Clinical Characteristics of Nursing- and Healthcare-Associated Tuberculosis.

Unlabelled: Tuberculosis remains a serious health problem worldwide. Patients with tuberculosis who also require nursing care due to aging and underlying diseases are considered to have a high mortality rate; however, there are few studies describing detailed examinations of such disease conditions.

Objective: The present study was conducted to investigate differences in clinical features of elderly tuberculosis patients according to the levels of nursing and healthcare required.

A case of surgery for congenital esophagobronchial fistula accompanied by a destroyed lung.

Congenital esophagobronchial fistula (EBF) is rarely seen in adults. We report a case of EBF detected in adulthood with a destroyed lung. A 67-year-old man experienced repeated pneumonia during his childhood.

Transient activation of c-MYC expression is critical for efficient platelet generation from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Human (h) induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a potentially abundant source of blood cells, but how best to select iPSC clones suitable for this purpose from among the many clones that can be simultaneously established from an identical source is not clear. Using an in vitro culture system yielding a hematopoietic niche that concentrates hematopoietic progenitors, we show that the pattern of c-MYC reactivation after reprogramming influences platelet generation from hiPSCs. During differentiation, reduction of c-MYC expression after initial reactivation of c-MYC expression in selected hiPSC clones was associated with more efficient in vitro generation of CD41a(+)CD42b(+) platelets.

[Short-term efficacy evaluation of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis treated with micafangin and maintenance therapy of itraconazole].

We evaluated both the short-and long-term efficacy of micafungin in patients with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA). We treated 26 patients with CPA, 19 with chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis (CNPA) and 7 with aspergilloma, with micafungin between February 2003 and September 2005. On completion of treatment (short-term efficacy evaluation), the efficacy rates of micafungin for CNPA and aspergilloma were 52.

Inhibitory effects of polyphenols on human cytochrome P450 3A4 and 2C9 activity.

Polyphenols present in foods and supplements may contribute to human health by preventing cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Drug-food or drug-herb interactions have recently come into focus but, except for some phytochemicals, few components of food or herbs participate in such interactions. In this study, we systematically evaluated the inhibitory effects of 60 polyphenols and related compounds on human cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4 and CYP2C9 activity by in vitro assay to investigate whether some polyphenols induce drug interactions.

Effects of chlorogenic acid and its metabolites on spontaneous locomotor activity in mice.

Chlorogenic acid possessed a weak caffeine-like psychostimulant property when assessed for its effect on spontaneous locomotor activity in mice. In the evaluation of the effects for the major metabolites of chlorogenic acid which were detected upon incubation with rat feces and/or excreted in urine after oral administration to rats, caffeic and m-coumaric acids were found to be the principal active metabolites, while the others contributed little to this caffeine-like psychostimulant activity.

Urinary excretion of anthocyanins in humans after cranberry juice ingestion.

Cranberry, which is rich in polyphenols, including anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, has been found to have various effects beneficial to human health, including prevention of urinary tract infections. These effects have been associated with polyphenols in the fruit. We investigated the excretion of anthocyanins in human urine after ingestion of cranberry juice.

Assembly of additional heterochromatin distinct from centromere-kinetochore chromatin is required for de novo formation of human artificial chromosome.

Alpha-satellite (alphoid) DNA is necessary for de novo formation of human artificial chromosomes (HACs) in human cultured cells. To investigate the relationship among centromeric, transcriptionally permissive and non-permissive chromatin assemblies on de novo HAC formation, we constructed bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-based linear HAC vectors whose left vector arms are occupied by beta geo coding genes with or without a functional promoter in addition to a common marker gene on the right arm. Although HACs were successfully generated from the vectors with promoter-less constructs on the left arm in HT1080 cells, we failed to generate a stable HAC from the vectors with a functional promoter on the left arm.

Effects of chlorogenic acid and its metabolites on the sleep-wakefulness cycle in rats.

The effect of chlorogenic acid on the sleep-wakefulness cycle in rats was investigated in comparison with those of caffeic acid (the metabolite of chlorogenic acid) and dihydrocaffeic acid (the metabolite of caffeic acid). A significant prolongation of sleep latency was observed with chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid at a dose of 500 and 200 mg/kg, respectively. On the other hand, no remarkable effects were observed with dihydrocaffeic acid even at a dose of 500 mg/kg.