Endoscopic electromyographic study on upper gastrointestinal tract (author's transl)

Recently we made the electromyographic study on human gastrointestinal tract using the endoscopic method is useful for the clinical studies of the patho-physiological aspects on human gastrointestinal tract. The silver bipolar needle electrode which was 0.2 mm in diameter, 10 mm in length and 1.0 mm in interpolar distance and the electroencephalography recorder provided with pen-writer were used for this research. The endoscopy was done to the volunteer anesthetized his pharynx with xylocaine spray. 20 cases of gastro-electromyograms, 35 cases of duodeno-electromyograms and 5 cases of the electromyograms of duodenal papilla were recorded. On these endoscopic electromygorams, the typical rhythms and patterns of electrical activities were disturbed by various kinds of factors; that is, on the endoscopic manipulation, the sticking of needle electrode into the shallow layer of gastrointestinal wall and automatical pouring of water into canal through the endoscope. On volunteers' condition, his deep breathing, electrocardiogram and vasotonic condition were important factors. Typical duodeno-electromyograms showed the grouped spikes synchronizing with the duodenal peristalsis observed endoscopically. The electromyograms of the duodenal papilla showed the similar patterns and rhythms to those of duodeno-electromyograms on active phase. In the clinical study on the correlation and propagation between gastric and duodenal motility, the rhythms of electrical activities on duodeno-electromyograms were not similar to the rhythms of gastric peristalsis at the prepyloric region. The propagation of gastric movement to duodenal bulb were not able to be clarified. We assumed that the gastric and duodenal motility occurred each other on the different rhythms.     

Transverse Acoustic Response Measured by AC-cut Quartz Transducer in Superfluid Helium-3

No Heading The transverse acoustic response in the B phase of superfluid ³He has been measured using an AC-cut quartz transducer at a pressure of 17.0 bar. The measurements were performed by a CW bridge method at a frequency of 9.3 MHz utilizing a quadrature hybrid and a high-frequency lock-in amplifier. By sweeping frequency around the resonance frequency of the transducer, in-phase and quadrature responses of the resonance were obtained from the output of the lock-in amplifier. We successfully separated the quality factor and the resonance frequency. Quality factor of the transducer had a small dip just below T_c and increased as _n by cooling, while its resonance frequency decreased sharply at T_c and gradually recovered to the normal state value in the low temperature limit.PACS numbers: 67.57.Jj, 43.58.+z.     

Self-organized inorganic nanoparticle arrays on protein lattices

Cavities formed by proteins have been utilized as the reaction chamber for the fabrication of a range of inorganic nanoparticles, providing control of the size of particles by limiting growth and preventing agglomeration. In crystal form, proteins construct molecular arrays that can provide regularly arranged sites for nanoparticles. Here we report the fabrication of nanometric iron and indium particles using ferritin, an iron-storage protein. The indium nanoparticles thus formed have uniform spherical shape with diameter of 6.6 +/- 0.5 nm, while the iron nanoparticles are somewhat irregular in shape (5.8 +/- 1.0 nm). Regular two-dimensional arrays of these nanoparticles are successfully produced by crystallizing ferritin molecules on a water-air interface using the denatured protein film method. The lattice constant of these nanoparticle arrays is 13 nm with hexagonal packing, and arrays of more than 1 microm in area can be obtained by transfer onto silicon wafer.     

100 MHz-bandwidth response of a fiber phase modulator with thinpiezoelectric jacket

100 MHz-bandwidth response of an all-fiber phase modulator composed of a single-mode optical fiber jacketed with a 10 μm-thick vinylidene fluoride/trifluoroethylene copolymer, radially poled is presented. Multiple peaks of optical phase shifts induced are observed over the frequency range of 10-100 MHz and ascribed to radial resonances of a fiber-jacket composite. The theoretical analysis of phase shifts is performed based on vibration theory of elasticity taking the exact geometry and composition of the cylindrical multilayer structure into account. The analysis also shows that the phase modulation is strongly dependent on jacket thickness and the maximum induced phase shift will be obtained in the 100 MHz region when the jacket is chosen to be thin as 0.7 μm     

Granulocyte superoxide anion and elastase release during cardiopulmonary bypass

Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is known to induce several pathogenic responses in cardiovascular surgery. To explore leukocyte activation during PCB, we investigated superoxide anion (O2-) production by granulocytes in 6 patients undergoing aortocoronary bypass surgery. O2- production was determined with chemiluminescence amplified by a cypridina luciferin analogue. Granulocytes collected from the blood in the arterial site of the CPB circuit were stimulated by phorbol myristate acetate, n-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine, and opsonized zymosan. All the stimulators failed to disclose a significant difference between the magnitude of chemiluminescence during and after CPB. However, significant complement activation was detected, and the plasma level of granulocyte elastase increased gradually during and after CPB. This discrepancy between the unchanged O2- production by stimulated granulocytes and the increase in inflammatory mediators including granulocyte elastase may be due to sequestration of activated granulocytes in extravascular tissues. Namely, it was highly likely that activated granulocytes responsible for the increased plasma elastase level were sequestered and remained outside the blood circulation.     

Manifestation of the Kanagawa phenomenon, the virulence-associated phenotype, of Vibrio parahaemolyticus depends on a particular single base change in the promoter of the thermostable direct haemolysin gene

Thermostable direct haemolysin of Vibrio parahaemolyticus has been shown to be a major virulence factor. The Kanagawa phenomenon (KP), haemolysis induced by this haemolysin on a special blood agar medium, is strongly associated with clinical strains. We have been studying the expressions of various tdh genes encoding this haemolysin to elucidate the significance of the tdh genes possessed by KP-negative strains isolated from patients. We examined the importance of the promoter sequence variation for expression level of the tdh gene in this study. Only the tdh2 gene, one of the two tdh genes (tdh1 and tdh2) present in a KP-positive strain, was previously shown to be responsible for the haemolytic activity of the KP-positive strain. The tdh1- and tdh2-lacZ fusions were used to determine and analyse the promoter sequence by primer extension and site-directed mutagenesis methods. Two bases (positions -24 and -34) within the determined tdh2 promoter sequence were shown to be mostly responsible for the difference in the promoter strength between the tdh2 and tdh1 genes both in Escherichia coli and in V. parahaemolyticus backgrounds. Representative tdh promoters of KP-negative strains are close to the tdh2 promoter; they differ at position -34 but have the same base at position -24 as the tdh2 promoter. We demonstrated that base substitution of the tdh promoters of KP-negative strains only at position -34 is sufficient to increase the expression of these genes to the KP-positive level. Therefore, the tdh genes of KP-negative strains are considered to be potentially important because they can generate a KP-positive subclone by a point mutation in their promoters.     

Relationships between chronic oral infectious diseases and systemic diseases

Contact-inhibited catalase-deficient fibroblast cell strain has been established from the homozygous hypocatalasemic C3H/Csb mutant mouse. This cell strain has low level of catalase enzyme activity and has normal level of enzyme activities of both glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase. Catalase-deficient C3H/Csb mutant cell strain is markedly more sensitive to the toxicity of hydrogen peroxide compared to wild-type C3H/Csa cell strain. In addition, mutant cell strain is sensitive to X-rays and near-UV compared to wild-type cell strain, but shows the same sensitivities to topoisomerase II inhibitors, adriamycin and 4'-(9-acridinylamino) methanesulfon-m-anisidide (m-AMSA), and the DNA cross-linking agents, cisdiamminedichloroplatinum (II) (cis-Pt) and trans-diamminedichloroplatinum (II) (trans-Pt). These cell strains will be of use in the study of the roles which catalase plays in the intracellular prevention of DNA damage induced by oxidative stress.