Preparation of rough microsomes from rat liver.

This protocol describes how to prepare rat liver rough microsomes that contain undegraded membrane-bound polysomes and can function very well in an in vitro translation system. It uses endogenous ribonuclease inhibitor in all steps, avoiding pelleting rough microsomes in all steps and sacrificing good recovery.

Toric topographically customized transepithelial, pulsed, very high-fluence, higher energy and higher riboflavin concentration collagen cross-linking in keratoconus.

Purpose: To report a novel application of toric topographically customized transepithelial collagen cross-linking (CXL) aiming to achieve refractive astigmatic changes in a keratoconic cornea.

Methods: Specially formulated riboflavin transepithelial administration and delivery of high-fluence UVA in a topographically customized pattern was applied in an eye with progressive keratoconus. Visual acuity, cornea clarity, keratometry, topography, and pachymetry with a multitude of modalities, as well as endothelial cell counts were evaluated for >6 months.

Long-term safety and efficacy of high-fluence collagen crosslinking of the vehicle cornea in Boston keratoprosthesis type 1.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of very high-fluence collagen crosslinking (CXL) as a means of achieving increased corneal rigidity and reduced enzymatic digestion in the vehicle cornea of Boston keratoprosthesis (KPro) type 1.

Methods: Eleven consecutive patients fitted with a KPro (5 with a previous repeat cornea graft failure, 4 with ocular cicatricial pemphigoid, and 2 with chemical burn) underwent donor vehicle cornea pretreatment with very high-fluence prophylactic CXL in a 2-step procedure. First, the donor cornea was crosslinked with an intrastromal riboflavin instillation through a femtosecond laser-created pocket.

Epithelial remodeling after femtosecond laser-assisted high myopic LASIK: comparison of stand-alone with LASIK combined with prophylactic high-fluence cross-linking.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible topographic epithelial profile thickness changes (remodeling) after high myopic femtosecond laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) with concurrent prophylactic high-fluence cross-linking (CXL) in comparison with standard femtosecond LASIK.

Methods: Preoperative and 6-month postoperative 3-dimensional epithelial thickness distribution maps were investigated through clinical spectral domain anterior-segment optical coherence tomography in 2 groups of femtosecond laser-assisted myopic LASIK cases. Group A represented 67 eyes treated additionally with concurrent prophylactic CXL (LASIK-Xtra); group B represented 72 eyes subjected to stand-alone femtosecond LASIK.

The impact of geographic, ethnic, and demographic dynamics on the perception of beauty.

Background: Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, but influenced by the individual's geographic, ethnic, and demographic background and characteristics. In plastic surgery, objective measurements are used as a foundation for aesthetic evaluations. This study assumes interdependence between variables such as country of residence, sex, age, occupation, and aesthetic perception.

In vivo three-dimensional corneal epithelium imaging in normal eyes by anterior-segment optical coherence tomography: a clinical reference study.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of real-time measurement of corneal epithelial thickness and investigate the distribution characteristics in a large normal-eye population using a clinically available spectral-domain anterior-segment optical coherence tomography (AS OCT) system.

Methods: Corneal epithelial thickness distribution and topographic thickness variability were clinically investigated using AS OCT imaging in 373 patients with normal, healthy eyes. Descriptive statistics investigated 3 sets of subgroups, male (n = 171) and female (n = 202), younger (n = 194) and older (n = 179), right eyes (n = 195) and left eyes (n = 197).

Anterior segment optical coherence tomography: assisted topographic corneal epithelial thickness distribution imaging of a keratoconus patient.

Purpose: To evaluate safety, efficacy and ease of measurement of epithelial thickness in a keratoconic patient based on anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT).

Methods: A 25-year-old male patient, previously diagnosed with keratoconus, with highly asymmetric manifestation among the two eyes, was subjected to AS-OCT corneal epithelial imaging. We investigated epithelial thickness and epithelial topographic thickness distribution.

The role of MuSK in synapse formation and neuromuscular disease.

Muscle-specific kinase (MuSK) is essential for each step in neuromuscular synapse formation. Before innervation, MuSK initiates postsynaptic differentiation, priming the muscle for synapse formation. Approaching motor axons recognize the primed, or prepatterned, region of muscle, causing motor axons to stop growing and differentiate into specialized nerve terminals.

Three-dimensional LASIK flap thickness variability: topographic central, paracentral and peripheral assessment, in flaps created by a mechanical microkeratome (M2) and two different femtosecond lasers (FS60 and FS200).

Purpose: To evaluate programmed versus achieved laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) flap central thickness and investigate topographic flap thickness variability, as well as the effect of potential epithelial remodeling interference on flap thickness variability.

Patients And Methods: Flap thickness was investigated in 110 eyes that had had bilateral myopic LASIK several years ago (average 4.5 ± 2.

Long-term bladeless LASIK outcomes with the FS200 Femtosecond and EX500 Excimer Laser workstation: the Refractive Suite.

Purpose: The evaluation of the safety, efficacy, and long-term stability of LASIK procedures utilizing novel platform comprising a femtosecond and excimer laser and multiple networked diagnostics.

Setting: Private clinical ophthalmology practice.

Patients And Methods: In consecutive cases of myopic LASIK procedure with a novel refractive platform (FS200 Femtosecond and EX500 Excimer Laser), 190 eyes (from 109 different patients) were evaluated pre- and postoperatively for the following parameters: refractive error, best corrected distance visual acuity, uncorrected distance visual acuity, topography (Placido-disc based) and tomography (Scheimpflug-image based), wavefront analysis, pupillometry, and contrast sensitivity.

Interaction of bacteriophage l with its E. coli receptor, LamB.

The initial step of viral infection is the binding of a virus onto the host cell surface. This first viral-host interaction would determine subsequent infection steps and the fate of the entire infection process. A basic understating of the underlining mechanism of initial virus-host binding is a prerequisite for establishing the nature of viral infection.

Effects of pioglitazone on metabolic abnormalities, psychopathology, and cognitive function in schizophrenic patients treated with antipsychotic medication: a randomized double-blind study.

Background: Schizophrenic patients treated with antipsychotic drugs (AP) have an increased frequency of glucose-lipid metabolic abnormalities and diabetes. Pioglitazone has been shown to be effective in the treatment of glucose and lipid abnormalities in diabetes and decreasing longer-term conversion of impaired glucose tolerance to frank diabetes. Some studies also suggest possible pro-cognitive and antidepressant effects of pioglitazone.

Increasing MuSK activity delays denervation and improves motor function in ALS mice.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating disease that progresses from detachment of motor nerve terminals to complete muscle paralysis and lethal respiratory failure within 5 years of diagnosis. Genetic studies have linked mutations in several genes to ALS, and mice bearing mutations in SOD1 recapitulate hallmark features of the disease. We investigated whether disease symptoms can be ameliorated by co-opting the retrograde signaling pathway that promotes attachment of nerve terminals to muscle.

Introduction: babies in the consulting room: what happens when analyst, mother, and infant meet?

Analytic work with a pregnant woman may foster the psychological gestation of the self-as-mother. For the mother--as for the infant--the developmental process continues well beyond delivery. It should not surprise us, then, that many mothers continue to bring their babies to sessions after birth.

The effect of Phase 2 of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration on incentive payments to hospitals caring for disadvantaged patients.

Objective: The Medicare and Premier Inc. Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID), a hospital-based pay-for-performance program, changed its incentive design from one rewarding only high performance (Phase 1) to another rewarding high performance, moderate performance, and improvement (Phase 2). We tested whether this design change reduced the gap in incentive payments among hospitals treating patients across the gradient of socioeconomic disadvantage.

The extracellular region of Lrp4 is sufficient to mediate neuromuscular synapse formation.

Neuromuscular synapse formation requires an exchange of signals between motor neurons and muscle. Agrin, supplied by motor neurons, binds to Lrp4 in muscle, stimulating phosphorylation of MuSK and recruitment of a signaling complex essential for synapse-specific transcription and anchoring of key proteins in the postsynaptic membrane. Lrp4, like the LDLR and other Lrp-family members, contains an intracellular region with motifs that can regulate receptor trafficking, as well as assembly of an intracellular signaling complex.

L3MBTL2 protein acts in concert with PcG protein-mediated monoubiquitination of H2A to establish a repressive chromatin structure.

We have identified human MBT domain-containing protein L3MBTL2 as an integral component of a protein complex that we termed Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1)-like 4 (PRC1L4), given the copresence of PcG proteins RING1, RING2, and PCGF6/MBLR. PRC1L4 also contained E2F6 and CBX3/HP1γ, known to function in transcriptional repression. PRC1L4-mediated repression necessitated L3MBTL2 that compacted chromatin in a histone modification-independent manner.

Cerebellar motor learning versus cerebellar motor timing: the climbing fibre story.

Theories concerning the role of the climbing fibre system in motor learning, as opposed to those addressing the olivocerebellar system in the organization of motor timing, are briefly contrasted. The electrophysiological basis for the motor timing hypothesis in relation to the olivocerebellar system is treated in detail.

Hospital performance, the local economy, and the local workforce: findings from a US National Longitudinal Study.

Background: Pay-for-performance is an increasingly popular approach to improving health care quality, and the US government will soon implement pay-for-performance in hospitals nationwide. Yet hospital capacity to perform (and improve performance) likely depends on local resources. In this study, we quantify the association between hospital performance and local economic and human resources, and describe possible implications of pay-for-performance for socioeconomic equity.

Effects of olanzapine and risperidone on glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity in chronic schizophrenic patients with long-term antipsychotic treatment: a randomized 5-month study.

Background: Comparisons of diabetic potential, glucose related metabolic levels, and insulin resistance between olanzapine and risperidone have produced variable results in cross-sectional and epidemiologic studies. Randomized prospective studies of metabolic effects during treatment with these drugs may provide results that are more informative.

Method: Hospitalized patients with chronic schizophrenia (DSM-IV), most of whom had been treated with multiple antipsychotics in the past, were randomly assigned to treatment with a single antipsychotic, olanzapine or risperidone, for a period of 5 months.

Lrp4 is a receptor for Agrin and forms a complex with MuSK.

Neuromuscular synapse formation requires a complex exchange of signals between motor neurons and skeletal muscle fibers, leading to the accumulation of postsynaptic proteins, including acetylcholine receptors in the muscle membrane and specialized release sites, or active zones in the presynaptic nerve terminal. MuSK, a receptor tyrosine kinase that is expressed in skeletal muscle, and Agrin, a motor neuron-derived ligand that stimulates MuSK phosphorylation, play critical roles in synaptic differentiation, as synapses do not form in their absence, and mutations in MuSK or downstream effectors are a major cause of a group of neuromuscular disorders, termed congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS). How Agrin activates MuSK and stimulates synaptic differentiation is not known and remains a fundamental gap in our understanding of signaling at neuromuscular synapses.

Beyond histone methyl-lysine binding: how malignant brain tumor (MBT) protein L3MBTL1 impacts chromatin structure.

Alterations in gene expression are commonly accompanied by changes in chromatin structure. Histone lysine residues of the so called "histone tails" are subject to various post-translational modifications among which methylation has been extensively studied over the past years. The presence and the extent of methylation on histone lysine residues somehow mediate chromatin structural changes that contribute to activation or repression of gene expression.