Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Pearson.
We describe a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus, who presented with congestive heart failure. The diagnosis and favorable response to corticosteroid therapy was confirmed by myocardial biopsy and cardiac catheterization.
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The relationships between disability and school type, and aspects of the everyday lives of 11-year-old children in the GLC Spina Bifida Survey, were explored. The more disabled children were found to be less likely to go out on their own or with friends, although not less likely to go out with sibs or adults. They were equally likely to have friends visiting them at home, but less likely to have friends living in the locality, and to go out to visit them. Special school children were more often described as lonely, and of children with visible disabilities those in special schools were more often teased outside school than were those in ordinary schools. Personality ratings by teachers showed little difference between the spina bifida children and other groups of non-handicapped children, but ratings by mothers suggest that the spina bifida children were more likely to alternate between childish and adolescent behaviours.
A 54-year-old man presented with features consistent with extrinsic allergic alveolitis occurring after contact with his pet birds. Screening of the serum for avian precipitating antibody was negative but canary precipitins were present. Extrinsic allergic alveolitis to his pet canaries was confirmed by inhalation challenge.
A glycoprotein of neurohypophysial origin was found to have cofractionated with FSH prepared from pituitary glands of the green turtle, Chelonia mydas. Antiserum raised against this preparation contained high antibody titres and affinity for the neurohypophysial component and allowed development of a specific radioimmunoassay to monitor its purification and distribution in the brain. Immunocytochemistry revealed that the glycoprotein was concentrated in the pars nervosa and associated nerve tracts passing through the median eminence to the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei; similar distributions were observed in turtles and rats. The antiserum to the turtle material bound radiolabelled rat vasopressin (VP)-neurophysin and precipitated precursors of this neurophysin, but it did not cross-react with rat oxytocin-neurophysin. An amino-terminal alanine was also consistent with the structure of rat VP-neurophysin, but the turtle molecule was larger than the corresponding rat molecule. Limited tryptic digests of the turtle glycoprotein contained two components, one of which bound to lysine VP. Both components contained carbohydrate, but only the one which bound to VP cross-reacted in a radioimmunoassay for rat VP-neurophysin. The apparent surge in plasma immuno-FSH at the time of oviposition previously described in the turtle probably represented release of a neurophysin-like 'carrier' molecule associated with secretion of the neurohypophysial hormone (e.g. arginine vasotocin; AVT) responsible for oviduct contractility. These data suggest that the neurohypophysial glycoprotein represents a partially processed AVT precursor and provide the first biochemical evidence of a mammalian-like biosynthetic pathway for neurohypophysial hormones in a non-mammalian species.
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In the GLC Spina Bifida Survey families were interviewed at 11 years old and the effects of a child with spina bifida on the sibs, father and mother were explored. Health and behaviour of the sibs were reported as at least as good as that of sibs of normal children although mothers of disabled children were more likely to feel that the sibs had suffered. Fathers appeared to have been unrestricted in occupational choice; over the last 9 years 40% had moved upward in social class, twice as many as those who had moved downward. Parents of severely disabled children were significantly more restricted in some social activities than were those of the lightly disabled, and significantly more mothers of SB than of controls reported feeling run-down and depressed. No significant relationship could be found between measures of either health or stress in the parents and any measure of the child's disability level, dependence or amount of hospitalisation, nor with measures of social restriction. There is nevertheless a continuing need for help and support for families of disabled children, for them to make use of as they wish.
Over a 4-year period, 409 cases of suspected sexual abuse of children were reviewed to study sexually transmitted disease (STD). Sexually transmitted disease was identified in 54 (13%) of the 409 children: 46 cases of gonorrhea, six cases of syphilis, four cases of trichomoniasis, and three cases of condyloma acuminata. Nine of the 46 children with cultures positive for gonorrhea did not have a history of discharge. Four of the six children with syphilis also had a gonococcal infection. One child with syphilis had condyloma. Only one child had clinical features of syphilis. Sexually transmitted disease was more likely to be transmitted by an extended family member or a nonfamily member than by a father/stepfather (P less than .001). Laboratory tests that identify sexually transmitted disease may aid in the diagnosis of sexual abuse.
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Stereological analysis of the ultrastructural composition of the pulmonary alveolo-capillary region of mice living at sea level compared with that of the same species (Phyllotis darwini) genetically adapted to life at 4,660 m reveals a trend at high altitude towards a greater volume percentage of tissue components. On a weight-specific basis, non-circulating tissue occupies a significantly greater volume in high-altitude mice, but air space and capillary contents are not correspondingly greater. Since the arithmetic mean thickness of the tissue layers and of the air-blood barrier are the same in the two altitudinal groups, the average alveolus must have a smaller volume in the high-altitude mice. Epithelial, endothelial, and erythrocyte surface areas per gram body weight are significantly greater in the high-altitude mice. Nuclear counts indicate that the larger lungs of mice adapted to high altitude are due to larger Pneumocyte I and II and endothelial cells rather than to an increase in the number of these cells. Hematocrits measured within the pulmonary capillaries in the two altitudinal groups were equal. An heretofore unrecognized feature of possible adaptive value is the surface/volume ratio of erythrocytes, which is similar for erythrocytes in alveolar space of mice at low and high altitudes but within lung capillaries is 14.7% greater at high altitude.
Starting from a previously described prototype microspectrofluorometer a more versatile apparatus has been developed with rapid optional operation on a topographic mode for the simultaneous multisite evaluation of NAD(P) reduction-reoxidation transients or on a spectral mode for the analysis of natural and exogenous fluorochromes, in single living cells. On the topographic mode, adetailed kinetic analysis of NAD or NAD P-linked dehydrogenases can be made from 50-100 cell points imultaneously via automatic recording of topographic scans upt to 16 times a second, in correlation with microelectrophoretic intracellular inuection of metabolites (e.g. nearly immediate response to glucose 6-phosphate, 20-25 s delay for 6-phosphogluconate). Rapid shifts from topographic to spectral operation make possible the detection of a change in fluorescence intensity at a specific intracellular site and the immediate verification of its nature (NAD(P)H or exogenous fluorochrome) by spectral observations.
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DNA probes that detect polymorphic loci in the human genome are finding widespread application in many areas of genetic testing. Paternity testing represents one area for the application of probe technology; this report presents data obtained in a paternity testing program with a probe (pa3'HVR) derived from a locus (D16S85) approximately 8 kilobases (kb) downstream from the alpha globin gene complex on chromosome 16. The pa3'HVR probe used under stringent conditions of hybridization detects a highly polymorphic locus in chromosomal DNA digested with Pvu 2 restriction endonuclease. Alleles at the D16S85 locus were grouped into 58 size bins differing from one another by 100 base pairs in the black and white populations. The most common alleles detected in whites fell into the 2.3-kb group with a collective frequency of 0.1849. In blacks, the most common allele group is 2.0 kb with a collective frequency of 0.1333. The probe was used for restriction fragment length polymorphism mapping in conjunction with standard paternity testing techniques in 100 paternity cases. Thirty direct exclusions were encountered in the 100 cases with standard testing methods, versus 27 exclusions with the pa3'HVR probe alone. Four exclusions detected with standard methods were not detected with the probe and one exclusion detected with the probe was missed by standard testing. The probability of excluding a falsely accused man by use of the pa3'HVR probe was approximately 90 percent. In cases where exclusions were not encountered, the data obtained with the pa3'HVR probe increased the paternity index calculated from standard testing by about 16-fold.2+ informative for paternity testing.