Prenatal diagnosis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy using single fetal cell in maternal blood

We developed a method that allows prenatal diagnosis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy using a single nucleated erythrocyte (NRBC) isolated from maternal blood. Maternal blood was obtained at 8 to 20 weeks of gestation. NRBCs were separated with Percoll using a discontinuous density gradient method and then collected by micromanipulator under microscopic observation. The entire genome of a single cell amplified by primer extension preamplification (PEP). Sex was determined from a small aliquot of the PEP reaction. After an NRBC was determined to be male and confirmed to be of fetal origin, dystrophin exons 4, 8, 12, 45, 48, 50, and 51 were determined from the same PEP reaction. This diagnostic method using maternal blood is safer than amniocentesis or cordocentesis and can be applied to other X-linked disease.     

Discharge behaviour of electrodeposited PbO2 and Pb electrodes

The discharge behaviour of electrodeposited lead dioxide and lead electrodes was investigated under various conditions; the surfaces of the discharged electrodes were observed with a scanning electron microscope. Both the positive and negative electrodes were passivated by a covering of deposited lead sulphate crystals. The amount of lead sulphate required for passivation depended on the size of the crystals.     

Melatonin inhibits naloxone-induced luteinizing hormone release in ovariectomized estrogen-primed rats

The present study aimed to examine the effect of melatonin on naloxone-induced luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion in ovariectomized estrogen-primed rats. A single intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection of naloxone (mu opioid receptor blocker, 15 micrograms) or an intravenous (i.v.) injection of LH-releasing hormone (LHRH, 50 ng/kg) elicited a transient and significant increase in the serum LH concentration within 10 min. While an i.c.v. injection of 100 ng melatonin by itself did not change the basal LH release, it almost completely inhibited the naloxone-induced LH release. Melatonin (10 ng) also significantly reduced the effect of naloxone. However, an i.c.v. injection of 100 ng melatonin did not affect the LHRH-induced LH release. In separate experiments, the effect of melatonin on naloxone-induced pulsatile LH secretion was studied in estrogen-treated rats. A continuous i.v. infusion of naloxone (20 mg/kg/h) induced LH pulses in rats treated i.c.v. with saline. An i.c.v. administration of 100 ng melatonin, which by itself did not affect basal LH secretion, significantly reduced the frequency, but not the amplitude, of LH pulses induced by the naloxone infusion. These results show that melatonin has a suprapituitary site of action to inhibit naloxone-induced LH release, and suggest that melatonin has an effect in inhibiting the activity of the hypothalamic LHRH pulse generator, either directly or indirectly, in female rats.     

A role for Rev in the association of HIV-1 gag mRNA with cytoskeletal beta-actin and viral protein expression

Human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) Rev acts by inducing the specific nucleocytoplasmic transport of a class of incompletely spliced RNAs that encodes the viral structural proteins. The transfection of HeLa cells with a rev-defective HIV-1 expression plasmid, however, resulted in the export of overexpressed, intron-containing species of viral RNAs, possibly through a default process of nuclear retention. Thus, this system enabled us to directly compare Rev+ and Rev+ cells as to the usage of RRE-containing mRNAs by the cellular translational machinery. Biochemical examination of the transfected cells revealed that although significant levels of gag and env mRNAs were detected in both the presence and absence of Rev, efficient production of viral proteins was strictly dependent on the presence of Rev. A fluorescence in situ hybridisation assay confirmed these findings and provided further evidence that even in the presence of Rev, not all of the viral mRNA was equally translated. At the early phase of RNA export in Rev+ cells, gag mRNA was observed throughout both the cytoplasm and nucleoplasm as uniform fine stippling. In addition, the mRNA formed clusters mainly in the perinuclear region, which were not observed in Rev+ cells. In the presence of Rev, expression of the gag protein was limited to these perinuclear sites where the mRNA accumulated. Subsequent staining of the cytoskeletal proteins demonstrated that in Rev+ cells gag mRNA is colocalized with beta-actin in the sites where the RNA formed clusters. In the absence of Rev, in contrast, the gag mRNA failed to associate with the cytoskeletal proteins. These results suggest that in addition to promoting the emergence of intron-containing RNA from the nucleus, Rev plays an important role in the compartmentation of translation by directing RRE-containing mRNAs to the beta-actin to form the perinuclear clusters at which the synthesis of viral structural proteins begins.     

Corrections to “On the structure of H∞control systems and related extensions”

The authors state that in the original paper (Kimura, Lu and Kawatani, ibid., vol. 36, p. 653-67, 1991) a lemma on (J,J')-losslessness is not correct. Its stated implications are also not fully correct. They give a counterexample to these claims and show how they can be fixed by strengthening the assumption     

An instantaneous response CMOS optical receiver IC with widedynamic range and extremely high sensitivity using feed-forwardauto-bias adjustment

An instantaneous response CMOS optical-receiver IC is described with wide input dynamic range and high sensitivity. In a TCM (time compression multiplexing)-TDMA (time division multiple access) fiber-optic subscriber system, a receiver should be able to handle burst-data packets with different amplitude. This requires quick response and a wide dynamic range. Instantaneous response is achieved with a new feed-forward auto-bias adjustment technique. In addition, multistaged offset compensation provides a wide dynamic range without any external elements and adjustments. Using these design techniques, an optical receiver IC was fabricated in a standard 0.8-μm CMOS technology. The receiver has a wide dynamic range of more than 25 dB for burst-mode optical input at 29 Mb/s. It has high transimpedance gain of 150 dBΩ and high sensitivity of -42 dBm with stable operation for FET threshold voltage and power supply voltage fluctuation     

Early local recurrence of rectal cancer showing extremely rapid growth after curative surgery: report of a case

We report herein the case of a 59-year-old woman who developed a local recurrence of rectal cancer which showed extremely rapid growth. The patient had undergone a curative low anterior resection with total mesoexcision, and was discharged on postoperative day 25 after an uneventful recovery. However, 2 months after the operation, she developed bleeding from the rectum during defecation, the quantity of which gradually increased. A colonoscopy performed during the fifth postoperative month revealed a circular tumor at the suture line. The tumor was unresectable because it had firmly invaded not only the sacrum, but also the right ureter. Despite the administration of 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin, the patient died of cancer 18 months after her initial surgery. Considering that local recurrence of rectal cancer does not usually occur within 1 year after surgery, this case is unusual because the local recurrence developed very early and showed extremely rapid growth, occupying the entire lumen of the rectum by the time it was detected by colonoscopy during the fifth postoperative month.     

Bottom-up multi-agent reinforcement learning by reward shaping for cooperative-competitive tasks

Applied Intelligence - A multi-agent system (MAS) is expected to be applied to various real-world problems where a single agent cannot accomplish given tasks. Due to the inherent complexity in the...