Unravelling a mystery of hypokalemic hypertension- a rare case report of a reninoma.

Background: Reninoma is a rare cause of secondary hypertension, which can be cured with surgery if identified early before any target organ damage occurs. It leads to hypokalaemia and hypertension and typically responds well to treatment with renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockers. However, confirmation of the diagnosis and the localisation of this rare culprit lesion can be challenging.

An approach to assess real workload of medical linear accelerators in Sri Lanka.

Due to the introduction of new radiotherapy treatment techniques and the increased number of cancer patients, there is a higher possibility of redundant workload on radiotherapy machines. Therefore, this study aims to assess the workload in three linear accelerator units. An 8-week survey was conducted in the selected three units, during which all treatment parameters were accumulated.

Mechanistic Insights Into an Ancient Adenovirus Precursor Protein VII Show Multiple Nuclear Import Receptor Pathways.

Adenoviral pVII proteins are multifunctional, highly basic, histone-like proteins that can bind to and transport the viral genome into the host cell nucleus. Despite the identification of several nuclear localization signals (NLSs) in the pVII protein of human adenovirus (HAdV)2, the mechanistic details of nuclear transport are largely unknown. Here we provide a full characterization of the nuclear import of precursor (Pre-) pVII protein from an ancient siadenovirus, frog siadenovirus 1 (FrAdV1), using a combination of structural, functional, and biochemical approaches.

Identifying vagal bronchopulmonary afferents mediating cough response to inhaled sulfur dioxide in mice.

Sulfur dioxide (SO), a common environmental and industrial air pollutant, possesses a potent effect in eliciting cough reflex, but the primary type of airway sensory receptors involved in its tussive action has not been clearly identified. This study was carried out to determine the relative roles of three major types of vagal bronchopulmonary afferents [slowly adapting receptors (SARs), rapidly adapting receptors (RARs), and C-fibers] in regulating the cough response to inhaled SO. Our results showed that inhalation of SO (300 or 600 ppm for 8 min) evoked an abrupt and intense stimulatory effect on bronchopulmonary C-fibers, which continued for the entire duration of inhalation challenge and returned toward the baseline in 1-2 min after resuming room air-breathing in anesthetized and mechanically ventilated mice.

An optimised protocol for the expression and purification of adenovirus core protein VII.

Adenovirus protein VII (pVII) is a highly basic core protein, bearing resemblance to mammalian histones. Despite its diverse functions, a comprehensive understanding of its structural intricacies and the mechanisms underlying its functions remain elusive, primarily due to the complexity of producing a good amount of soluble pVII. This study aimed to optimise the expression and purification of recombinant pVII from four different adenoviruses with a simple vector construct.