Yokukansan, a Kampo medicine, prevents the development of morphine tolerance through the inhibition of spinal glial cell activation in rats.

Background: Animal models have shown that glial cells (microglia and astrocytes) in the spinal cord undergo activation following peripheral injury associated with chronic pain, suggesting the involvement of these cells in pain diseases. We have previously reported that Yokukansan (YKS), a Japanese traditional herbal (Kampo) medicine, is effective against chronic pain through the suppression of spinal glial cell activation. Morphine is a widely-used opioid analgesic for relieving severe pain, but its repeated administration leads to the development of antinociceptive tolerance.

Polyamine-responsive ribosomal arrest at the stop codon of an upstream open reading frame of the AdoMetDC1 gene triggers nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in Arabidopsis thaliana.

During mRNA translation, nascent peptides with certain specific sequences cause arrest of ribosomes that have synthesized themselves. In some cases, such ribosomal arrest is coupled with mRNA decay. In yeast, mRNA quality control systems have been shown to be involved in mRNA decay associated with ribosomal arrest.

Improved cardioprotection using a novel stepwise ischemic preconditioning protocol in rabbit heart.

Background: The current commonly used cardiac ischemic preconditioning (IPC) protocol, involving three 5-min cycles of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R), may not be clinically beneficial because of its acutely deleterious effects on hemodynamics. This study attempted to assess the effects of a novel stepwise IPC scheme on cardiac function, infarct size, and arrhythmogenesis in a rabbit model of prolonged I/R.

Methods: Anesthetized open-chest rabbits were subjected to 60-min occlusion of a proximal branch of the left coronary artery followed by 180-min reperfusion.