Influence of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms

BACKGROUND: Our aims in the present study were to estimate the influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life, and to determine which of these two variables has the most predictive power with respect to quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. METHODS: Chronic prostatitis-like symptoms were measured by the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index. Of the 28,841 men aged 20 years who lived in the study community, 18,495 men (a response rate 64.1%) agreed to participate in the study. A total of 1057 men who complained of symptoms indicative of chronic prostatitis were included in the study. The influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life were determined using logistic regression analysis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to estimate the predictive ability of each of these variables with respect to quality of life. RESULTS: Results from multivariate analysis showed that both pain and urinary symptoms were associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life, although pain contributed more to a reduced quality of life than urinary symptoms. Relative to men who experienced mild pain, men who experienced moderate pain had a 3.9-fold risk of poor quality of life (odds ratio [OR], 3.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.86-5.23; P < 0.001) and those who experienced severe pain had a 15.7-fold risk of reduced quality of life (OR, 15.68; 95% CI, 6.59-37.35; P < 0.001). Moderate urinary symptoms were associated with a 1.4-fold risk of bother (OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.01-1.99; P < 0.001) and severe urinary symptoms were associated with 2.4-fold risk (OR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.37-4.12; P < 0.001), relative to mild urinary symptoms. Comparison of the effects of pain and urinary symptoms showed that pain severity had the most predictive power for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact. The areas under the ROC curves for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact were 71.3%, 69.3% and 72.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Urinary symptoms and pain might be associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. In addition, our findings suggest that pain severity is the most influential variable for determining quality of life in this population.     

C2H2-171 : A novel human cDNA representing a developmentally regulated poz domain/zinc finger protein preferentially expressed in brain

We describe a novel human zinc finger cNDA, C2H2-171. This cDNA represents an mRNA which encodes a protein of 484 amino acids and a calculated molecular weight of 54 kD. Four zinc finger-like domains are found in the C-terminal end of the protein. At the N-terminus, C2H2-171 contains a POZ/tramtrack-like domain similar to that found in the tumor associated zinc finger proteins LAZ-3/BCL-6 and PLZ-F, as well as in non-zinc finger proteins. C2H2-171 RNA is preferentially expressed in the brain, and increases during the course of murine development, with maximal expression in the adult. C2H2-171 RNA is differentially expressed in brain regions, with the highest level of expression in the cerebellum. C2H2-171 RNA was expressed at high levels in primary cerebellar granule cell neurons compared to astrocytes. The gene encoding C2H2-171 is highly conserved in vertebrates, and maps to the terminus of human chromosome 1 (1q44-ter). This chromosomal location is associated with a number of cytogenetic aberrations including those involving brain developmental anomalies and tumorigenesis. These data suggest that C2H2-171 may play an important role in vertebrate brain development and function.     

Rapid isolation and characterization of 118 novel C2H2-type zinc finger cDNAs expressed in human brain

C2H2-type zinc finger genes comprise one of the largest genefamilies in the human genome. These proteins are involved ingenetic regulation and development and are quite conserved throughoutevolution. The finger domains commonly contain the small linkerpeptide TGEKP between some finger units. Here, we report theisolation of 133 human zinc finger cDNAs, of which 118 are novel.These clones were isolated from human brain cDNA libraries usingoligonucleotide hybridization followed by expressed sequencetag (EST) analysis, sequencing from the conserved linker regionusing degenerate oligonucleotide primers. This directed partialsequencing approach to cDNA isolation and characterization,signature sequencing, combines the speed of EST automatic sequencingwith the focus of specific cDNA family analysis. Signature sequencingminimizes the generation of less informative random EST sequencesand provides a unique relative position for sequence comparison.We also show that there is an even distribution of these RNA5from this brain cDNA library, and that these cDNAs contain N-terminaldomains found in other zinc finger genes. This rapid focusedsequencing approach should be applicable to any family of cDNAscontaining short conserved signature peptide sequences.     

Dietary carnitine intake related to skeletal muscle and plasma carnitine concentrations in adult men and women

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if there was any relationship between dietary carnitine intake and the concentrations of carnitine in skeletal muscle and blood plasma in healthy adult men and women. Subjects (14 men, 14 women, fasted 8 h) reported to the Biodynamics Laboratory where they completed a 24-h diet recall questionnaire. Resting muscle biopsy (vastus lateralis) and blood plasma samples were taken and assayed for free, short-chain, and long-chain acyl carnitine concentrations. Dietary carnitine intake was estimated from data on concentrations in food. There was no significant relationship between either protein or carnitine intake with skeletal muscle carnitine concentrations. There was a significant relationship between both dietary carnitine (r = 0.50) and protein (r = 0.48) intake with blood plasma total acid soluble carnitine concentrations (p less than 0.01) in all subjects.