The Win1 mitotic regulator is a component of the fission yeast stress-activated Sty1 MAPK pathway

Women's anger experience has been poorly understood and insufficiently researched. Yet the emotion of anger is vitally important to women's physical and mental health, and to the quality of their relationships. This phenomenological study was undertaken as an expansion and extension of the Women's Anger Study, the first large survey of the genesis, manifestations and correlates of anger in American women. Although the earlier study contributed to understanding of anger, a deeper examination of the context and meanings of anger experience was sought. Twenty-nine Caucasian women ranging in age from 21 to 66 years were interviewed. Illustrative occupations ranged from homemaker, student, waitress to business executive, professor, and human service professional. Analysis involved thematizing by the researchers independently and within a multidisciplinary phenomenological research group. The thematic structure of women's anger involved a building over time of a confusing mixture of feelings (hurt, frustration, disillusionment) precipitated by a violation of the core values of the self. The precipitant of anger was unfair and/or disrespectful treatment or lack of reciprocity in relationships. When the anger was confined within self, the woman felt helpless and powerless. However, powerlessness was also evident when anger was externalized in an outburst. To the study participants, an angry outburst meant a loss of control rather than ability to achieve control. Women reported a sense of power when using anger to restore justice, respect, and relationship reciprocity. Clinicians can assist women to reflect on their core values and use the power of their anger effectively. Further studies are in progress to examine the relevance of these findings for women of other races and cultural contexts.     

Evolution of a full-thickness macular hole

Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPCD) is a congenital kidney disease with severe prognosis. We present a male infant who was diagnosed prenatally by ultrasonography. He died at two months of age in a septic stage. The genetic defect for ARPCD has been mapped to chromosomal region of 6p21-cen. This represents the first study from this region of the world. The linkage studies up to this date fall to show genetic heterogeneity.     

Usefulness of CT in patients with intestinal obstruction who have undergone abdominal surgery for malignancy

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of CT in determining the causes of intestinal obstruction in patients who have undergone abdominal surgery for malignancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed the CT scans of 55 patients with benign (n = 26) or malignant (n = 29) intestinal obstruction that developed after abdominal surgery for malignancy. After calculating the diagnostic accuracy of interpretations by three radiologists, we compared CT findings for benign and malignant intestinal obstructions with respect to peritoneal involvement patterns and other ancillary findings. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the diagnostic performance of CT in revealing causes of obstruction. RESULTS: Diagnostic accuracies of the three radiologists were 67%, 75%, and 78%. CT findings indicating malignant obstruction were a mass at the site of obstruction or prior surgery, lymphadenopathy, or an abrupt transition zone and irregular bowel wall thickening at obstructed sites (p < .05). Conversely, the chance for benign obstruction increased when CT revealed mesenteric vascular changes, a large amount of ascites, or a smooth transition zone and smooth bowel wall thickening at the obstructed site (p < .05). With multivariate logistic regression analysis using two variables (a mass at the site of obstruction or prior surgery and lymphadenopathy), we calculated the overall accuracy of CT as 84% (46/55 patients). CONCLUSION: CT is useful in differentiating benign from malignant intestinal obstructions in patients who have undergone abdominal surgery for malignancy. However, CT has limitations in patients not having a demonstrable peritoneal mass.     

Spatial disorientation in U.S. Army rotary-wing operations

A 3.6-kbp DNA fragment was cloned from the extrachromosomal DNA of a pathogenic plant mollicute, onion yellows phytoplasma (OY-W). Sequence analysis of the fragment revealed an open reading frame (ORF) encoding the replication (Rep) protein of rolling-circle replication (RCR)-type plasmids. This result suggests the existence of a plasmid (pOYW1) in OY-W that uses the RCR mechanism. This assumption was confirmed by detecting the single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) of a replication intermediate that is specifically produced by the RCR mechanism. This is the first report on the identification of the replication system of this plasmid and the genes encoded in it. With a DNA fragment including the Rep gene region of pOYW1 used as a probe, Southern and Northern (RNA) blot hybridizations were employed to examine the heterogeneity between the plasmids found in OY-W and a pathogenic mutant (OY-M) isolated from OY-W. Multiple bands were detected in the DNA and RNA extracted from both OY-W and OY-M infected plants, although the banding patterns were different. Moreover, the copy number of plasmids from OY-W was about 4.2 times greater than that from OY-M. These results indicate constructive heterogeneity between OY-W and OY-M plasmids, and the possibility of a relationship between the plasmid-encoded genes and the pathogenicity of the phytoplasma was suggested.     

Pharmacodynamics of immediate and delayed effects of paclitaxel: role of slow apoptosis and intracellular drug retention

The kinetics of the time-dependent antitumor effects of paclitaxel are not fully understood; some literature reports indicate a higher activity by prolonging treatment durations, whereas other reports indicate no enhancement under in vitro conditions. The present study was designed to address this controversy and to determine the mechanism of the higher cytotoxicity associated with longer treatment durations. Six human epithelial cancer cell lines (bladder RT4, breast MCF7, pharynx FaDu, ovarian SKOV3, and prostate PC3 and DU145) were used. To determine whether the higher activity observed for the longer treatment durations is due to a delayed exhibition of drug effects and/or a reflection of cumulative effects that required a continuous drug exposure, cells were treated with paclitaxel for 3-96 h and then either: (a) immediately processed for drug effect measurement; or (b) washed, incubated in drug-free medium, and processed for drug effect measurement at 96 h. The overall drug effect (i.e., combination of cytostatic and apoptotic effects) was determined by the sulforhodamine B assay, which measures the cellular protein. In addition, to determine whether apoptosis occurs with a time delay, apoptosis was measured in cells that were collected immediately after drug treatment for various durations or in cells that were treated with drugs for 3 h but collected at later time points. Apoptosis was determined using agarose gel electrophoresis and by measuring the cytoplasmic DNA-histone complex using ELISA. The contribution of the intracellularly retained drug to the delayed drug effect was studied by characterizing the kinetics of cellular drug uptake and efflux and by examining the effect of removal of the intracellularly retained drug. All six cell lines showed similar results, as follows: (a) paclitaxel produced cytotoxicity that was exhibited immediately after treatment (immediate effect) and after treatment was terminated (delayed effect); (b) the immediate and delayed effects showed different pharmacodynamics. The immediate effect increased with treatment duration and drug concentration. For the delayed effect, all treatments produced the same maximum effect at 96 h, although treatments for < or = 12 h showed higher IC50s than longer treatments, whereas treatments for > or = 24 h showed indistinguishable IC50s; (c) treatment for as brief as 3 h was sufficient to induce apoptosis, which occurred with a lag time of about 24 h, although longer treatments produced a greater extent of apoptosis; (d) The intracellular and extracellular concentrations reached an equilibrium at approximately 5 h, which rules out slow and/or insufficient uptake as the cause of the lower effects at shorter treatment times (i.e., < 24 h); (e) upon removal of drug-containing medium, the amount of drug retained intracellularly was about 10% of the applied dose and was reduced to approximately 0.5% after three successive washes, separated by 3-h equilibration periods; and (f) the delayed effect of the 3-h treatment was largely due to the drug retained intracellularly, whereas the delayed effect of the 24 h treatment was independent of the drug retained intracellularly. In conclusion, in human epithelial cancer cells, paclitaxel-induced cytotoxicity occurred after termination of drug treatment, which was partly due to the slow manifestation of apoptosis and partly due to the significant amount of drug retained intracellularly. Based on these findings and recognizing that some previous studies measured the immediate effect whereas the other studies measured the delayed effect, we propose that the conflicting data in the literature regarding the effect of treatment duration on paclitaxel activity under in vitro conditions are in part due to the different pharmacodynamics of the immediate and delayed drug effects. Furthermore, differences in the delayed effects for treatments of < 24 h and the minimal differences for treatments of > or = 24 h indicate that th     

Strelkovimermis arkansensis n. sp. and Hydromermis welchi n. sp. from chironomid imagos

OBJECTIVES: We analyzed the possible relation between the presence of a hospital admission delay (> or =24 h), undue physical effort or recurrence of anginal pain, alone or in combination, with the development of free wall rupture (FWR), septal rupture (SR) or papillary muscle rupture (PMR) in patients with an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). BACKGROUND: Physical activity as a trigger of FWR in AMI remains controversial, and its contribution to SR or PMR remains unknown. Moreover, the role of ischemia or reinfarction as an additional cause of rupture has not been explored. METHODS: The incidence of hospital admission delay > or =24 h with maintenance of some ambulatory activity and the incidence of postinfarction angina were analyzed in consecutive patients with a first AMI with (n = 225) or without rupture (n = 1,012 [control group]) over different time periods. RESULTS: An admission delay > or =24 h occurred in 27 (27.6%) of 98 patients with FWR, 47 (47.0%) of 100 with SR and 14 (51.9%) of 27 with PMR but in only 81 (8%) of 1,012 control patients (p < 0.0001). Information on undue in-hospital effort preceding rupture was available for 111 patients and was present in 17 (32.7%) of 52 with FWR, 9 (18.4%) of 49 with SR and 3 (30%) of 10 with PMR versus only 76 (7.5%) of 1,012 control patients (p < 0.001). Information on postinfarction anginal pain was available for 114 patients with rupture and occurred in 30 (56.6%) of 53 with FWR, 30 (60%) of 50 with SR and 4 (36.4%) of 11 with PMR versus 120 (11.9%) of 1,012 control patients (p < 0.0001). Mean age and incidence of male gender, hypertension, absence of heart failure, single-vessel disease or occlusion of the infarct-related artery were comparable among the groups with FWR, SR or PMR. CONCLUSIONS: Delayed hospital admission or undue in-hospital physical activity appears to increase the risk of rupture in patients prone to this complication (i.e., a first transmural AMI, absence of overt heart failure and advanced age); recurrence of ischemia/infarction emerges as a potential additional trigger in a proportion of these patients.     

Clinical and laboratory study of cefodizime (Modivid) in prophylaxis and treatment of surgical patients

The results of the clinical and laboratory study of the efficacy of the prophylactic and therapeutic use of cefodizime (modivid) in patients with chronic calculous cholecystitis and burns are presented. Expediency of the preoperative prophylactic use of the drug and its significance in the treatment of infectious complications of the burn disease were verified. The immunological investigation gave evidence of an increase of the phagocytosis functional activity when cefodizime (modivid) was used prophylactically in cholecystectomy.     

Apoptotic cell clearance in systemic lupus erythematosus. II. Role of beta2-glycoprotein I

European isolates of parvovirus B19 were analyzed by restriction enzyme analysis of PCR products of the VP1/2 coding region and sequencing of the same amplified region, five cloned fragments from each PCR product. Two main groupings were found based on three perfectly linked point deviations. On the assumption that identical point deviations causing the various restriction patterns regardless of time and origin of virus isolation were unlikely to emerge independently in different evolutionary lineages, traits of evolutionary lineages were identified, suggesting a clonal population structure of global circulating B19 strains. However, combinations of markers from different evolutionary lineages were also found, particularly in a strain derived from an individual chronically infected with B19 for more than 7 years. As chronically infected individuals might be subject to superinfections due to contacts or possibly due to blood transfusions or the administration of gamma-globulin, it is suggested that coexistence of, and recombination between variants of B19 of different phylogenetic origin incidentally occur in such individuals.     

Two mechanisms of quantized calcium release in skeletal muscle

Skeletal muscle uses voltage sensors in the transverse tubular membrane that are linked by protein-protein interactions to intracellular ryanodine receptors, which gate the release of calcium from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Here we show, by using voltage-clamped single fibres and confocal imaging, that stochastic calcium-release events, visualized as Ca2+ sparks, occur in skeletal muscle and originate at the triad. Unitary triadic Ca(2+)-release events are initiated by the voltage sensor in a steeply voltage-dependent manner, or occur spontaneously by a mechanism independent of the voltage sensor. Large-amplitude events also occur during depolarization and consist of two or more unitary events. We propose a 'dual-control' model for discrete Ca2+ release events from the sacroplasmic reticulum that unifies diverse observations about Ca(2+)-signalling in frog skeletal muscle, and that may be applicable to other excitable cells.