[What is bioinformatics?].

Yet bioinformatics has neither clear definition nor proper Japanese equivalent for this word. Bioinformatics is mainly composed of two fields or disciplines; one is computer and information technology as a tool for analyzing massive data such as genome and proteome, and the other one is research for the integrated biology based on the knowledge of genome. Classical and narrow-sense bioinformatics corresponds to the former.

Characterization of a novel endo-beta-galactosidase specific for releasing the disaccharide GlcNAc alpha 1-->4Gal from glycoconjugates.

In contrast to the beta-linked GlcNAc, the alpha-linked GlcNAc has not been commonly found in glycoconjugates. We have recently revealed the presence of an unusual endo-beta-galactosidase (Endo-beta-Gal(GnGa)) in Clostridium perfringens capable of releasing GlcNAcalpha1-->4Gal from glycans expressed in the gastric mucous cell-type mucin [Ashida, H., Anderson, K.

Decreased expression of Bcl-x protein during hepatocarcinogenesis induced exogenously and endogenously in rats.

Dysregulations of apoptosis have been widely recognized as important events in multi-stage carcinogenesis. Bcl-x, a member of the Bcl-2 family, is known to act as a regulator of apoptosis. The present study was conducted to assess the role of altered Bcl-x protein expression in exogenous and endogenous hepatocarcinogenesis in rats.

[Anesthesia for a patient with alcoholic heart disease and transient complete heart block].

A 70-year-old man who had been drinking a bottle of whisky each day was scheduled for laser resection of a tongue tumor. His electrocardiogram showed sinus bradycardia (heart rate was 35-40 bpm), and transient complete heart block was observed. Echocardiography showed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The heterocyclic amine, 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole induces apoptosis in cocultures of rat parenchymal and nonparenchymal liver cells.

In this study, we investigated the mechanism of apoptosis by 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1) in cocultures of parenchymal and nonparenchymal liver cells, since the liver consists of various cell types and they cooperatively respond to chemicals. It was found that cocultures were more susceptible to cell death by Trp-P-1 than culture of each cell type alone. In cocultures, Trp-P-1 induced DNA fragmentation accompanied by the activation of 18-kDa endonuclease.

Arterial ketone body ratio for the assessment of the severity of illness in pediatric patients following cardiac surgery.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess whether the arterial ketone body ratio (AKBR) can be effectively used to evaluate the severity of illness in children following cardiac surgery.

Materials And Methods: AKBR was measured in 157 consecutive pediatric patients following heart surgery on the odd numbers of postoperative days. The relationship between AKBR and patient outcome was analyzed using the data of 141 patients with cardiopulmonary bypass.

Inefficient visual search for second-order motion.

Visual search rate was used to assess attentional resources required for detection of opposing motions defined either by luminance or by modulations of texture contrast, flicker, or size. Though luminance-based targets were detected quickly, search through second-order motion was slow. Control experiments ruled out stimuli visibility, complexity, eccentricity sensitivity, and attributes of the carrier as possible accounts.

Telepsychiatry: assessment of televideo psychiatric interview reliability with present- and next-generation internet infrastructures.

Objective: We assessed the reliability of remote video psychiatric interviews conducted via the internet using narrow and broad bandwidths.

Method: Televideo psychiatric interviews conducted with 42 in-patients with chronic schizophrenia using two bandwidths (narrow, 128 kilobits/s; broad, 2 megabits/s) were assessed in terms of agreement with face-to-face interviews in a test-retest fashion. As a control, agreement was assessed between face-to-face interviews.

[Perioperative assessment of blood lactate levels in pediatric heart surgery].

Measuring arterial lactate concentration is a prompt, easy and relatively non-invasive way to estimate tissue oxygen metabolism. We evaluated whether perioperative levels of the arterial lactate concentrations can reflect the general severity of a pediatric patient's condition. A consecutive series of 112 patients, aged 5 days to 17 years (median age: 12 months), admitted to our pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) following cardiac surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass were studied.

Application of modified sequential organ failure assessment score in children after cardiac surgery.

Objective: To evaluate the usefulness of the modified sequential organ failure assessment (m/SOFA) score for assessing morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients after cardiac surgery.

Design: Analysis of a prospectively collected database.

Setting: Pediatric intensive care unit of a university-affiliated hospital.

Analysis of postoperative pancreatitis in DSRS with SPD.

Background/aims: Distal splenorenal shunt with splenopancreatic disconnection (DSRS + SPD) evolved to prevent the development of a pancreatic siphon, to improve maintenance as well as quality of portal perfusion and to achieve better long-term survival. We report several cases of postoperative pancreatitis in DSRS + SPD. Recently, oxygen-derived free radicals have been reported to play an important role in pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis.

3-Amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1) induces caspase-dependent apoptosis in mononuclear cells.

3-Amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1), one of the tryptophan pyrolysates, is a dietary carcinogen and is formed in cooked meat and fish in our daily diet. Trp-P-1 will affect the cells in the blood circulation system before it causes carcinogenicity in target organs such as the liver. In this study, the cytotoxicity of Trp-P-1 was investigated in mononuclear cells (MNCs) from blood.

A novel endo-beta-galactosidase from Clostridium perfringens that liberates the disaccharide GlcNAcalpha 1-->Gal from glycans specifically expressed in the gastric gland mucous cell-type mucin.

We found that commercially available sialidases prepared from Clostridium perfringens ATCC10543 were contaminated with an endoglycosidase capable of releasing the disaccharide GlcNAcalpha1-->4Gal from glycans expressed in the gastric gland mucous cell-type mucin. We have isolated this enzyme in electrophoretically homogeneous form from the culture supernatant of this organism by ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by affinity chromatography using a Sephacryl S-200 HR column. The enzyme was specifically retained by and eluted from the column with methyl-alpha-Glc.

Evidence for dissociation between the perceptual and visuomotor systems in humans.

When a visual stimulus is continuously moved behind a small stationary window, the window appears displaced in the direction of motion of the stimulus. In this study we showed that the magnitude of this illusion is dependent on (i) whether a perceptual or visuomotor task is used for judging the location of the window (ii) the directional signature of the stimulus, and (iii) whether or not there is a significant delay between the end of the visual presentation and the initiation of the localization measure. Our stimulus was a drifting sinusoidal grating windowed in space by a stationary, two-dimensional, Gaussian envelope (sigma=1 cycle of sinusoid).

Molecular cloning of cDNA encoding alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase from Acremonium sp. and its expression in yeast.

Alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (alpha-GalNAc-ase; EC 3.2.1.

Somatosensory evoked potential recovery in myotonic dystrophy.

Objective: To evaluate recovery functions of the sensory cortex using somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) elicited by paired stimuli of the median nerve in patients with myotonic dystrophy (MD).

Subjects/methods: Twelve MD patients were enrolled in the present investigation. Five patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSH) and 12 healthy volunteers were studied as control groups.

DNA-damaging carcinogen 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1) induces apoptosis via caspase-9 in primary cultured rat hepatocytes.

The mechanism of cytotoxicity induced by the DNA-damaging carcinogen 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b] indole (Trp-P-1) was investigated in primary cultured rat hepatocytes. Cytotoxicity was caused by intact Trp-P-1 and not by metabolically activated derivatives prepared using a recombinant yeast strain AH22/pAMR2 expressing rat cytochrome P450 1A1, and not by metabolically activated derivatives. We also found internucleosomal DNA fragmentation 6 h after treatment with 30 microM Trp-P-1, indicating that the cytotoxicity was due to the induction of apoptosis.

Enzymatic syntheses of T antigen-containing glycolipid mimicry using the transglycosylation activity of endo-alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase.

Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen (T antigen) disaccharide, beta-D-galactose-(1-->3)-alpha-N-acetyl-D-galactosamine (beta-D-Gal-(1-->3)-alpha-D-GalNAc), containing glycolipid mimicry was synthesized using the transglycosylation activity of endo-alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase from Bacillus sp. This enzyme could transfer the disaccharide from a p-nitrophenyl substrate to water-soluble 1-alkanols and other alcohols at a transfer ratio of 70% or more. Although the transfer ratios were lower for water-insoluble than water-soluble alcohols, they were shown to increase by adding sodium cholate to the reaction mixtures.

[Clinical evaluation of roxatidine acetate hydrochlorides as a preanesthetic medication].

Roxatidine acetate hydrochloride capsule is slowly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, and its acid suppressive effect on the stomach is long-lasting compared with other H2-blockers. The reduction of gastric juice in perioperative period is considered advantageous for patients not only because it decreases the risk for aspiration pneumonia but also because it reduces the risk of bronchial spasm induced by gastroesophageal reflux of acidic gastric content. The effects of single oral administration of roxatidine acetate hydrochloride 150 mg at night before the operation on the volume and pH of gastric juice were investigated during anesthesia using two types of anesthetic agents (isoflurane and propofol) in 93 patients of three age groups (group Y: age 20-40, group M: age 41-64, group O: age 65 <).

A motion aftereffect seen more strongly by the non-adapted eye: evidence of multistage adaptation in visual motion processing.

We found that the motion aftereffect measured using a directionally ambiguous counterphase grating (flicker MAE) can be stronger when it is measured for the non-adapted eye than when measured for the adapted eye. The monocularly viewed adaptation stimulus was the movement of a missing-fundamental grating (2f+3f motion), for which the movement of the higher-order spatial structure was dominantly perceived, while the first-order structure was physically moving in the opposite direction. For observers who perceived the MAE consistently in the direction opposite to the movement of the higher-order structures, the MAE was larger for the non-adapted eye than for the adapted eye.

Suppressive effects of flavonoids on dioxin toxicity.

Dioxin type chemicals such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) cause a variety of toxicity. Most of the toxicity of TCDD has been attributed to a mechanism by which TCDD is bound to aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) and transforms the receptor. Thus, suppression of the AhR transformation by food factors can suppress the dioxin toxicity.

Dietary antioxidants fail in protection against oxidative genetic damage in in vitro evaluation.

Carcinogenesis is believed to be induced through the oxidative damage of DNA, and antioxidants are expected to suppress it. So, the polyphenolic antioxidants in daily foods were investigated to see whether they protect against genetic damage by active oxygen. In the evaluation, we used a bioassay and a chemical determination, a Salmonella mutagenicity test for mutation by a N-hydroxyl radical from one of the dietary carcinogens 3-amino-1-methyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole and the formation of 8-hydroxyl (8-OHdG) from 2'-deoxyguanosine (2'-dG) in a Fenton OH-radical generating system.

Independent aftereffects of attention and motion.

In the motion aftereffect (MAE), a stationary pattern appears to move in the opposite direction to previously viewed motion. Here we report an MAE that is observed for a putatively high level of visual analysis-attentive tracking. These high-level MAEs, visible on dynamic (but not static) tests, suggest that attentive tracking does not simply enhance low-level motion signals but, rather, acts at a subsequent stage.

Trypsin inhibitory activity of bovine fetuin de-O-glycosylated by endo-alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase.

The effects of bovine fetuin O-glycans on its trypsin inhibitory activity were examined. De-sialylated (asialo-) and de-O-glycosylated fetuin were prepared from native fetuin using Arthrobacter neuraminidase and the mixture of it and Bacillus endo-alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase, respectively. De-sialylation and de-O-glycosylation from fetuin were confirmed with SDS-PAGE followed by western blotting using anti-human Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen (T antigen) antibody which recognizes O-linked galactosyl beta1,3 N-acetylgalactosamine (Gal beta1-->3GalNAc).