Extremely low birthweight infants in Switzerland: A database of the Swiss neonatology group

Conclusion In Switzerland, infants weighing 500–999 g at birth seem to have a relatively high mortality and a relatively low risk for handicap. This impression has to be confirmed by assessing outcome at school age.     

Lifetime and six-month prevalence of mental disorders in the Munich follow-up study

Summary The Lifetime and 6 month DSM-III prevalence rates of mental disorders from an adult general population sample of former West Germany are reported. The most frequent mental disorders (lifetime) from the Munich Follow-up Study were anxiety disorders (13.87%), followed by substance (13.51%) and affective (12.90%) disorders. Within anxiety disorders, simple and social phobia (8.01%) were the most common, followed by agoraphobia (5.47%) and panic disorder (2.39%). Females had about twice the rates of males for affective (18.68% versus 6.42%), anxiety (18.13% versus 9.07%), and somatization disorders (1.60% versus 0.00%); males had about three times the rates of substance disorders (21.23% versus 6.11%) of females. Being widowed and separated/divorced was associated with high rates of major depression. Most disordered subjects had at least two diagnoses (69%). The most frequent comorbidity pattern was anxietyand affective disorders. Simple and social phobia began mostly in childhood or early adolescence, whereas agoraphobia and panic disorder had a later average age of onset. The majority of the cases with both anxiety and depression had depression clearly after the occurrence of anxiety. The DIS-DSM-III findings of our study have been compared with both ICD-9 diagnoses assigned by clinicians independently as well as other epidemiological studies conducted with a comparable methodology.     

Sequential comparison of low dose rate and hyperfractionated high dose rate endobronchial radiation for malignant airway occlusion.

A pilot trial (S2) was conducted at the University of Wisconsin to determine the feasibility, efficacy, and toxicity of hyperfractionated high dose rate endobronchial radiation. To avoid multiple bronchoscopies, an optimized hyperfractionated schema was derived from the linear-quadratic model. Utilizing a single bronchoscopy, 31 patients with malignant airway occlusion received 4 Gy x 4 fractions over 2 days at 2 cm from source center using a high dose rate remote afterloader. Response and morbidity were compared to a previous trial (S1) in which 66 patients were treated with conventional low dose rate endobronchial radiation. Response was assessed by change in performance status, symptom resolution, percent of lifetime rendered symptom-free or improved, and radiographic reaeration. These parameters were highly comparable between the two groups. The mean ECOG performance status improved from 2.2 to 1.8 for S1 and 2.1 to 1.6 for S2; symptom improvement or resolution was noted in 78% for S1 and 79% for S2; lifetime rendered symptom-free or improved was 54% for S1 and 57% for S2; and the overall radiographic response rate was 78% for S1 and 85% for S2. The overall incidence of fistulae was 7/101. We conclude that endobronchial radiation is an effective and safe modality for palliation, and hyperfractionated high dose rate endobronchial radiation achieves responses similar to low dose rate endobronchial radiation with a similar complication rate.     

PCR analysis of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis-purified plastid DNA,a sensitive tool to judge the hetero-/homoplastomic status of plastid transformants

The genetic transformation of plastids of higher plants has developed into a powerful approach for both basic research and biotechnology. Due to the high copy number of the plastid genome per plastid and per cell, repeated cycles of shoot regeneration under conditions selective for the modified plastid chromosome are required to obtain transformants entirely lacking wild-type plastid genomes. The presence of promiscuous plastid DNA in nuclear and/or mitochondrial genomes that generally contaminate even gradient-purified plastid fractions reduces the applicability of the highly sensitive PCR approach to monitor the absence of residual wild-type plastid chromosomes in transformed lines. It is therefore difficult, or even impossible, to assess reliably the hetero- or homoplastomic state of plastid transformants in this manner. By analysing wild-type and transplastomic mutants of tobacco, we demonstrate that separation of plastid chromosomes isolated from gradient-purified plastid fractions by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis can overcome the problem of (co)amplification of interfering promiscuous plastid DNA. PCR analyses with primers specific for plastid, mitochondrial and nuclear genes reveal an impressive purity of such plastid DNA fractions at a detection limit of less than one wild-type plastid chromosome copy per ten transplastomic cells.     

Acknowledgement to translators

Acknowledgement to translators     

T-cell-mediated autoimmunity: novel techniques to characterize autoreactive T-cell receptors

Histological samples of autopsy or biopsy tissue provide the best available evidence that autoreactive T cells are involved in the immunopathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases. However, morphology alone does not provide information on the antigen-specific T-cell receptor (TCR) of these cells, let alone on their antigen specificity. In this review article we discuss a number of emerging possibilities for identifying TCR sequences directly from biopsy tissue. We also review the methods for expressing presumably autoreactive TCR molecules and speculate on how the expressed TCR might be used to identify target antigens. Such information should eventually provide new insights into disease pathogenesis which lead to better therapies.     

Amphetamine injections into the nucleus accumbens affect neither acquisition/expression of conditioned fear nor baseline startle response

The acoustic startle response is enhanced during states of fear and attenuated during pleasant ones. Our question was whether pharmacological stimulation of the reward system disrupts the learning and retrieval of conditioned fear as measured by fear-potentiated startle. We therefore injected the dopamine agonist amphetamine into the nucleus accumbens (NAC) immediately before either acquisition or expression of conditioned fear and measured the effect of these injections on fear-potentiated startle and baseline startle response. This study clearly showed that amphetamine injections into the NAC had no effect on baseline startle amplitude and acquisition/expression of conditioned fear. In contrast, amphetamine injections into the nucleus accumbens clearly enhanced spontaneous motor activity. These results suggest that dopamine within the NAC is not involved in modulation of fear-potentiated startle and baseline startle.