[A case of autoimmune hepatitis with tuberculosis caused by prednisolone from undeterminable enzyme-linked immunospot assay].

An 88-year-old woman was referred to our hospital for autoimmune hepatitis in 2016. She was treated with prednisolone. In 2018, she was rehospitalized owing to hepatitis relapse.

Factors associated with the outcomes in ulcerative colitis patients undergoing granulocyte and monocyte adsorptive apheresis as remission induction therapy: A multicenter cohort study.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) patients harbor activated myeloid leukocytes, which exacerbate and perpetuate UC by releasing inflammatory cytokines. Granulocyte and monocyte adsorptive apheresis (GMA) with an Adacolumn depletes elevated myeloid leukocytes, inducing efficacy with favorable safety. To understand how the clinical outcome with GMA is affected by prior corticosteroid treatment or concomitant immunomodulators, a retrospective multicenter study in 102 UC patients, who had not responded well to first-line medications was undertaken.

Successful removal of multiple bile duct stones using a papillary large balloon dilation in a very elderly woman with situs inversus totalis.

Situs inversus totalis (SIT) is a rare congenital anomaly in which all viscera are transposed to the opposite side of the body. This uncommon anatomy causes technical difficulties in endoscopic treatment. A 98-year-old woman with SIT was admitted to our hospital complaining of upper abdominal pain and fever.

Saline Solution Irrigation of the Bile Duct after Stone Removal Reduces the Recurrence of Common Bile Duct Stones.

Common bile duct (CBD) stone is a relatively common but potentially life-threatening disease. Endoscopic sphincterotomy (EST) has been performed as standard therapy for CBD stones, but the rate of recurrence of CBD stones is high. Risk factors have been poorly defined, and no effective means for the prevention of the recurrence of CBD stones have been established so far.

Long-term course of inflammatory bowel disease after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Background And Aim: This study analyzed inflammatory bowel disease activity for 2 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Methods: We compared the relapse rates of patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease 1 and 2 years after the earthquake with rates immediately after the earthquake. To evaluate continuous disease courses, we also performed multivariate time-to-event analyses from the time of the earthquake to the onset of additional treatments.

Interstitial nephritis associated with ulcerative colitis in monozygotic twins.

Although renal impairment is a rare complication of ulcerative colitis (UC), interstitial nephritis can occur as an idiosyncratic reaction to 5-aminosalicylate (5-ASA) treatment for UC. Monozygotic twins developed UC at ages 49 and 51, and they were separately treated at different medical institutes. They did not know that they had the same disease and were treated with the same drug (5-ASA).

Life-event stress induced by the Great East Japan Earthquake was associated with relapse in ulcerative colitis but not Crohn's disease: a retrospective cohort study.

Objective: Stress is thought to be one of the triggers of relapses in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We examined the rate of relapse in IBD patients before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Design: A retrospective cohort study.

Prognostic and diagnostic significance of tumor budding associated with β-catenin expression in submucosal invasive colorectal carcinoma.

Endoscopic resection has become a major curative treatment for early colorectal carcinoma without lymph node metastasis. However, lymph node metastasis, a poor prognostic factor in colorectal carcinoma, occurs in about 10% of the patients with submucosal invasive colorectal carcinoma. Therefore, it is important to identify a high-risk factor for lymph node metastasis in submucosal invasive colorectal carcinoma.

Scheduled maintenance therapy with infliximab improves the prognosis of Crohn's disease: a single center prospective cohort study in Japan.

The main goal of Crohn's disease (CD) treatment at present is to induce and maintain remission for as long as possible, and several approaches have been used as induction and maintenance therapies. There are no reports that have compared the effects on mid- and long-term prognosis among the induction and maintenance therapies, especially between infliximab, a chimeric antibody to tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and nutritional therapies. A total of 262 CD patients with induced remission were enrolled in the cohort study.

Sirtuin 1 overexpression mice show a reference memory deficit, but not neuroprotection.

Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) is the closest mammalian homologue of yeast silent information regulator 2 (Sir2) and has a role in lifespan modulation. Reportedly, SIRT1 is also linked to neurodegenerative diseases. However, there are limited studies that report the relation between SIRT1 and neurodegenerative diseases using in vivo transgenic (Tg) methods.

Gastrointestinal polyposis with esophageal polyposis is useful for early diagnosis of Cowden's disease.

Cowden's disease, one of the several hamartoma syndromes, is characterized by hyperplastic lesions and hamartomas distributed in the whole body. About thirty percent of patients with Cowden's disease have been reported to be complicated by malignant tumors. Based on the criteria of the International Cowden Consortium, this disease is mainly diagnosed as trichilemmoma of the face and oral mucosal papillomatosis.

A source of hydrogen sulfide and a mechanism of its release in the brain.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is recognized as a neuromodulator as well as neuroprotectant in the brain. H2S can be produced from cysteine by enzymes such as cystathionine beta-synthase. However, a mechanism for releasing H2S under physiologic conditions has not been identified.

Preconditioning by sesquiterpene lactone enhances H2O2-induced Nrf2/ARE activation.

The Nrf2/ARE pathway plays a pivotal role in chemoprevention and neuroprotection. Here, we report that sesquiterpene lactones extracted from Calea urticifolia and feverfew increased enhancer activity of the ARE. ARE activation was dependent on the number of alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl groups each compound bears and calealactone A (CL-A) harboring 3 of those was the most potent ARE inducer.

Hydrogen sulfide enhances reducing activity in neurons: neurotrophic role of H2S in the brain?

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) can enzymatically be produced from cysteine in the brain. H2S functions as a synaptic modulator as well as a neuroprotectant from oxidative stress in the brain. Here we show that H2S specifically enhances the reducing activity in neurons and mouse neuroblastoma Neuro2a cells.

Autotaxin expression is enhanced in frontal cortex of Alzheimer-type dementia patients.

We searched for genes differentially expressed in the frontal cortices of Alzheimer-type dementia (ATD) patients compared with those of non-ATD controls using DNA microarray and quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses. Here we show that the expression level of the autotaxin (also called lysophospholipase D or ecto-nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 2) gene was significantly greater in ATD cortices than in non-ATD cortices. In both ATD and non-ATD groups, the expression levels were greater in patients with the apoE epsilon3/epsilon4 genotype than in patients with the apoE epsilon3/epsilon3 genotype, although the differences were not statistically significant.

Physiological roles of hydrogen sulfide: synaptic modulation, neuroprotection, and smooth muscle relaxation.

Nearly 300 years have passed since the first description of the toxicity of hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) in 1713. Although many studies have been devoted to its toxicity, very little attention has been paid to understanding its normal physiological function. Relatively high concentrations of endogenous H(2)S, however, have recently been discovered in animal tissues, and its possible function as a biological messenger has been proposed.

Determination of oxidized and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide in cell monolayers using a single extraction procedure and a spectrophotometric assay.

While many investigations measuring oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) have been carried out on several mammalian tissues and blood cells, few reports have dealt with monolayers of cultured cells. Here we show a novel method to measure NAD+ and NADH in monolayers of a neuroblastoma cell line. The method was established by modifying a single extraction procedure originally developed for erythrocytes and an enzymatic cycling assay using a dye that absorbs in visible range.

[Screening of DNA topoisomerase inhibitors].

It has been established that etoposide (ETP), adriamycin (doxorubicin: DOX) and irinotecan (CPT-11), efficacious antitumor drugs widely used in clinics, target DNA topoisomerases (topo) in vivo. The present report attempts to explain why topos are the good targets of anticancer drugs from the point of view of enzymology of the enzymes and cell cycle behavior of tumor cells. Thus, many candidate anticancer drugs targeting topos are being screened, and preclinical and clinical studies thereof are being conducted world-wide and in Japan.

Inhibition of DNA topoisomerases I and II, and growth inhibition of human cancer cell lines by a marine microalgal polysaccharide.

We have previously reported purification of an extracellular polysaccharide GA3P, D-galactan sulfate associated with L-(+)-lactic acid, produced by a toxic marine microalga Dinoflagellate Gymnodinium sp. A(3) (GA3), and induction thereby of apoptosis on human myeloid leukemia K562 cells. In the present report, we show that the GA3P is a potent inhibitor of DNA topoisomerase (topo) I and topo II, irrespective of the presence or absence of the lactate group.

Inhibition of DNA topoisomerases II and/or I by pyrazolo[1,5-a]indole derivatives and their growth inhibitory activities.

DNA topoisomerases (topos) I and II are molecular targets of several potent anticancer agents. Thus inhibitors of these enzymes are potential candidates or model compounds for anticancer drugs. We found some of the totally synthetic pyrazolo[1,5-a]indole derivatives, GS-2, -3, and -4, to be strong inhibitors of topo II, and GS-5 was found to be a dual inhibitor of topos I and II (IC(50) values were in the range of 10-30 microM).

Hydrogen sulfide is produced in response to neuronal excitation.

Although hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is generally thought of in terms of a poisonous gas, it is endogenously produced in the brain. Physiological concentrations of H2S selectively enhance NMDA receptor-mediated responses and alter the induction of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). Here we use cystathionine beta-synthase (CBS) knock-out mice to clearly show that CBS produces endogenous H2S in the brain and that H2S production is greatly enhanced by the excitatory neurotransmitter l-glutamate, as well as by electrical stimulation.