The cranial MRI in severe cerebral palsy: a comparative study with clinical data

The magnetic resonance examination was performed in 38 patients with severe cerebral palsy (CP; 15 males and 23 females) who had both motor delay (unable to move anywhere) and mental retardation (I. Q or D. Q below 30). Neuroimaging findings were compared with the CP type, etiology, and grade of understanding of language. Cranial magnetic resonance imagings (MRI) in CP were divided into five types. Type 1 : nine predominantly showed cyst-liked ventricles and periventricular hyperintensity on T2-weighted imaging (PVH) and only scarred basal ganglia and thalamus were visible. All suffered from neonatal asphyxia and the clinical type was rigospastic tetraplegia (RST). Type 2: eleven predominantly showed PVH and hyperintensity on T2-weighted (HT2) in basal ganglia and thalamus. All suffered from neonatal asphyxia and the clinical type was RST or rigospastic diplegia. Type 3: five showed PVH and three had cortical atrophy. All suffered from neonatal asphyxia and the clinical type was spastic diplegia. Type 4: four predominantly showed HT 2 in putamen and thalamus. Three had cortical atrophy. All suffered from neonatal asphyxia. The clinical type was athetotic CP (ATH). Type 5: nine predominantly showed HT 2 in globus pallidus. Four had cortical atrophy and two had hippocampal atrophy. All suffered from neonatal jaundice and the clinical type was ATH. All patients who suffered from neonatal asphyxia and spastic CP had MRI in PVH. All patients who suffered from neonatal asphyxia and ATH showed HT 2 in putamen and thalamus. Almost patients who suffered neonatal jaundice and ATH showed HT 2 in globus pallidus. With athetotic CP, cases with atrophy of the cerebral cortex or/and hippocampus were lower grade of understanding of language than no atrophy of both. The result of studies of MRI are in agreement with neuropathological findings.     

Physicochemical properties of monosodium glutamate-compounded tapioca starch exceeds those of simple heat-moisture treated starch

Monosodium glutamate (GluNa)-compounded starch was prepared by heat-moisture treating a mixture of tapioca starch and GluNa. GluNa-compounded starch exhibited a higher gelatinization temperature and reduced swelling and solubility, essentially lower hardness of the granule center, and paste viscosity than those of the heat-moisture treated tapioca starch and the untreated starch. However, its appearance, unit chain length distribution, and α-amylase digestibility were similar to those of the heat-moisture treated tapioca. It is thus concluded that GluNa compounding is useful for providing a unique type of starch that possesses a less swollen and viscous texture than that produced with simple heat-moisture treatment.     

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with numerous axonal spheroids in the corticospinal tract and massive degeneration of the cortex

The use of biomarkers is a promising approach to the study of human cancer risk. Bronchial metaplasia in sputum cytology may be a marker for potential premalignancy that can be used for population studies. We recently performed a randomized, controlled trial in smokers on the effect of 14 weeks beta-carotene (20mg/day) on markers for DNA damage. We now have evaluated the application of sputum cytology in this study and performed a preliminary evaluation of the effect of beta-carotene. Of the 150 potential participants in this trial 75 were not eligible because they failed to produce sputum samples (n = 29), or because samples were unsatisfactory (n = 46). The eligible group was older (41 vs 37 years) and had smoked longer (23 vs 19 years), but had similar cigarette consumption (mean 21/day) and plasma cotinine levels. Metaplasia was graded in seven categories. Only 11 subjects (15%) showed minor or mild atypia on study entry. Agreement within and between observers was 95% within the same or an adjacent category. We observed no significant correlation between before and after treatment final metaplasia scores in either the beta-carotene (Spearman R = 0.18, P = 0.3) or placebo group (Spearman R = 0.17, P = 0.3). Initial metaplasia scores were somewhat higher in the beta-carotene group (n = 33) than in the placebo group (n = 42) (P = 0.06). Final metaplasia scores were similar in both groups (P = 0.69), and there was no decrease in metaplasia scores in the beta-carotene group (P = 0.75). This study indicates that sputum cytology may not yet be a readily applicable marker in studies of a healthy asymptomatic population, because many smokers do not spontaneously produce sputum, more severe lesions are rare, and variation over time in the minor lesions in large. Therefore, the preliminary evidence that beta-carotene has no influence should be interpreted with care.     

Astrocytic pathology in progressive supranuclear palsy: significance for neuropathological diagnosis

It has been shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is closely associated with mixed type cryoglobulinaemia. It is also known that HCV infection is rampant among chronic haemodialysis patients. We studied 531 renal failure patients on maintenance dialysis including 170 with positive HCV antibodies for cryoglobulinaemia, and its incidence was compared with controls which consisted of 242 chronic hepatitis C patients without renal failure and 183 healthy adults. Cryoglobulinaemia was present in 30.6% of dialysis patients with HCV infection, 10.8% of dialysis patients without HCV infection, 29.8% of patients with chronic hepatitis C without renal failure, and 0% of healthy adults. Among the 30 new renal failure patients who were started on dialysis within 6 months, four were positive for HCV antibodies, and one of them had cryoglobulinaemia; of the 26 HCV-negative patients, four (15%) were cryoglobulinaemic. The cryocrit values among dialysis patients were much lower than those of the control cases and other reports on non-dialysis cases. Patients with cryoglobulinaemia were generally younger compared with patients negative for this condition. There was no correlation between cryoglobulinaemia and past blood transfusion, underlying disease or length of dialysis. Cryoglobulinaemic patients seem to develop renal failure at relatively young ages and a considerable proportion of cryoglobulinaemic dialysis patients may have already had cryoglobulinaemia at the time of the start of haemodialysis. There was no indication that the presence of cryoglobulin in serum adversely affects the liver disease nor increases serum virus load in HCV-infected dialysis patients. Thus, it was concluded that although HCV infection has a certain role in the development of cryoglobulinaemia in dialysis patients, they develop cryoglobulinaemia less frequently and produce cryoglobulin to a lesser degree in the presence of HCV infection as compared with non-dialysis patients.     

Thermal Behavior of Potato Starch and Water-Vaporization Behavior of Its Paste Controlled with Amino Acid and Peptide-Rich Food Materials

ABSTRACT: The particular effect of 4 kinds of amino acid and peptide-rich food material (APRM) containing different charged amino acid contents on the gelatinization and retrogradation behavior of potato starch granules and on the water-vaporization behavior was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry, rapid viscoanalysis, x-ray diffractometry, thermal gravimetry-differential thermal analysis, and pulsed NMR. APRM with a high-charged amino acid content produced unique gelatinization and retrogradation behavior in terms of an elevated gelatinization temperature, reduced viscosity, higher setback, and lower retrograded starch melting enthalpy. The recovered x-ray diffraction intensity decreased with increasing charged amino acid content. APRM with high-charged amino acid content could provide an improved paste having easy vaporization of external water in the swollen starch granules due to the reduced swelling.     

Involvement of Lipocalin‐like CghA in Decalin‐Forming Stereoselective Intramolecular [4+2] Cycloaddition

Understanding enzymatic Diels–Alder (DA) reactions that can form complex natural product scaffolds is of considerable interest. Sch 210972 1 , a potential anti‐HIV fungal natural product, contains a decalin core that is proposed to form through a DA reaction. We identified the gene cluster responsible for the biosynthesis of 1 and heterologously reconstituted the biosynthetic pathway in Aspergillus nidulans to characterize the enzymes involved. Most notably, deletion of cghA resulted in a loss of stereoselective decalin core formation, yielding both an endo ( 1 ) and a diastereomeric exo adduct of the proposed DA reaction. Complementation with cghA restored the sole formation of 1 . Density functional theory computation of the proposed DA reaction provided a plausible explanation of the observed pattern of product formation. Based on our study, we propose that lipocalin‐like CghA is responsible for the stereoselective intramolecular [4+2] cycloaddition that forms the decalin core of 1 .     

Symmetry-resolved C and O K-shell photoabsorption spectra of free CO molecules

cDNA encoding for carnitine acetyltransferase (CAT) of yeast S. cerevisiae was isolated by screening a yeast cDNA lambda gt11 library with antibody. The whole coding sequence was obtained from the cDNA and from a YEP 13 DNA clone identified using the cDNA as probe. The coding sequence consists of 670 residues, which amounts to a molecular mass of 77,300 kDa. This cDNA was used successfully to disrupt the gene for the mitochondrial isoenzyme of CAT, which was shown by measuring the enzyme activity and by immunoblot. The acetylcarnitine content of these cells decreased significantly. A search in the PIR protein data base revealed that besides the known carnitine acyltransferases, choline acyltransferases are highly homologous to yeast CAT. The mitochondrial CAT-deficient (CAT-) cells were able to grow on different fermentable and nonfermentable carbon sources, even on acetate at the same rate as the parental strain. In contrast to these, 13C NMR studies revealed significant differences between parental and CAT- cells. In CAT-cells [3-13C]pyruvate was converted mainly to lactate and acetate, whereas in the parental cells alanine and tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates were found as the main products of pyruvate metabolism beside acetate. These results suggest diminished flux through the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex in the absence of mitochondrial CAT in yeast cells.