Successful treatment of phrenic nerve injury with diaphragmatic plication 5 years after onset: A case report.

Diaphragmatic paralysis due to phrenic nerve injury is an occasional complication of cardiothoracic surgery. Although diaphragmatic plication is widely used to treat patients with severe irreversible symptoms, its surgical indication and timing remain controversial. Here, we present a rare case of diaphragmatic paralysis in a 65-year-old woman who underwent cardiac surgery and whose respiratory symptoms worsened despite >5 years of conservative management.

Kunkecin A, a New Nisin Variant Bacteriocin Produced by the Fructophilic Lactic Acid Bacterium, FF30-6 Isolated From Honey Bees.

FF30-6 isolated from healthy honey bees synthesizes the bacteriocin, which exhibits antimicrobial activity against . The bacteriocin, kunkecin A, was purified through three-step chromatography, and mass spectrometry revealed that its relative molecular mass was 4218.3.

NF-κB-inducing kinase contributes to normal development of cortical thymic epithelial cells: its possible role in shaping a proper T-cell repertoire.

Nuclear factor (NF)-κB-inducing kinase (NIK) is known to be a critical regulator of multiple aspects of the immune response. Although the role of NIK in the development of medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) has been well documented, the impact of NIK on the differentiation and function of cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTECs) remains ambiguous. To investigate the possible involvement of NIK in cTEC differentiation, we have compared the gene expression and function of cTECs from a NIK-mutant mouse, alymphoplasia (aly/aly) with those of cTECs from wild-type (WT) mice.

AtPep3 is a hormone-like peptide that plays a role in the salinity stress tolerance of plants.

Peptides encoded by small coding genes play an important role in plant development, acting in a similar manner as phytohormones. Few hormone-like peptides, however, have been shown to play a role in abiotic stress tolerance. In the current study, 17 genes coding for small peptides were found to be up-regulated in response to salinity stress.

Role of T-bet, the master regulator of Th1 cells, in the cytotoxicity of murine CD4 T cells.

Although CD4 T cells are generally regarded as helper T cells, some activated CD4 T cells have cytotoxic properties. Given that CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) often secrete IFN-γ, CTL activity among CD4 T cells may be attributable to Th1 cells, where a T-box family molecule, T-bet serves as the "master regulator". However, although the essential contribution of T-bet to expression of IFN-γ has been well-documented, it remains unclear whether T-bet is involved in CD4 T cell-mediated cytotoxicity.

Small open reading frames associated with morphogenesis are hidden in plant genomes.

It is likely that many small ORFs (sORFs; 30-100 amino acids) are missed when genomes are annotated. To overcome this limitation, we identified ∼8,000 sORFs with high coding potential in intergenic regions of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome. However, the question remains as to whether these coding sORFs play functional roles.