Strategies for training standardized patient instructors for a competency exam.

The Common Achievement Test (CAT) in Japan, which will be implemented in 2005, involves a medical interview that is the core task to be completed by students during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Standardized/Simulated Patient instructors (SPs), posing as patients in medical interviews, are trained in standard fashion in terms of expression of symptoms as well as the emotional affect of actual patients. Institution of appropriate training programs for SP instructors in the CAT is also necessary.

RETRACTED: A human chondrogenic cell line retains multi-potency that differentiates into osteoblasts and adipocytes.

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Recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 promotes Indian hedgehog-mediated osteo-chondrogenic differentiation of a human chondrocytic cell line in vivo and in vitro.

We examined osteo-chondrogenic differentiation of a human chondrocytic cell line (USAC) by rhBMP-2 in vivo and in vitro. USAC was established from a transplanted tumor to athymic mouse derived from an osteogenic sarcoma of the mandible. USAC usually shows chondrocytic phenotypes in vivo and in vitro.

Age-related increases in LPS-stimulated nitric oxide production from cultured rat bone marrow cells.

Objective: To understand bone metabolism during senescence, we examined age-related change in nitric oxide (NO) production from bone marrow cells stimulated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS).

Methods: We evaluated the age-related change in the NO production and expression of iNOS protein and mRNA of LPS-stimulated bone marrow cells collected from the tibiae of young and retired female and young and retired male rats. In addition, we used flow cytometry to assess changes in the distribution of CD14, a cell surface receptor of LPS.

Adhesion of a chondrocytic cell line (USAC) to fibronectin and its regulation by proteoglycan.

Background: Chondrocytes produce various extracellular matrices during chondrogenesis. Fibronectin and proteoglycan are major extracellular matrix proteins in cartilage tissue, but the interactions between them are not clear.

Methods: Recently, we succeeded in establishing a cell line (USAC) with phenotypes of chondrocytes from a human osteogenic sarcoma of the mandible.