Intravenous placement device and infusion thrombophlebitis

The incidence of thrombophlebitis in the present study was 18.3%. It was of mild grade in all the cases. The incidence of thrombophlebitis was more (24%) when short teflon canula was used as intravenous placement device. Under similar infusion conditions with stainless steel needle, scalp vein needle and long teflon canula, the incidence was 16.6%, 13.3% and 16.6% respectively. Thrombophlebitis bears a direct relationship to the duration of infusion. The incidence was negligible at the end of 8 hours, whereas 14 patients developed thrombophlebitis by the end of 24 hours (63.7%).     

Alcoholism: newer methods of management

Chronic alcoholics were selected from hospitals and A.A. Centres and subjected to different methods of treatment namely, psycho therapy, stereotaxic surgery, nonvolitional biofeedback, Yoga and meditation and extremely low frequency Pulsed Magnetic Field. Each group comprised a minimum of 20 subjects. All were males between the ages of 20 and 45 years. Investigations done were clinical, psychological, biochemical, neurochemical and electrophysiological. Improvement was noticed in all the patients, the degree varying with the different methods of treatment. The patients were followed up at least for a period of one year.     

Optimization of Cultural Conditions for Protease Production by a Fungal Species

Studies were carried out on a paddy soil fungal isolate identified to be a strain of Aspergillus niger from Manipal. The parameters that largely impact enzyme production viz., fermentation time, impeller speed, pH, temperature and nutrient supplements were studied. Optimization of production parameters for production of protease was done by the single-parameter mode. Casein served as substrate and proteolytic activity was estimated using Folin-Ciocalteau method at 660 nm. A maximum yield of 71.3 mg tyrosine/g casein substrate was produced in 96 h on a soluble starch medium at pH 4 in shake flask experiments. Production was carried out on a 3-liter fermenter and 40.7 mg of tyrosine was liberated/g of substrate. The enzyme was extracted with 50% ammonium sulfate and sodium dodecyl sulfate-Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showed two bands having mw 45.7 kDa and 38.5 kDa, respectively. The enzyme activity was found to be 147.84 U/ml.     

CENTRAL NEUROGENIC NEUROPROTECTION: PROTECTION OF BRAIN FROM FOCAL ISCHEMIA BY CEREBELLAR STIMULATION

Electrical stimulation of the cerebellar fastigial nucleus (FN) elevates regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) independently of cerebral metabolism (rCGU) throughout brain. One hour of FN stimulation also reduces, by up to 50%, the volume of the focal ischemic infarction produced by occlusion of the middle cerebral artery in rat. Protected areas correspond to the ischemic penumbra. Neuroprotection, while reversible, persists for weeks after 1h of stimulation. It cannot be attributed to increasing rCBF and/or reducing rCGU to improve matching of flow and metabolism. Conditional stimulation of FN initiates long-lived inhibition of expression of peri-infarction depolarizing waves, possibly by altering potassium-channel function and suppresses induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and ICAM in cerebral microvessels. The brain contains intrinsic networks which may protect the brain from ischemic injury, possibly by producing widespread and longterm suppression of electrical excitability and/or and expression of proinflammatory molecules.     

Oncogenic NRAS, KRAS, and HRAS exhibit different leukemogenic potentials in mice

RAS proteins are small GTPases that play a central role in transducing signals that regulate cell proliferation, survival, and differentiation. The RAS proteins interact with a common set of activators and effectors; however, they associate with different microdomains of the plasma membrane as well as other endomembranes and are capable of generating distinct signal outputs. Mutations that result in constitutive activation of RAS proteins are associated with approximately 30% of all human cancers; however, different RAS oncogenes are preferentially associated with different types of human cancer. In myeloid malignancies, NRAS mutations are more frequent than KRAS mutations, whereas HRAS mutations are rare. The mechanism underlying the different frequencies of RAS isoforms mutated in myeloid leukemia is not known. In this study, we compared the leukemogenic potential of activated NRAS, KRAS, and HRAS in the same bone marrow transduction/transplantation model system. We found that all three RAS oncogenes have the ability to induce myeloid leukemias, yet have distinct leukemogenic strengths and phenotypes. The models established here provide a system for further studying the molecular mechanisms in the pathogenesis of myeloid malignancies and for testing targeted therapies.     

Precocious expression of T cell functional response genes in vivo in primitive thymocytes before T lineage commitment

The genes encoding effector molecules of mature T cells, IL-2, perforin and IL-4, were found to be expressed in vivo in the most primitive subsets of thymocytes of adult mice. These subsets have previously been identified by their cell surface markers and by their expression of other T lineage-associated genes. While IL-2, perforin and IL-4 are expressed in distinct patterns, all three are expressed before the induction of RAG-1 and pre-TCR alpha mRNA expression, and are confined to subsets of cells that apparently have not yet undergone commitment to the T lineage. Thus, expression of T cell response genes appears to be one of the earliest markers of lymphocyte differentiation. Activation events marked by CD69 induction occur in these early cell types, but the response gene expression by these cells is separable from CD69 expression. IL-2 and perforin are induced again much later in thymocyte development, during TCR-dependent repertoire selection. At those stages, IL-2 protein and RNA levels per cell are higher, but the fraction of cells expressing IL-2 appears to be much lower than in the most immature stages. In addition, a striking feature of the immature populations is the robust IL-2 expression by presumptive immature NK cells. These findings are discussed in terms of the developmental origins of lineage specificity in T cell response gene regulation.