A Five-Year Longitudinal Assessment of Quality of Life in Patients Who Have Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head Undergoing Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Multicenter Study.

Background: The effects of surgical treatment on the quality of life (QOL) of patients who have osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) have been rarely reported. This multicenter study aimed to elucidate the longitudinal QOL in patients who have ONFH undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA).

Methods: Self-assessment QOL questionnaires, including the Japanese Orthopaedic Association Hip Disease Evaluation Questionnaire (JHEQ), Oxford Hip Score (OHS), and 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey Version 2 (SF-12v2), were administered to 124 patients at six months, one year, two and five years postoperatively.

Monitoring metabolic reactions in Staphylococcus epidermidis exposed to silicon nitride using in situ time-lapse Raman spectroscopy.

Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis) is one of the leading nosocomial pathogens, particularly associated with periprosthetic infections of biomedical implants. Silicon nitride (Si3N4), a nonoxide biomaterial widely used in spinal implants, has shown bacteriostatic effects against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria; however, the physicochemical interactions between Si3N4 and bacteria yet remain conspicuously unexplored.

Blebbistatin, a myosin II inhibitor, suppresses contraction and disrupts contractile filaments organization of skinned taenia cecum from guinea pig.

To explore the precise mechanisms of the inhibitory effects of blebbistatin, a potent inhibitor of myosin II, on smooth muscle contraction, we studied the blebbistatin effects on the mechanical properties and the structure of contractile filaments of skinned (cell membrane permeabilized) preparations from guinea pig taenia cecum. Blebbistatin at 10 microM or higher suppressed Ca(2+)-induced tension development at any given Ca(2+) concentration but had little effects on the Ca(2+)-induced myosin light chain phosphorylation. Blebbistatin also suppressed the 10 and 2.

Volume-sensitive outwardly rectifying chloride channel in white adipocytes from normal and diabetic mice.

The volume-sensitive outwardly rectifying (VSOR) chloride channel is ubiquitously expressed and involved in cell volume regulation after osmotic swelling, called regulatory volume decrease (RVD), in various cell types. In adipocytes, the expression of the VSOR channel has not been explored to date. Here, by employing the whole-cell patch-clamp technique, we examined whether or not the VSOR channel is expressed in white adipocytes freshly isolated from epididymal fat pads of normal (C57BL/6 or KK) and diabetic (KKA(y)) mice.

Enhanced sodium-dependent extrusion of magnesium in mutant cells established from a mouse renal tubular cell line.

To study the regulatory mechanisms of intracellular Mg(2+) concentration ([Mg(2+)](i)) in renal tubular cells as well as in other cell types, we established a mutant strain of mouse renal cortical tubular cells that can grow in culture media with very high extracellular Mg(2+) concentrations ([Mg(2+)](o) > 100 mM: 101Mg-tolerant cells). [Mg(2+)](i) was measured with a fluorescent indicator furaptra (mag-fura 2) in wild-type and 101Mg-tolerant cells. The average level of [Mg(2+)](i) in the 101Mg-tolerant cells was kept lower than that in the wild-type cells either at 51 mM or 1 mM [Mg(2+)](o).

Effects of dietary calcium restriction and acute exercise on the antioxidant enzyme system and oxidative stress in rat diaphragm.

Calcium deficiency is considered to increase intracellular calcium level; thus the aim of the current study was to elucidate whether dietary calcium restriction enhanced exercise-induced oxidative stress in rat diaphragm. Twenty male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to either a control group or a group subjected to 1 mo of calcium restriction. In addition, each group was subsequently subdivided into rested or acutely exercised group.