tests and high levels of specific IgE antibody to rat urine extract were found in 17 of the more severely affected individuals and this group included 12 of those with asthma. Latent periods of work with animals before symptoms appeared varied from 0.5 to 12 years. Also 148 individuals were studied during their first year of work with animals (prospective study). Symptoms developing during the year were reported by 15%, asthma by 2%. IgE antibody levels to rat urine were raised in 40% of affected and 6% of the unaffected individuals but there was no significant correlation between symptoms and either antibody levels or positive skin tests. Allergic symptoms developing during the first year of postemployment were, on the whole, much milder than those seen in the retrospective study. A tentative conclusion is that most individuals who become allergic to laboratory animals develop the condition in a mild form during their first year of employment but it appears probable that atopic individuals, although having an equal chance of developing allergy as compared with non-atopic individuals, may eventually progress to a more severe form of the disease.     

Phase-constrained data extrapolation method for reduction of truncation artifacts

The authors present an improvement to a sigma-filter extrapolation method for the reconstruction of magnetic resonance (MR) images from symmetric discrete Fourier data. By making use of the phase information in the image data, the proposed method can overcome the data inconsistency problem of the original method for handling MR image data with large phase variations, such as those obtained in gradient-echo pulse sequences. Reconstruction results show that its performance is comparable with that of the modified complex sigma-filter method proposed previously to handle the inconsistency problem. However, the new approach has the advantage of reducing computation time by a factor of two with use of a sigma filter applied to real instead of complex images. It is expected that this method will be more practical for use in clinical MR imaging systems.     

Helicobacter pylori; histological and cultural correlation in chronic gastritis.

Seventy seven antral biopsies were collected from patients attending endoscopy clinic at King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during a period of six months between December 1988 to May 1989. Of these 69 (89.6%) showed chronic gastritis as well as Helicobacter-like organisms (HLOs) in the biopsy specimens while 63 (81.8%) of biopsies grew Helicobacter pylori on culture. These findings indicate a good correlation between the histological diagnosis of chronic gastritis and isolation of H. pylori on culture.     

Different behavioral deficits are induced by anoxia/hypoxia in neonatal and senescent rats: blockade by MK-801

Rats exposed on their first postnatal day to 100% nitrogen for 25 min developed hyperactivity and lower performance in passive avoidance task during development. Administration of MK-801 (0.5 mg/kg i.p.) 1 h before anoxia or (0.25 and 0.5 mg/kg) 1 h after completely reversed this behavioral impairment. Senescent rats (24-26 months) exposed to hypoxia (92% N2 + 8% O2) for 5 h failed in their performance in C.A.R., 30 days later. Pretreatment with MK-801 (1 mg/kg i.p.) completely reversed this impairment. These data suggest that activation of endogenous NMDA receptors produces different behavioral consequences in neonatal and senescent rats and that MK-801 administration close to exposure of animals to anoxia or hypoxia can prevent such damage, thus preventing behavioral impairments in postnatal as well as in senescent rats.     

Functional recognition of the neuronal tyrosine hydroxylase cAMP regulatory element in different cell types.

Transient transfection of pLB2CAT constructs bearing short synthetic oligonucleotides derived either from the tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) promoter or other sources was used to examine functional cAMP regulatory element (CRE) activity in a variety of cell lines. The region containing only the putative TH CRE was found to be as or more effective in conferring cAMP responsiveness onto pLB2CAT (which employs the TK promoter) than the immediate 272 bp region of the TH promoter. Increases in CAT activity of 10- to 20-fold were observed in JEG-3 cells with a single insert of the TH CRE region (-31 to -54) in pLB2CAT, and the presence of a second insert generated only a modest further increase. This construct also responded to cAMP in 4 other cell lines tested but the degree of increase was less dramatic. Inserts containing the consensus 8 bp CRE motif embedded in other natural or artificial contexts served generally as weak functional CREs in all cell lines tested. In vitro analysis revealed that a specific protein-DNA complex apparently containing a single protein with a MW of 45-50 kDa was formed equally well with JEG-3 cell nuclear extract and CRE-bearing-TH and other fragments which produced dramatically different cAMP effects in vivo. These results suggest specificity in the effects of cAMP on different CREs which are dictated by contextual differences.