Publications by authors named "Masafumi Ogawa"

Many organisms with heteromorphic sex chromosomes possess a mechanism of dosage compensation (DC) in which X-linked genes are upregulated in males to mitigate the dosage imbalance between sexes and between chromosomes. However, how quickly the DC is established during evolution remains unknown. In this study, by irradiating Drosophila miranda male flies, which carry young sex chromosomes (the so-called neo-sex chromosomes), with heavy-ion beams, we induced deletions in the neo-Y chromosome to mimic the condition of Y-chromosome degeneration, in which functional neo-Y-linked genes are nonfunctionalized; furthermore, we tested whether their neo-X-linked gametologs were immediately upregulated.

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A woman in her late 70s with fatigue, nausea, and epigastric discomfort was found to have a tumor at the papilla of Vater through endoscopy. We performed subtotal stomach-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy with regional lymph node dissection. The immunohistological analysis showed positive staining for chromogranin A, synaptophysin, and CD56.

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We report a case of infected and incised wound cured by negative pressure wound therapy with instillation and dwelling (NPWTi-d)after right hemicolectomy for ascending colon cancer. The patient was a 72-year-old male. An ascending colon cancer with abdominal wall invasion and enterocutaneous fistula was found.

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Background: Lesch-Nyhan disease (LND) is a very rare metabolic disorder involving the purine salvage pathway. LND manifests hyperuricemia, self-mutilation, cognitive impairment, and movement disorders such as spasticity and dystonia, whose control is difficult pharmaceutically.

Observations: Intrathecal baclofen (ITB) therapy was received by a 22-year-old male for generalized dystonia.

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Background And Purpose: Stroke survivors who remain dependent require multiple healthcare resources, including rehabilitation and nursing care. The effect of premorbid instrumental ADL (IADL) on the discharge destination, which has not been studied previously in detail, is analyzed.

Materials And Methods: Between April and September 2015, 40 stroke patients admitted to hospital were enrolled prospectively in the present study.

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Recently, we considered the term 'integrated community care system' and aimed to play a role in the process by joining various healthcare occupations as part of this new integrated system. Given our company's ties with people involved in a range of occupations, we are poised to play a liaison role. We called a "face-to-face meeting" with local healthcare practitioners to begin exploring this cooperation.

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Background: Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) is a lysosomal storage disorder with severe prognosis. Disease-specific therapy is crucial to prevent disease progression; however, diagnosing NPC is quite difficult because of remarkably variable clinical presentations. The NPC Suspicion Index (NPC-SI) was developed to overcome this problem.

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Background: Cerebral pial arteriovenous fistula (AVF) is a rare disorder, and its natural course is uncertain. The present article reports 2 rare cases of pial AVF that underwent spontaneous cure after diagnostic cerebral angiogram.

Case Descriptions: A 73-year-old man presented with generalized seizure and reported severe but intermittent headache in the right temporo-occipital area.

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Spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD) is a group of disorders characterized by progressive ataxia caused by dysfunction and atrophy of the cerebellum or its projections. Approximately one-third of SCD cases are familial SCD, the majority of which are attributed to CAG triplet repeat expansions including spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA)1, SCA2, Machado-Joseph disease (MJD)/SCA3, SCA6, SCA8, SCA12, SCA17, and dentate-rubro-pallido-luysian atrophy (DRPLA). The triplet repeat number of the alleles representing complete penetrance varies among diseases.

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Background: Fingolimod is an oral drug approved for multiple sclerosis (MS) with an ability to trap central memory T cells in secondary lymphoid tissues; however, its variable effectiveness in individual patients indicates the need to evaluate its effects on other lymphoid cells.

Objective: To clarify the effects of fingolimod on B-cell populations in patients with MS.

Methods: We analysed blood samples from 9 fingolimod-treated and 19 control patients with MS by flow cytometry, to determine the frequencies and activation states of naive B cells, memory B cells, and plasmablasts.

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In forensic toxicology, bone marrow is often used when adequate blood samples are not available; however, pericardial fluid (PCF) has been poorly investigated. The present study comprehensively reviewed the toxicological data of blood, PCF and bone marrow aspirate (BMA) in forensic autopsy cases to investigate drug distribution. Analysis using automated gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) following solid/liquid phase extraction detected 36 drugs in 218 cases (8.

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Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a noninvasive technique that can measure cerebral blood flow (CBF). To our knowledge, there is no study that examined regional CBF of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients by using this technique. The present study assessed the relationship between clinical presentations and functional imaging data in MS using pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL).

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Clinical differentiation of parkinsonian syndromes such as the Parkinson variant of multiple system atrophy (MSA-P) and cerebellar subtype (MSA-C) from Parkinson's disease is difficult in the early stage of the disease. To identify the correlative pattern of brain changes for differentiating parkinsonian syndromes, we applied discriminant analysis techniques by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). T1-weighted volume data and diffusion tensor images were obtained by MRI in eighteen patients with MSA-C, 12 patients with MSA-P, 21 patients with Parkinson's disease, and 21 healthy controls.

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A previous study suggested the usefulness of pericardial fluid (PCF) and bone marrow aspirate (BMA) for the postmortem analysis of ethanol. The present study reviewed forensic autopsy cases (n = 2,983), which included 683 cases with the following positive toxicological findings, to reassess ethanol distribution and to investigate other gaseous and volatile substances in blood, PCF and BMA. Toxicological analyses detected ethanol (>10 mg/dL, n = 345), acetone (>0.

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Here we report an extremely rare case of Behçet syndrome (BS) that showed acute onset of Wallenberg syndrome and was treated successfully by corticosteroids. A 51-year-old woman with BS had a sudden onset of Wallenberg syndrome. Three days after the onset, she was transferred to our institute.

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Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease of the CNS that is presumably mediated by CD4(+) autoimmune T cells. Although both Th1 and Th17 cells have the potential to cause inflammatory CNS pathology in rodents, the identity of pathogenic T cells remains unclear in human MS. Given that each Th cell subset preferentially expresses specific chemokine receptors, we were interested to know whether T cells defined by a particular chemokine receptor profile play an active role in the pathogenesis of MS.

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A 60-year-old woman developed type 1 diabetes mellitus and anti-aquaporin-4 antibody positive optic neuritis during type 1 interferon therapies for chronic hepatitis C. The diabetes mellitus was elicited by interferon-α plus ribavirin therapy, while the optic neuritis was induced after interferon-β treatment, followed by interferon-α and ribavirin therapy. It is possible that type 1 interferons lead to the onset of the two autoimmune diseases by inducing disease-specific autoantibodies.

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A 68-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of an abdominal tumor. Computed tomography(CT)showed a 6 cm tumor in the abdominal cavity. Surgery was performed.

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Interferon-β (IFN-β) is known to expand regulatory CD56(bright) natural killer (NK) cells in multiple sclerosis (MS). In this cross-sectional study we show that MS patients treated with IFN-β alone or in combination with low-dose prednisolone displayed increased proportion of all NK cell subsets in the active phase of the cell cycle (Ki-67+). There was no difference in NK cell apoptosis markers.

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The absorption spectra of three kinds of medicines both before and after the expiration date: Amlodin OD(®) (5 mg), Basen OD(®) (0.2 mg) and Gaster D(®) (10 mg) have been measured by terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). All the medicines show some differences in the THz absorption spectra between medicines before and after the expiration dates.

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Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is an inflammatory disease affecting the optic nerve and spinal cord, in which autoantibodies against aquaporin 4 (AQP4) water channel protein probably play a pathogenic role. Here we show that a B-cell subpopulation, exhibiting the CD19(int)CD27(high)CD38(high)CD180(-) phenotype, is selectively increased in the peripheral blood of NMO patients and that anti-AQP4 antibodies (AQP4-Abs) are mainly produced by these cells in the blood of these patients. These B cells showed the morphological as well as the phenotypical characteristics of plasmablasts (PB) and were further expanded during NMO relapse.

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Article Synopsis
  • Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) patients often experience depressive symptoms, but the cause and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in these patients are not well understood.
  • The report discusses two cases where selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) effectively treated MDD in patients with SCA, highlighting their potential role in addressing depressive symptoms regardless of the progression of SCA symptoms.
  • The findings suggest that while cerebellar degeneration in SCA is irreversible, MDD complicated by SCA can be treatable with SSRIs, emphasizing the need for early detection and psychiatric consultation to enhance the quality of life for these patients.
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Metal-binding peptides have attracted attention for their usefulness in biomineralization processes. In this work screening of high affinity peptides against ZnO was performed using a combinatorial library approach with a peptide array and computational analysis. The computationally assisted peptide screening and design enabled identification of linear peptides with affinity for ZnO with limited experimentation.

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The absorption spectra of ceftazidime and its generic versions (Modacin, Mosyl, and Mobenzocin) have been measured by terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). Differences in the THz absorption were observed between the original and generic versions. The results show small, but significant differences in the states of ceftazidime hydrate between the original and generic versions.

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