"Sometimes I just forget them": capturing experiences of women about free menstrual products in a U.S. based public university campus.

Background: Studies have proven that lack of access to menstruation products negatively affects school attendance, academic performance, and individual health. Implementing "period policies," or programs offering free menstruation products, are becoming popular in schools, businesses, and communities in high-income countries. U.

PTEN deficiency promotes pathological vascular remodeling of human coronary arteries.

Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is an essential regulator of the differentiated vascular smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotype. Our goal was to establish that PTEN loss promotes SMC dedifferentiation and pathological vascular remodeling in human atherosclerotic coronary arteries and nonatherosclerotic coronary arteries exposed to continuous-flow left ventricular assist devices (CF-LVADs). Arteries were categorized as nonatherosclerotic hyperplasia (NAH), atherosclerotic hyperplasia (AH), or complex plaque (CP).

Persistent and Prolonged Parvovirus B19 Viremia in a Pediatric Patient With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Parvovirus B19 is a small single-stranded DNA virus of the Parvoviridae family. Depending on host factors, it may produce a wide array of clinical disease states. Disease severity can range from self-limited to severe, requiring significant supportive care.

Successful treatment of pediatric histiocytic sarcoma using abbreviated high-risk leukemia chemotherapy.

Histiocytic sarcoma (HS) is a malignant tumor composed of proliferating cells of histiocytic origin. True HS is exceedingly rare, particularly in pediatric patients. These tumors are frequently aggressive, and outcome for patients with HS has traditionally been poor.

Wall shear stress measured by phase contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance in children and adolescents with pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease with significant morbidity and mortality. At the macroscopic level, disease progression is observed as a complex interplay between mean pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance, pulmonary vascular stiffness, arterial size, and flow. Wall shear stress (WSS) is known to mediate or be dependent on a number of these factors.

A pilot study of hydroxyurea to prevent chronic organ damage in young children with sickle cell anemia.

Background: Hydroxyurea improves laboratory parameters and prevents acute clinical complications of sickle cell anemia (SCA) in children and adults, but its effects on organ function remain incompletely defined.

Methods: To assess the safety and efficacy of hydroxyurea in young children with SCA and to prospectively assess kidney and brain function, 14 young children (mean age 35 months) received hydroxyurea at a mean maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of 28 mg/kg/day.

Results: After a mean of 25 months, expected laboratory effects included significant increases in hemoglobin, MCV and %HbF along with significant decreases in reticulocytes, absolute neutrophil count, and bilirubin.

Hydroxyurea therapy lowers transcranial Doppler flow velocities in children with sickle cell anemia.

Hydroxyurea has hematologic and clinical efficacy in sickle cell anemia (SCA), but its effects on transcranial Doppler (TCD) flow velocities remain undefined. Fifty-nine children initiating hydroxyurea therapy for clinical severity had pretreatment baseline TCD measurements; 37 with increased flow velocities (> or = 140 cm/s) were then enrolled in an institutional review board (IRB)-approved prospective phase 2 trial with TCD velocities measured at maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and one year later. At hydroxyurea MTD (mean +/- 1 SD = 27.

Genome of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae strain R6.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is among the most significant causes of bacterial disease in humans. Here we report the 2,038,615-bp genomic sequence of the gram-positive bacterium S. pneumoniae R6.

Group III human metabotropic glutamate receptors 4, 7 and 8: molecular cloning, functional expression, and comparison of pharmacological properties in RGT cells.

Cloning and expression in a stable mammalian cell line co-transfected with a glutamate transporter (RGT cells) were used as tools for studying the functions and pharmacological properties of group III metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs). Complementary DNAs (cDNAs) encoding the human mGluR4, human mGluR7, and human mGluR8 were isolated from human cerebellum, fetal brain or retinal cDNA libraries. The human mGluR4, mGluR7 and mGluR8 receptors were 912, 915 and 908 amino acid residues long and share 67-70% amino acid similarity with each other and 42-45% similarity with the members of mGluR subgroups I and II.

DNA sequence sampling of the Streptococcus pneumoniae genome to identify novel targets for antibiotic development.

We initiated a survey of the Streptococcus pneumoniae genome by DNA sequence sampling. More than 9,500 random DNA sequences of approximately 500 bases average length were determined. Partial sequences sufficient to identify approximately 95% of the aminoacyl tRNA synthetase genes and ribosomal protein (rps) genes were found by comparing the database of partial sequences to known sequences from other organisms.

The role of neuropeptide Y in the antiobesity action of the obese gene product.

Recently Zhang et al. cloned a gene that is expressed only in adipose tissue of the mouse. The obese phenotype of the ob/ob mouse is linked to a mutation in the obese gene that results in expression of a truncated inactive protein.

Lossless compression of medical images using two-dimensional multiplicative autoregressive models.

Presents new methods for lossless predictive coding of medical images using two dimensional multiplicative autoregressive models. Both single-resolution and multi-resolution schemes are presented. The performances of the proposed schemes are compared with those of four existing techniques.

Sequence similarity between macrolide-resistance determinants and ATP-binding transport proteins.

The three macrolide-resistance-encoding genes, tlrC from Streptomyces fradiae, srmB from Streptomyces ambofaciens, and carA from Streptomyces thermotolerans, encode proteins that possess significant sequence similarity to ATP-dependent transport proteins. The N-terminal and C-terminal halves of these proteins are very similar to each other and contain highly conserved regions that resemble ATP-binding domains typically present within the superfamily of ATP-dependent transport proteins. These observations suggest that the mechanism by which these genes confer resistance to macrolides is due to export of the antibiotics, a process that is driven by energy derived from ATP hydrolysis.

Molecular cloning and expression of human Ca(2+)-sensitive cytosolic phospholipase A2.

Phospholipases A2 (PLA2s) play a key role in inflammatory processes through production of precursors of eicosanoids and platelet-activating factor. Recently, we described the purification of a novel approximately 100-kDa cytosolic PLA2 (cPLA2) from human monoblast U937 cells that is activated by physiological (intracellular) concentrations of Ca2+ (Kramer, R. M.

Effects of second-codon mutations on expression of the insulin-like growth factor-II-encoding gene in Escherichia coli.

Expression plasmids encoding random sequence mutant proteins of insulin-like growth factor II (IGFII) were constructed by cassette mutagenesis, to improve the efficiency of IGFII synthesis in Escherichia coli. A pool of oligodeoxyribonucleotide linkers containing random trinucleotide sequences were used to introduce second-codon substitutions into the gene encoding Met-Xaa-Trp-IGFII in expression vectors. E.

Method for selection of transposable DNA and characterization of a new insertion sequence, IS493, from Streptomyces lividans.

A method to select for transposable elements from Streptomyces spp. by using insertional inactivation of a repressor gene that functions in Escherichia coli was developed. Plasmid pCZA126, which can replicate in Streptomyces spp.

Nucleotide sequence of barley stripe mosaic virus RNA alpha: RNA alpha encodes a single polypeptide with homology to corresponding proteins from other viruses.

The complete nucleotide sequence of RNA alpha from the Type strain of barley stripe mosaic virus has been determined. The RNA is 3768 nucleotides long and contains a single open reading frame which codes for a polypeptide of 1139 amino acids (mw 129,634). The open reading frame is flanked by a 5'-terminal sequence of 91 nucleotides and a 3'-nontranslated region composed of a short poly(A) tract followed by a 238-nucleotide tRNA-like structure.

Cloning and expression in Escherichia coli of isopenicillin N synthetase genes from Streptomyces lipmanii and Aspergillus nidulans.

beta-Lactam antibiotics such as penicillins and cephalosporins are synthesized by a wide variety of microbes, including procaryotes and eucaryotes. Isopenicillin N synthetase catalyzes a key reaction in the biosynthetic pathway of penicillins and cephalosporins. The genes encoding this protein have previously been cloned from the filamentous fungi Cephalosporium acremonium and Penicillium chrysogenum and characterized.

Cloning and nucleotide sequence of a carbomycin-resistance gene from Streptomyces thermotolerans.

Two plasmids (pOJ158 and pOJ159) containing DNA fragments from the carbomycin(Cb)-producing strain Streptomyces thermotolerans were identified in Streptomyces griseofuscus based on their ability to confer resistance to Cb. The Cb-resistance determinants on pOJ158 and pOJ159 were designated carA and carB, respectively. In S.

Hygromycin B resistance as dominant selectable marker in yeast.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is normally sensitive to the drug hygromycin B; a hygromycin B concentration of 200 µg/ml in agar plates is sufficient to completely inhibit growth. We constructed yeast-E. coli bifunctional plasmids which confer hygromycin B resistance to Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Analysis of a bacterial hygromycin B resistance gene by transcriptional and translational fusions and by DNA sequencing.

We have characterized hygromycin B and apramycin resistance genes from an E. coli plasmid. We have localized the coding and control regions of these genes by deletion of DNA fragments from plasmids containing the genes.