Initial Experience of Laparoscopic Pectopexy for Apical Prolapse in South Korea.

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is the herniation or bulging of the pelvic organs to or beyond the vaginal introitus. POP is a common condition affecting more than half of parous women. We recently performed POP surgery and repair in 37 patients using laparoscopic pectopexy, a new technique for apical prolapse surgery, in women with advanced POP.

Transcriptome Analysis of Diurnal Gene Expression in Chinese Cabbage.

Plants have developed timing mechanisms that enable them to maintain synchrony with daily environmental events. These timing mechanisms, i.e.

Reduction of GIGANTEA expression in transgenic Brassica rapa enhances salt tolerance.

Here we report the enhancement of tolerance to salt stress in Brassica rapa (Chinese cabbage) through the RNAi-mediated reduction of GIGANTEA ( GI ) expression. Circadian clocks integrate environmental signals with internal cues to coordinate diverse physiological outputs. The GIGANTEA (GI) gene was first discovered due to its important contribution to photoperiodic flowering and has since been shown to be a critical component of the plant circadian clock and to contribute to multiple environmental stress responses.

Mutagenesis Study Reveals the Rim of Catalytic Entry Site of HDAC4 and -5 as the Major Binding Surface of SMRT Corepressor.

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) play a pivotal role in eukaryotic gene expression by modulating the levels of acetylation of chromatin and related transcription factors. In contrast to class I HDACs (HDAC1, -2, -3 and -8), the class IIa HDACs (HDAC4, -5, -7 and -9) harbor cryptic deacetylases activity and recruit the SMRT-HDAC3 complex to repress target genes in vivo. In this regard, the specific interaction between the HDAC domain of class IIa HDACs and the C-terminal region of SMRT repression domain 3 (SRD3c) is known to be critical, but the molecular basis of this interaction has not yet been addressed.

Regulation of autoimmune germinal center reactions in lupus-prone BXD2 mice by follicular helper T cells.

BXD2 mice spontaneously develop autoantibodies and subsequent glomerulonephritis, offering a useful animal model to study autoimmune lupus. Although initial studies showed a critical contribution of IL-17 and Th17 cells in mediating autoimmune B cell responses in BXD2 mice, the role of follicular helper T (Tfh) cells remains incompletely understood. We found that both the frequency of Th17 cells and the levels of IL-17 in circulation in BXD2 mice were comparable to those of wild-type.