A case for minimally invasive coronary surgery as primary treatment for left anterior descending coronary artery disease.

Objective: The introduction of minimally invasive coronary bypass surgery has allowed the application of multiple approaches to coronary artery disease.

Methods: Technologic developments have resolved patency and myocardial ischemic issues and increased surgical experience and training have combined to make more coronary bypass surgeons facile in minimally invasive surgical techniques.

Results: These advances, along with the decreased invasiveness, shortened recovery and lower cost, suggest the application of these techniques to the primary treatment of disease of the anterior descending artery.

Problems in predicting cell damage from bubble bursting.

The question is addressed as to whether observed parameter(s) characterizing single bubble burst (bubble jet height and speed) can be used to predict cell damage in sparged animal cell cultures. Bubble burst profiles are examined in the presence of realistic concentrations of fetal calf serum (FCS) or Pluronic F-68 using a high-speed video technique. The damage to TBC3 hybridoma cells from bubble sparging, characterized as a first-order decline, is reduced by even very small concentrations of both FCS and Pluronic F-68, but neither single bubble burst parameters nor surface properties give usable correlations with death rate constants.

Bcl-2 over-expression reduces growth rate and prolongs G1 phase in continuous chemostat cultures of hybridoma cells.

Recent studies have suggested that Bcl-2 can affect cell cycle re-entry by inhibiting the transition from G0/G1 to S phase. In this study, we have taken a novel route to the study of the relationship between Bcl-2 expression and cell cycle progression. Continuous cultures of pEF (control) and Bcl-2 transfected murine hybridoma cells were operated at a range of dilution rates from 0.

A comparison of intensive cell culture bioreactors operating with hybridomas modified for inhibited apoptotic response.

It is demonstrated, using two different perfusion reaction systems, that hybridoma modified by inhibiting their apoptotic response can give improved process performance in terms of cell number and viability in intensive cell culture. Two cell perfusion systems, one using a spin filter and the other an ultrasonic filter, are compared using two cell lines. One cell line is transfected with the bcl-2 gene (TB/C3 bcl-2) which encodes the 'anti-apoptotic' human bcl-2 protein and the other cell line (TB/C3 pEF) with a negative transfection vector.

A rapid method for evaluation of cell number and viability by flow cytometry.

A simple, rapid and reliable method has been developed for assessing the number and viability of cells, as well as cell size, in suspension culture by the use of flow cytometry. Propidium iodide exclusion is used for viability determination and fluorescent beads serve as an internal standard for cell enumeration. The main advantages of this method are its ability to handle a large number of samples with a high degree of precision and its specificity in detecting viable cells quantitatively in a heterogeneous culture of living and dead cells and debris.

Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting: experimental and clinical experiences.

Background: This communication briefly details the goals, indications, surgical approaches, and limitations of minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting (MIDCABG). The experimental experiences from various institutions are summarized.

Methods: The clinical experiences of 72 consecutive MIDCABG procedures performed at our institutions between June 5, 1995, and August 13, 1996, were analyzed.

Apoptosis and its control in cell culture systems.

Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death which exhibits highly distinctive morphology. Research activity in this area has increased substantially in recent years, primarily due to the realisation that disregulation of apoptosis is involved in the development of a number of pathological conditions, including cancer and AIDS. However, it is now clear that apoptosis also represents the dominant form of cell death during the culture of industrially important cell lines.

Genetic disorders in portraits.

Many artists have depicted genetic disorders in portrait paintings. In some instances such disorders can be identified in self-portraits, most notably the tetralogy of Fallot in the Dutch painter Dick Ket, or in portraits of the famous, such as the Habsburg jaw in the Emperor Charles V. But it is in other portraits that most examples can be found, such as the different types of dwarfism depicted by Velázquez.

Enhancement of survivability of mammalian cells by overexpression of the apoptosis-suppressor gene bcl-2.

Cell lines derived from the hemopoetic lineages are widely used as hosts for the production of biologicals. These cell lines have been demonstrated to undergo high levels of the active death program commonly referred to as apoptosis. The effects of overexpression of the apoptosis suppressor gene bcl-2 on the properties of a Burkitt lymphoma were compared with the control cell line (transfected with a negative control plasmid) under a variety of conditions relevant to cell culture production technology.

Revascularization using angioplasty and minimally invasive techniques documented by thermal imaging.

Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting offers mortality and morbidity advantages to selected patients. To broaden indications for such, an appropriate and combined disciplinary approach using angioplasty and minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting is described in a patient requiring reoperative grafting. Documentation of patency of new left internal mammary artery-to-left anterior descending artery anastomoses performed without the use of cardiopulmonary bypass was obtained intraoperatively using a Thermal Imaging Camera.

Homogenisation and oxygen transfer rates in large agitated and sparged animal cell bioreactors: Some implications for growth and production.

Because of concern for cell damage, very low agitation energy inputs have been used in industrial animal cell bioreactors, typical values being two orders of magnitude less than those found in bacterial fermentations. Aeration rates are also very small. As a result, such bioreactors might be both poorly mixed and also unable to provide the higher oxygen up-take rates demanded by more intensive operation.

Oxygenation of intensive cell-culture system.

The abilities of various methods of oxygenation to meet the demands of high-cell-density culture were investigated using a spin filter perfusion system in a bench-top bioreactor. Oxygen demand at high cell density could not be met by sparging with air inside a spin filter (oxygen transfer values in this condition were comparable with those for surface aeration). Sparging with air outside a spin filter gave adequate oxygen transfer for the support of cell concentrations above 10(7) ml-1 in fully aerobic conditions but the addition of antifoam to control foaming caused blockage of the spinfilter mesh.

A single isoform of the Na+/K(+)-ATPase alpha-subunit in Diptera: evidence from characterization of the first extracellular domain.

The first extracellular domain of the alpha-subunit of the Na+/K+-ATPase (sodium/potassium pump) is functionally important, affecting sensitivity of the enzyme to cardiac glycosides (e.g. ouabain) and being implicated in the transport of K+.

Cell cycle and cell size dependence of susceptibility to hydrodynamic forces.

Exposure of animal cells to intense hydrodynamic forces exerted in turbulent capillary flow, and by controiled agitation and aeration, resulted in preferential destruction of S and G(2) cells and the extent of destruction of these cells was dependent upon the intensity of the action. The loss of these cells was possibly due to their larger size. However, the appearance of large numbers of membrane-bound vesicular structures similar to apoptotic bodies as well as cells with low DNA stainability (in a sub-G(1) peak) suggested that the action of adverse hydrodynamic forces on these large cells may at least in part be to induce an apoptotic response.