Usefulness of Novel Atherogenic Lipid Indices for the Evaluation of Metabolic Status Leading to Coronary Heart Disease in a Real-World Survey of the Japanese Population.

We evaluated the usefulness of two novel cholesterol-triglyceride subgroup (CTS) indices, CTS and CTS, that potentially reflect the metabolic status regarding risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) using a retrospective longitudinal study of the Japanese general population. We recruited 12,373 individuals from the annual users of our healthcare center. Among them, the first onset of CHD was recorded in 131 individuals between April 2014 and March 2020.

Leaflet escape in an Edwards TEKNA mitral prosthesis.

In almost every type of artificial valve, structural failure has been described. We are reporting on a case of a sudden leaflet escape of an Edwards TEKNA mitral valve prosthesis 12 years after implantation. The patient had a sudden onset of dyspnea and severe pulmonary edema with subsequent cardiogenic shock.

[Smoking behavior and participation in screening for lung, gastric, and colorectal cancers].

Objectives: Early detection of cancer incidence and tobacco control are prioritized in the second-term of the Basic Plan for Promotion of Cancer Measures. However, the cancer screening rate is low and smoking prevalence high in Japan. Smokers may not participate in cancer screening, although they are a high-risk population for cancer mortality.

Estimated daily intake and seasonal food sources of quercetin in Japan.

Quercetin is a promising food component, which can prevent lifestyle related diseases. To understand the dietary intake of quercetin in the subjects of a population-based cohort study and in the Japanese population, we first determined the quercetin content in foods available in the market during June and July in or near a town in Hokkaido, Japan. Red leaf lettuce, asparagus, and onions contained high amounts of quercetin derivatives.

Determinants of participation in prostate cancer screening: a simple analytical framework to account for healthy-user bias.

In Japan at present, fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) is recommended for cancer screening while routine population-based prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening is not. In future it may be necessary to increase participation in the former and decrease it in the latter. Our objectives were to explore determinants of PSA-screening participation while simultaneously taking into account factors associated with FOBT.

Significance of 18 F-FDG PET and immunohistochemical GLUT-1 expression for cardiac myxoma.

Unlabelled: Cardiac tumours are relatively rare and are difficult to diagnose merely with imaging techniques. We demonstrated an unusual case of left atrial myxoma, displaying the successful detection by positron emission tomography using 2-deoxy-2-[18 F] fluoro-D-glucose (18 F-FDG PET), correlated closely to more intense and enhanced immunoreactivity with glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1) in a substantial number of cardiac myxoma cells. Further prospective studies are needed to validate the significance of 18 F-FDG PET findings for cardiac myxoma and the association with immunohistochemical GLUT-1 expression in its tumour cells, after collecting and investigating a larger number of surgical cases examined with both of them.

Individualized and institutionalized residential place-based discrimination and self-rated health: a cross-sectional study of the working-age general population in Osaka city, Japan.

Background: Several studies have reported that individualized residential place-based discrimination (PBD) affects residents' health. However, studies exploring the association between institutionalized PBD and health are scarce, especially in Asian countries including Japan.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with random two-stage sampling of 6191 adults aged 25-64 years in 100 census tracts across Osaka city in 2011.

Chronic contained rupture of aortic aneurysm with thoracic vertebral erosion.

A 66-year-old man was transferred to our hospital with the diagnosis of a large thoracoabdominal aneurysm. Computed tomography showed thoracic vertebral erosion, suggesting a chronic contained rupture. He was hemodynamically stable with no neurological complication preoperatively.

Molecular profiling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis identifies tuberculosinyl nucleoside products of the virulence-associated enzyme Rv3378c.

To identify lipids with roles in tuberculosis disease, we systematically compared the lipid content of virulent Mycobacterium tuberculosis with the attenuated vaccine strain Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin. Comparative lipidomics analysis identified more than 1,000 molecular differences, including a previously unknown, Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific lipid that is composed of a diterpene unit linked to adenosine. We established the complete structure of the natural product as 1-tuberculosinyladenosine (1-TbAd) using mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy.

Effect modification of body mass index and body fat percentage on fatty liver disease in a Japanese population.

Background And Aim: No previous study has performed multivariate analysis of the risk factors of fatty liver disease (FL), focusing on the effect of weight gain of ≥ 10 kg since the age of 20, and no analysis model exists that simultaneously evaluates body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (BFP) as adjustment variables.

Methods: To investigate these, we collected anthropometric data from health checkups, and conducted a cross-sectional study (targeting 1851 males and 1259 females aged 30 years or over).

Results: Regardless of sex, weight gain of ≥10 kg since the age of 20 was positively associated with FL.

The polyketide synthase-associated multidrug tolerance in Mycobacterium intracellulare clinical isolates.

Background: Intrinsic multidrug resistance of the Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex presents a serious problem in the treatment of the diseases caused by these bacteria. Recently, it was shown that deletion of a polyketide synthase, Pks12, in an M. avium laboratory strain decreases this intrinsic resistance.

A mouse model for fetal maternal stem cell transfer during ischemic cardiac injury.

Fetal cells enter the maternal circulation during pregnancies and can persist in blood and tissues for decades, creating a state of physiologic microchimerism. Microchimerism refers to acquisition of cells from another individual and can be due to bidirectional cell traffic between mother and fetus during pregnancy. Peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare cardiac disorder associated with high mortality rates has the highest recovery rate amongst all etiologies of heart failure although the reason is unknown.

Mycoketide: a CD1c-presented antigen with important implications in mycobacterial infection.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis and related mycobacteria species are unique in that the acid-fast bacilli possess a highly lipid-rich cell wall that not simply confers resistance to treatment with acid alcohol, but also controls their survival and virulence. It has recently been established that a fraction of the cell wall lipid components of mycobacteria can function as antigens targeted by the acquired immunity of the host. Human group 1 CD1 molecules (CD1a, CD1b, and CD1c) bind a pool of lipid antigens expressed by mycobacteria and present them to specific T cells, thereby mediating an effective pathway for host defense against tuberculosis.

Identification of a novel tetrapeptide structure of the Mycobacterium avium glycopeptidolipid that functions as a specific target for the host antibody response.

Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) is a group of non-tuberculous mycobacteria that cause tuberculosis-like diseases in humans. Unlike Mycobacterium tuberculosis, MAC expresses high levels of glycopeptidolipids (GPLs) containing a well-defined tetrapeptide-amino alcohol core, composed of D-phenylalanine, D-allo-threonine, D-alanine, and L-alaninol, that is modified with a fatty acid and sugar residues. Surprisingly, however, a careful scrutiny of the mass spectrum of MAC GPLs revealed the presence of ions that could not readily accountable for the known GPL structure.

Lipidomic discovery of deoxysiderophores reveals a revised mycobactin biosynthesis pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

To measure molecular changes underlying pathogen adaptation, we generated a searchable dataset of more than 12,000 mass spectrometry events, corresponding to lipids and small molecules that constitute a lipidome for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Iron is essential for M. tuberculosis survival, and the organism imports this metal using mycobactin and carboxymycobactin siderophores.

A comparative lipidomics platform for chemotaxonomic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The lipidic envelope of Mycobacterium tuberculosis promotes virulence in many ways, so we developed a lipidomics platform for a broad survey of cell walls. Here we report two new databases (MycoMass, MycoMap), 30 lipid fine maps, and mass spectrometry datasets that comprise a static lipidome. Further, by rapidly regenerating lipidomic datasets during biological processes, comparative lipidomics provides statistically valid, organism-wide comparisons that broadly assess lipid changes during infection or among clinical strains of mycobacteria.

Fetal cells traffic to injured maternal myocardium and undergo cardiac differentiation.

Rationale: Fetal cells enter the maternal circulation during pregnancy and may persist in maternal tissue for decades as microchimeras.

Objective: Based on clinical observations of peripartum cardiomyopathy patients and the high rate of recovery they experience from heart failure, our objective was to determine whether fetal cells can migrate to the maternal heart and differentiate to cardiac cells.

Methods And Results: We report that fetal cells selectively home to injured maternal hearts and undergo differentiation into diverse cardiac lineages.

Maternal dietary patterns in pregnancy and fetal growth in Japan: the Osaka Maternal and Child Health Study.

Maternal nutritional status during pregnancy is an important determinant of fetal growth. Although the effects of several nutrients and foods have been well examined, little is known about the relationship of overall maternal diet in pregnancy to fetal growth, particularly in non-Western populations. We prospectively examined the relationship of maternal dietary patterns in pregnancy to neonatal anthropometric measurements at birth and risk of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) birth among 803 Japanese women with live-born, singleton, term deliveries.

Glycerol monomycolate, a latent tuberculosis-associated mycobacterial lipid, induces eosinophilic hypersensitivity responses in guinea pigs.

Dynamic changes in the lipid composition of the cell wall occur in pathogenic mycobacteria that are often intended for adaptation to the host environment. Dormant mycobacteria should have evolved efficient maneuvers for cohabitation, allowing the microbes to persist for years within the host. Glycerol monomycolate (GroMM) has been implicated as a specific immune target in human individuals with latent, but not active, tuberculosis, but the in vivo response to GroMM and the relevance of it to latent infection remain poorly understood.

A microbial glycolipid functions as a new class of target antigen for delayed-type hypersensitivity.

Delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) is marked by high levels of protein antigen-specific T cell responses in sensitized individuals. Recent evidence has revealed a distinct pathway for T cell immunity directed against glycolipid antigens, but DTH to this class of antigen has been undetermined and difficult to prove due to their insolubility in aqueous solutions. Here, glucose monomycolate (GMM), a highly hydrophobic glycolipid of the cell wall of mycobacteria, was dispersed in aqueous solutions in the form of octaarginine-modified liposomes and tested for its ability to elicit cutaneous DTH responses in bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG)-immunized guinea pigs.

Left atrial fibroelastoma.

We describe a 67-year-old man with a history of stroke who was found to have a mass at the left atrial ridge, at the free wall of the left atrium between the left atrial appendage and the pulmonary vein. The mass was removed surgically and pathological analysis showed fibroelastoma. A literature search showed that fibroelastoma in the left atrial ridge frequently causes embolic stroke.

Mincle is a long sought receptor for mycobacterial cord factor.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a leading killer worldwide, yet the adjuvancy of its cell wall has proven to be a valuable therapeutic tool for vaccination and immunotherapy. Much research effort has focused on the mycobacterial glycolipid trehalose-6,6'-dimycolate (TDM), a potent immunostimulant that is also known as cord factor. Now, the identification of the monocyte-inducible C-type lectin (Mincle) as an essential receptor for TDM provides new insight into the formation of the characteristic granulomas in tuberculosis and an avenue for rational adjuvant design.

Mycolyltransferase from Mycobacterium leprae excludes mycolate-containing glycolipid substrates.

Trehalose dimycolate (TDM) is a major surface-exposed mycolyl glycolipid that contributes to the hydrophobic cell wall architecture of mycobacteria. Nevertheless, because of its potent adjuvant functions, pathogenic mycobacteria appear to have evolved an evasive maneuver to down-regulate TDM expression within the host. We have shown previously that Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.

Spontaneous left main coronary artery dissection, possibly due to cystic medial necrosis found in the internal mammary arteries.

A 55-year-old male without previous medical history developed chest pain. Coronary catheterization showed left main coronary dissection. Coronary artery bypass grafting was performed using bilateral internal mammary arteries, which were very fragile.

Determination of oxysterols in oxidatively modified low-density lipoprotein by semi-micro high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection.

A simple method for the determination of oxysterols was developed by semi-micro high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (semi-micro HPLC-ECD). Semi-micro HPLC-ECD was established using a C30 microbore column, acetonitrile containing 50 mmol/L LiClO(4) as a mobile phase, and an applied potential at +2.8V versus Ag/AgCl.