Publications by authors named "Ohtaki H"

Article Synopsis
  • Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) is a significant hospital pathogen, and effective control relies on advanced molecular epidemiological tools.
  • Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is still widely used in clinical labs, but with the decline in PFGE equipment availability, the Bezdíček multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme has been proposed as a more accurate alternative for analyzing genetic similarities among VREfm strains.
  • Comparing both MLST schemes with PFGE, the study found that the Bezdíček scheme offers improved outbreak visualization and higher discriminatory power, making it a valuable tool for managing VREfm infections in healthcare settings.
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  • Heatstroke leads to fluid loss and electrolyte imbalances due to extreme temperature and humidity conditions, affecting bodily functions.
  • This study focuses on the role of Aquaporin 1 (AQP1), a crucial protein for water balance, in transgenic mice that have increased AQP1 in endothelial cells during induced heatstroke.
  • Findings show that while AQP1 levels remained unchanged in the brain, dTG mice displayed greater liver damage and electrolyte issues than wild-type mice, suggesting AQP1 may worsen hepatic damage during heatstroke.
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  • - The study aimed to investigate how hearing aid use affects cognitive function, frailty, anxiety, depression, and quality of life in older adults with hearing loss, given the unresolved nature of this relationship.
  • - Conducted at a Hearing Aid Center from 2020 to 2021, the research compared two groups of patients (hearing aid users and non-users) using various assessments, including cognitive tests and questionnaires regarding lifestyle and health conditions.
  • - Findings revealed that while hearing aid users tended to be older and had higher rates of hypertension, their cognitive scores (MMSE) did not significantly differ from non-users, suggesting that hearing aid use does not necessarily improve cognitive function in this population.
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This study aimed to clarify the differential exercise capacity between 2-month-old and 10-month-old mice using an incremental running test. Metabolic and ventilatory responses and blood lactate concentration were measured to evaluate exercise capacity. We examined whether incremental running test results reflected metabolic and ventilatory responses and blood lactate concentration observed during the steady-state running test.

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Sepsis is a pathological condition that affects the metabolism of administered drugs, leading to changes in the duration and intensity of their intended efficacies. Proinflammatory cytokines downregulate the expression of cytochrome P450s (P450s). The effects of P450 expression under inflammatory conditions have been studied using prophlogistic substances such as lipopolysaccharide; however, few studies have focused on clinical models of sepsis.

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Heat stroke is a life-threatening illness caused by exposure to high ambient temperatures and relative humidity. The incidence of heat stroke is expected to increase due to climate change. Although pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) has been implicated in thermoregulation, the role of PACAP on heat stress remains unclear.

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  • IVIg is used to treat inflammatory demyelinating diseases like Guillain-Barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, but its exact mechanisms are not fully understood.
  • In a mouse model study, IVIg treatment after lysolecithin injection led to significantly reduced demyelination in the sciatic nerve compared to untreated mice.
  • Further analysis revealed that IVIg interacts with a specific myelin protein (large myelin protein zero, or L-MPZ) in the peripheral nervous system, suggesting it may help modulate demyelination by targeting this protein on myelin debris.
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Hepatic multidrug transporters expressed on the canalicular membrane play a role in the hepatobiliary excretion of xenobiotics and endogenous substrates. The aim of this study was to elucidate the role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the regulation of hepatic drug transporter expression after cecal ligation and puncture (CLP), a valuable tool for studying polymicrobial sepsis, and to compare CLP with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment. CLP reduced the expression of Mdr2/Abcb4, Mrp2/Abcc2, Bsep/Abcb11, Bcrp/Abcg2, and Mate1/Slc47a1 mRNAs in wild-type (WT) mouse livers in a time-dependent manner up to 48 h postoperation.

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Background: Although hypercholesterolemia reportedly counteracts lymphocyte trafficking across lymphatic vessels, the roles of lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) in the lymphocyte regulations remain unclear. Previous studies showed that calpain-an intracellular modulatory protease-interferes with leukocyte dynamics in the blood microcirculation and is associated with hypercholesterolemic dysfunction in vascular endothelial cells.

Methods: This study investigated whether the calpain systems in LECs associate with the LEC-lymphocyte interaction under hypercholesterolemia using gene-targeted mice.

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Motor dysfunction, such as gait impairment, is a major disability induced by traumatic brain injury or stroke. Treadmill running is often used as a physical exercise (Ex) clinically and experimentally for the recovery of patients. In animal experiments, although dynamic behavioral deficits can be evaluated using scoring systems, local and minor behaviors are difficult to determine.

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Global warming increases heatstroke incidence. After heatstroke, patients exhibit neurological symptoms, suggesting cerebellar damage. However, the potential long-term adverse outcomes are poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The study examined how olfactory stimuli and respiratory activity impact the creation of new neurons in mice, focusing on mitral and granule cells in the olfactory bulb and dentate gyrus.
  • * Findings revealed that enriched olfactory conditions boosted neurogenesis in mitral and granule cells but not in the dentate gyrus, with a correlation between increased granule cell formation and higher sniffing frequency during odor exposure.
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Background: There have been many reports on the clinical, radiographic, and surgical management of thoracolumbar burst fractures attributed to high-energy trauma. Interestingly, few reports have described how to extract bone fragments associated with these injuries protruding into the spinal canal contributing to significant neurological deficits.

Methods: An 18-year-old male presented with a severe L3-level paraparesis (i.

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The aim of this study is to examine 1) muscle fiber type composition, 2) myofiber diameter, and 3) aquaporin (AQP) 7 and AQP 9 mRNA expressions by quantitative PCR in muscles of obese db/db mice. The myofiber type composition of skeletal muscle was not statistically significantly different between db/db mice and control mice; while the average myofiber diameter ratio showed a decrease in db/db mice. The expression of AQP7 but not AQP9 mRNA in the skeletal and cardiac muscles was significantly upregulated in db/db mice.

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  • Researchers developed a new animal model of heatstroke that considers both high ambient temperature (AT) and relative humidity (RH), aiming to assess organ damage and survival rates in mice exposed to different temperatures and hydration levels.* -
  • In a study with dehydrated male mice, those exposed to 41 °C at high humidity had a survival rate of 83.3% and showed significant internal damage compared to those at 37 °C, while those exposed to 43 °C did not survive, leading researchers to discard that temperature for further study.* -
  • The effectiveness of oral rehydration solution (ORS) was shown to be superior to just water or no treatment, improving recovery outcomes and increasing gene expression of cotransporter
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Background: The use of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry is gradually spreading among large-scale laboratories; however, this method is impractical for small-scale laboratories. In laboratories without access to these rapid identification methods, problems related to them remain unsolved. In this study, we aimed to develop a rapid and inexpensive method to presumptively identify Enterobacterales using CHROMagar Orientation medium.

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Objective: To explore the prevalence and clinical implications of the mirror and TV signs in the moderate to advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

Methods: We retrospectively examined the prevalence of clinical and psychiatric symptoms including the mirror and TV signs in 200 subjects with AD and 200 with DLB and evaluated the relationships among the symptoms.

Results: The mirror sign was found in 3.

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Vancomycin-resistant enterococci pose a threat in the clinical setting and have been linked to hospital outbreaks worldwide. In 2017, a local spread of VanA-type vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) occurred in Japan, and 25 enterococcal isolates, including 14 , 8 , and 3 isolates, were identified from four inpatients. Molecular analysis of the multispecies of VanA-type VRE revealed the involvement of both the dissemination of clonally related VRE strains between patients and the horizontal transfer of plasmids harboring the gene cluster between spp.

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Human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hMSCs) have shown potential in facilitating recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI) through communicating with microglia/macrophages (MG/MΦ). We here focused on chemokines as a candidate for the communication. Selected MG/MΦ-related chemokines were determined gene expression after SCI and further focused CCL2/CCR2 and CCL5/CCR5 to estimate role of the chemokines by hMSCs.

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Background: Excess fat deposition could induce phenotypic changes of perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT remodeling), which may promote the progression of atherosclerosis via modulation of adipocytokine secretion. However, it remains unclear whether and how suppression of PVAT remodeling could attenuate vascular injury. In this study, we examined the effect of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, luseogliflozin on PVAT remodeling and neointima formation after wire injury in mice.

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The molecular mechanisms by which environmental light conditions affect cerebellar development are incompletely understood. We showed that circadian disruption by light-at-night induced Purkinje cell death through pineal allopregnanolone (ALLO) activity during early life in chicks. Light-at-night caused the loss of diurnal variation of pineal ALLO synthesis during early life and led to cerebellar Purkinje cell death, which was suppressed by a daily injection of ALLO.

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is a β-hemolytic bacterium that can cause invasive infections in animals and humans. Here, we report a draft genome sequence of strain OT1, isolated from a female dog owner with bacteremia without a dog bite. The draft genome comprises 2,030,366 bp in 48 contigs.

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Nesfatin-1 is a novel anorexic peptide hormone that also exerts cardiovascular protective effects in rodent models. However, nesfatin-1 treatment at high doses also exerts vasopressor effects, which potentially limits its therapeutic application. Here, we evaluated the vasoprotective and vasopressor effects of nesfatin-1 at different doses in mouse models.

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Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a neuropeptide, and exists diverse physiological functions such as a cell protection, anti-inflammation, and neuronal proliferation and differentiation. There are many evidences that PACAP contributes to the neuronal developmental processes during embryonic periods and after the birth, and that PACAP is involved in the development in ectodermal origin including nervous system. However, few evidences have been reported that PACAP contributes to the development of the other germ layer.

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