Effect of cerebellar transcranial magnetic stimulation on soleus Ia presynaptic and reciprocal inhibition.

Previously, we reported that cerebellar transcranial magnetic stimulation (C-TMS) facilitates spinal motoneuronal excitability in resting humans. In this study, we aimed to characterize the descending pathway that is responsible for the C-TMS-associated cerebellar spinal facilitation. We evaluated the effect of C-TMS on ipsilateral soleus Ia presynaptic inhibition (PSI) and reciprocal inhibition (RI) because the vestibulospinal and reticulospinal tracts project from the cerebellum to mediate spinal motoneurons via interneurons associated with PSI.

Effect of Posture during Trumpet and Marching Euphonium Performance on the Trunk and Lower Limb Musculoskeletal System.

[Purpose] The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of trumpet and marching euphonium performance posture on the trunk and lower limb musculoskeletal system. [Subjects] The subjects were 10 female university students. [Methods] Subjects maintained a resting position, a trumpet performance posture, and a marching euphonium performance posture.

Selective apoptosis of natural killer-cell tumours by l-asparaginase.

We examined the effectiveness of various anti-tumour agents to natural killer (NK)-cell tumour cell lines and samples, which are generally resistant to chemotherapy, using flow cytometric terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end-labelling (TUNEL) assay. Although NK-YS and NK-92 were highly resistant to various anti-tumour agents, l-asparaginase induced apoptosis in these two NK-cell lines. NK-cell leukaemia/lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) samples were selectively sensitive to l-asparaginase and to doxorubicin (DXR) respectively.

Establishment of real-time polymerase chain reaction method for quantitative analysis of asparagine synthetase expression.

We established a real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) with which to measure abundance of the asparagine synthetase (AS) mRNA. The level of AS mRNA paralleled AS enzyme activity, as well as the AS protein level detected by Western blotting and by in situ immunostaining. Cytotoxicity tests in vitro showed that the AS mRNA level also synchronized with cellular resistance to L-asparaginase in cell lines.