Combined rehabilitation therapy with botulinum toxin to the upper limbs for acute spinal cord injury: A case report.

Introduction: Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and incomplete paralysis may experience muscle immobilization due to functional impairment of agonist and antagonist muscles. This can induce spasticity and pain, with the risk of contracture increasing as the period of immobilization increases. This could be aggravated by pain, which interferes with rehabilitation.

[A case of gastric cancer with peritoneal dissemination-efficacy of combination therapy with S-1 and docetaxel].

The efficiency of new anti-cancer drugs such as the S-1 system was demonstrated in a controlled study comparing treatment and non-treatment groups. We encountered a patient with gastric cancer demonstrating peritoneal dissemination, who was successfully treated by combination therapy using S-1 and docetaxel. A 62-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital due to appetite loss and nausea.

Three-dimensional finite element analysis of stress distribution in composite resin cores with fiber posts of varying diameters.

Using three-dimensional finite element analysis (3D-FEA), stress distributions in the remaining radicular tooth structure were investigated under the condition of varying diameters of fiber post for fiber post-reinforced composite resin cores (fiber post and core) in maxillary central incisors. Four 3D-FEA models were constructed: (1) fiber post (ø1.2, ø1.

Exploring developmental, functional, and evolutionary aspects of amphioxus sensory cells.

Amphioxus has neither elaborated brains nor definitive sensory organs, so that the two may have evolved in a mutually affecting manner and given rise to the forms seen in extant vertebrates. Clarifying the developmental and functional aspects of the amphioxus sensory system is thus pivotal for inferring the early evolution of vertebrates. Morphological studies have identified and classified amphioxus sensory cells; however, it is completely unknown whether the morphological classification makes sense in functional and evolutionary terms.

A trajectory of increasing activity and the elaboration of chemosensory modality: a new perspective on vertebrate origins.

This article reviews recent advances in comparative biological studies of vertebrate origins, with the aim of revisiting the long-standing controversy concerning these origins. Since early vertebrate evolution is paralleled by an evolutionary trend towards increasing activity, I focus on the evolution of respiratory and circulatory systems and discuss their potential roles in early vertebrate evolution. I give particular attention to the nasohypophyseal duct, an orifice characteristically found in agnathan vertebrates, and hypothesize that this duct originally functioned to convey oxygen dissolved in seawater to the respiratory gills.

Characterization of novel GPCR gene coding locus in amphioxus genome: gene structure, expression, and phylogenetic analysis with implications for its involvement in chemoreception.

Chemosensation is the primary sensory modality in almost all metazoans. The vertebrate olfactory receptor genes exist as tandem clusters in the genome, so that identifying their evolutionary origin would be useful for understanding the expansion of the sensory world in relation to a large-scale genomic duplication event in a lineage leading to the vertebrates. In this study, I characterized a novel GPCR (G-protein-coupled receptor) gene-coding locus from the amphioxus genome.

T-box genes in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis: characterization of cDNAs and spatial expression.

Members of the T-box family of transcription factors share an evolutionarily conserved DNA-binding domain and play significant roles in various processes of embryonic development. Vertebrate T-box genes are categorized into the following five major subfamilies (eight groups), depending on sequence similarities: Brachyury, Tbx1 (Tbx1/10, Tbx15/18/22, Tbx20), Tbx2/3/4/5 (Tbx2/3 and Tbx4/5), Tbx6, and Tbr/Eomes/TBX21. Ascidians are primitive chordates, and their tadpole larva are considered to represent the simplified and basic body plan of vertebrates.

Expression of muscle-related genes and two MyoD genes during amphioxus notochord development.

The notochord is one of the diagnostic features of the phylum Chordata. Despite the similarities in the early morphogenetic patterns of the notochords of various chordates, they are strikingly distinct from one another at the histological level. The amphioxus notochord is one example of an evolutionary novelty because it is made up of muscle cells.

Amphi-Eomes/Tbr1: an amphioxus cognate of vertebrate Eomesodermin and T-Brain1 genes whose expression reveals evolutionarily distinct domain in amphioxus development.

A cDNA for a novel T-box containing gene was isolated from the amphioxus Branchiostoma belcheri. A molecular phylogenetic tree constructed from the deduced amino acid sequence of the isolated cDNA indicates that this gene belongs to the T-Brain subfamily. In situ hybridization reveals that the expression is first detected in the invaginating archenteron at the early gastrula stage and this expression is down-regulated at the neurula stage.

Early development of amphioxus nervous system with special reference to segmental cell organization and putative sensory cell precursors: a study based on the expression of pan-neuronal marker gene Hu/elav.

The development of the nervous system of amphioxus was investigated at the cellular level based on the expression of the pan-neuronal marker gene Hu/elav. In situ hybridization analysis showed that an amphioxus Hu/elav homolog (AmphiHu/Hel) was expressed in individual cells within the neural plate, but the cells exhibited no obvious arrangements in early embryos without distinct somites. However, in neurulae with somites, AmphiHu/Hel-positive cells were clustered along the D-V axis in close register with the boundaries of somites, resulting in reiterated cell arrangements that became evident along the neuraxis.

Gene expression profiles in Ciona intestinalis tailbud embryos.

A set of 3423 expressed sequence tags derived from the Ciona intestinalis tailbud embryos was categorized into 1213 independent clusters. When compared with DNA Data Bank of Japan database, 502 clusters of them showed significant matches to reported proteins with distinct function, whereas 184 lacked sufficient information to be categorized (including reported proteins with undefined function) and 527 had no significant similarities to known proteins. Sequence similarity analyses of the 502 clusters in relation to the biosynthetic function, as well as the structure of the message population at this stage, demonstrated that 390 of them were associated with functions that many kinds of cells use, 85 with cell-cell communication and 27 with transcription factors and other gene regulatory proteins.

Indications and problems of intracranial stenting. Report of two cases.

There have been few reports of stenting in the intracranial arteries.We used coronary stents in the chronically occluded intracranial vertebral artery and stenosis of internal carotid artery by the external force, and good blood flow were resumed. Stenosis in the intracranial arteries is also a good indication for stent placement when it is due to chronic total occlusion or artery compression by external force.

The expression of nonchordate deuterostome Brachyury genes in the ascidian Ciona embryo can promote the differentiation of extra notochord cells.

The notochord is a structure present in all chordates and its development requires the transcription of Brachyury. While previous studies have shown that Brachyury is essential for notochord formation in vertebrate embryos, this gene is also expressed during the embryogenesis of nonchordate deuterostomes, hemichordates and echinoderms. Here we report that nonchordate deuterostome Brachyury genes can trigger the differentiation of extra notochord cells when these genes are ectopically expressed in ascidian embryos.

Evolutionary alterations of the minimal promoter for notochord-specific Brachyury expression in ascidian embryos.

The Brachyury genes of two divergent ascidians, As-T of Halocynthia roretzi and Ci-Bra of Ciona intestinalis, are expressed exclusively in notochord precursor cells. A previous study showed that the notochord-specific expression of Ci-Bra is controlled by a minimal promoter that is composed of three distinct regions: a region responsible for repression of expression in non-notochord mesoderm cells, a region for activation of expression in notochord cells, and a region for activation of expression in non-notochord mesoderm cells, distal to proximal to the transcription initiation site, respectively. We examined various deletion constructs of the As-T/lacZ fusion gene and demonstrate that a module between -289 and -250 bp of the 5'-flanking region is responsible for notochord-specific expression of the reporter gene.

Exogenous recombinant human IL-12 augments MHC class I antigen expression on human cancer cells in vitro.

We investigated whether expressions of MHC class I and class II antigens relevant to tumor antigen presentation were changed on human tumor cells cultured with or without recombinant human IL-12(rhIL-12). We showed that the expression of MHC class I antigen on UTC-8, 28-1Cl and SBC-3 cells was augmented when these cancer cells were cultured with rhIL-12. The expression of class II antigen was slightly raised on UTC-8 and 28-1Cl cells by rhIL-12, but not enhanced on SBC-3 cells.

CT angiography with helical CT in the assessment of acute stage of subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Purpose: We evaluated the usefulness of helical CT in the preoperative assessment of ruptured cerebral aneurysms during the acute stage of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH).

Methods: Nine patients with 13 aneurysms were included in this study. Helical CT scanning was performed before preoperative angiography.

The role of three-dimensional computed tomography in the management of maxillofacial bone fractures.

The findings of three-dimensional computed tomography (3DCT) and two-dimensional computed tomography (2DCT) with helical CT scanning were compared for 21 patients with maxillofacial bone fractures. The results of this study suggest that the 3DCT evaluation can be divided into 3 groups. The first group, in which 3DCT is superior to 2DCT, includes severe complicated midface fractures, for example, tripod fractures and complicated maxillary bone fractures.

Collagen formation at the tooth-cell interface: comparative ultrastructural study on the effect of partial demineralization of cementum with dentin.

In order to compare the effect of partial demineralization with root planing and partial demineralization of cementum with that of dentin on healing, the ultrastructural morphology of the interface between the layer of human periodontal ligament-derived, fibroblast-like cells (HPF) and the treated root surface was studied in an in vitro culture system. Sixty (60) pairs made from transversally-cut root slices, 500 microns thick, were obtained from extracted human periodontally diseased teeth. Thirty (30) pairs of the root slices were preliminarily root planed (RP).

Relationships between the slope of the oxygen equilibrium curve and the cooperativity of hemoglobin as analyzed using a normalized oxygen pressure scale.

The oxygen equilibrium curve (OEC) for hemoglobin, which is usually expressed as a S vs. P plot, was expressed by normalizing P by Pdmax, where S is oxygen saturation, P is partial pressure of oxygen, and Pdmax is P at which the slope of the usual OEC is maximized. The maximal slope of normalized OEC gives Pdmax.

Sigmoid shape of the oxygen equilibrium curve and the P50 of human hemoglobin.

The fractional saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen was plotted against P/P50 and the slope of the abscissa at 1 was calculated for 38 OEC data sets of human Hb A. There was a linear correlation between the slope and the Hill coefficient (nmax), and the slope was about one-fourth that of nmax. This implies that the slope of the abscissa at 1 of Y vs P/P50 plot can provide information about the magnitude of cooperativity in hemoglobin oxygen binding.

Cerebral cysticercosis: a case report.

A case of cerebral cysticercosis is reported in a 49-year-old female who presented with headache, nausea, and vomiting. Lumbar CSF showed the findings of mild aseptic meningitis. CT scan revealed an enlargement of the left ambient cistern and a small cystic lesion in the left frontal cortex.

The permeability change of major cerebral arteries in experimental vasospasm.

The influence of vasospasm on the permeability of the major cerebral arteries was studied using horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Experimental vasospasm was produced in canine basilar arteries by successive injections, 2 days apart, of autologous blood into the cisterna magna. HRP was injected intravenously or intracisternally 48 hours after the second injection of autologous blood, and all animals were killed by perfusion fixation 60 minutes after the injection of HRP.

[Arterial infusion chemotherapy and embolization in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma using an intraarterial catheter].

We performed arterial infusion chemotherapy and embolization on 22 patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma via an intraarterial catheter, which was inserted in the hepatic artery under laparotomy. The administration frequency of intraarterial chemotherapy on a patient was 1 to 155 with a median of 17, while that of embolization was 1 to 6 with a median of 2.5.