Acute monoarthritis: a practical approach to assessment and treatment

A basic approach to the patient presenting with acute monoarthritis includes a careful history, a physical examination and a selected battery of laboratory tests and radiographs. Because of the possibility of septic joint, rapid assessment and treatment are required. The most common causes of acute monoarthritis are trauma, crystals (gout and pseudogout) and infection. The most important cause of acute monoarthritis is infection, which must be excluded through the use of diagnostic joint aspiration and culture of synovial fluid.     

The primary structure of caprine PP3: amino acid sequence, phosphorylation, and glycosylation of component PP3 from the proteose-peptone fraction of caprine milk

Proteose-peptone component 3 is a phosphorylated glycoprotein that was isolated from the proteose-peptone fraction of caprine milk. By mass spectrometric analysis, amino acid sequencing, and polymerase chain reaction analysis, the primary structure has been determined and has been shown to contain 136 amino acids. Phosphorylations were identified at Ser30 and Ser41. A partial glycosylation was present at Thr16, and a N-linked glycosylation was present at Asn78. Galactosamine was the amino sugar detected at Thr16. Glucosamine and galactosamine were the amino sugars found in the carbohydrate group linked to Asn78. The caprine amino acid sequence exhibits 88% identity with the bovine proteose-peptone component 3 sequence. However, when compared with the bovine sequence, the caprine sequence contains an insertion of a serine residue at position 25.     

Circulating dopamine-beta-hydroxylase (DbetaH) and catecholamines in a paediatric phaeochromocytoma

Nasal airways resistance was measured in ten patients with allergic rhinitis during intranasal application of an extract of grass pollen. Pretreatment with placebo did not inhibit the increase in nasal airways resistance, whereas ICI 74,917 administered from a pressurized aerosol gave almost complete protection. ICI 74,917 was well tolerated and no evidence was obtained of local hyposensitization during the period of the study.     

The tyrosine kinase p60c-src regulates the fast gate of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator chloride channel

The role of the tyrosine kinase p60c-src on the gating of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) chloride channel was investigated with the cell-attached and excised patch clamp technique in conjunction with current noise analysis of recordings containing multiple channels per patch. Spectra of CFTR-generated current noise contained a low-frequency and a high-frequency Lorentzian noise component. In the cell-attached mode, the high-frequency Lorentzian was significantly dependent on the membrane potential, while the low-frequency Lorentzian was unaffected. Excision of forskolin-stimulated patches into ATP-containing solution significantly reduced the amplitude of the voltage-dependent high-frequency Lorentzian. Addition of the tyrosine kinase p60c-src to excised, active, CFTR-containing membrane patches increased mean currents by 54%, increased the corner frequency of the low-frequency Lorentzian, and recovered the high-frequency Lorentzian and its characteristics. Treatment with lambda-phosphatase inactivated src-induced currents and changes in gating. When active patches were excised under conditions in which patch-associated tyrosine phosphatases were blocked with sodium vanadate, the high-frequency gating remained relatively unchanged. The results suggest that CFTR's open probability and its voltage-dependent fast gate are dependent on tyrosine phosphorylation, and that membrane-associated tyrosine phosphatases are responsible for inactivation of the fast gate after patch excision.     

Frontal cortical synaptophysin in Lewy body diseases: relation to Alzheimer''s disease and dementia

Fifteen patients with primary GH resistance (Laron syndrome, LS) were studied before and during 6 months of daily replacement treatment with IGF-I. The main findings were that patients with LS and normal or high serum GH binding protein (GHBP) were less obese than those with a negative GHBP, and that serum leptin levels varied with body mass as in other types of obesity.     

Relationship between preoperative axis of astigmatism and postoperative astigmatic change after superior scleral incision phacoemulsification

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of the preoperative axis of astigmatism on the outcome of corneal astigmatism after sutured 5.2 to 5.7 mm superior incision phacoemulsification. SETTING: Departments of Opthalmology, Odense and Vejle Hospitals, Denmark. METHODS: Seventy-three consecutive patients with preoperative corneal astigmatism of 2.0 diopters (D) or less, axial length between 20.0 and 25.5 mm, and no eye disease except cataract were grouped according to preoperative with-the-rule (WTR) or against-the-rule (ATR) astigmatism. The keratometric cylinder, induced keratometric cylinder (subtraction), and induced cylinder (Jaffe) were measured and calculated 10 to 12 months postoperatively. RESULTS: The postoperative keratometric cylinder and induced keratometric cylinder were significantly higher in the ATR group (P < .00001; mean difference [95% confidence limits]: 0.76 D [0.54; 0.98] and 0.69 D [0.46; 0.92], respectively). There was no significant difference between groups in induced cylinder (Jaffe). CONCLUSION: The estimated differences were significantly in favor of patients with preoperative WTR astigmatism. The findings support using temporal incision in cases with a preoperative ATR axis of astigmatism.     

Biodemographic trajectories of longevity

Old-age survival has increased substantially since 1950. Death rates decelerate with age for insects, worms, and yeast, as well as humans. This evidence of extended postreproductive survival is puzzling. Three biodemographic insights--concerning the correlation of death rates across age, individual differences in survival chances, and induced alterations in age patterns of fertility and mortality--offer clues and suggest research on the failure of complicated systems, on new demographic equations for evolutionary theory, and on fertility-longevity interactions. Nongenetic changes account for increases in human life-spans to date. Explication of these causes and the genetic license for extended survival, as well as discovery of genes and other survival attributes affecting longevity, will lead to even longer lives.     

Infection of human primary renal epithelial cells with HIV-1 from children with HIV-associated nephropathy

Children affected with human immunodefficiency virus (HIV)-associated nephropathy (HIVAN) usually develop significant renal glomerular and tubular epithelial cell injury. The pathogenesis of these changes is not clearly understood. Human renal tubular epithelial cells (RTEc) do not express CD4 surface receptors, and it is not clear whether these cells can be infected by HIV-1. Certain strains of HIV-1, however, have been shown capable of infecting CD4-negative epithelial cell lines. We hypothesized that the inability of laboratory strains of HIV-1 to infect renal epithelial cells may be due to a limited tropism, as opposed to wild-type viruses derived from children with HIVAN, and that viruses derived from these children are capable of infecting RTEc from the same patient. Here, we have demonstrated that HIV-1 isolates from children with HIVAN can productively infect RTEc through a CD4 independent pathway, and that infected mononuclear cells can transfer the virus to human RTEc. Human RTEc sustained low levels of viral replication and HIV-1 inhibited the growth and survival of cultured human RTEc. Thus, HIV-1 may directly induce degenerative changes in RTEc of children with HIVAN. Infected macrophages may play a relevant role in this process by transferring viruses to RTEc.     

Lymphoid/nonlymphoid compartmentalization of donor leukocyte chimerism in rat recipients of heart allografts, with or without adjunct bone marrow

A spectrum of oxidative lesions was observed in a bacteriophage-based model system that is very sensitive to the photodynamic activity of selected dyes. When suspensions of the intact bacteriophage Q beta were exposed to methylene blue plus light (MB + L), inactivating events, or "hits" occurred that were oxygen-dependent and that were associated with the formation of several specific lesions: (1) carbonyl moieties on proteins, (2) 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoGua), and (3) single-strand breaks (ssb) in the RNA genome and (4) RNA-protein crosslinks. Formation of carbonyl groups associated with protein in the Q beta phage preparation correlated positively with photoinactivation of the phage with increasing doses of either of the sensitizers MB or rose bengal. Strand breaks in the Q beta genomic RNA were observable at high MB concentrations but appeared not to be significant at the lower concentrations of MB, as full-length Q beta RNA was observable well beyond the 99% inactivation point in MB dosage. It was shown that the number of 8-oxoGua lesions were unlikely to be sufficient to account for the number of lethal events. Following exposure to MB + L, crosslink formation between Q beta RNA and protein was observed by virtue of the location of RNA at the interface of phenol-aqueous extractions of phage suspensions. A significant increase over background of RNA-protein complexes (including full-length Q beta RNA) was observed at the lowest concentration of MB tested (0.5 microM), which corresponded roughly to an average of 2 lethal hits per phage or approximately 13% survival compared to the zero MB control (100% survival). Due to its close correlation with Q beta inactivation and its expected lethality, RNA-protein crosslink formation may be important as an inactivating lesion in bacteriophage Q beta following MB + L exposure.