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Biomedical subjects

B Brooks

Publications and source records attributed to B Brooks.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1986

The effect of galanin on canine plasma glucose and gastroenteropancreatic hormone responses to oral nutrients and intravenous arginine.

Intravenous infusion of galanin into conscious dogs during ingestion of oral glucose or a mixed meal or during iv infusion of arginine resulted in significant blunting of plasma insulin responses and significant increases in plasma glucose levels compared to those in control experiments. Galanin infusions did not significantly alter plasma gastric inhibitory peptide responses to oral glucose or a mixed meal, or plasma gastrin, pancreatic polypeptide, or pancreatic glucagon responses to a mixed meal. Similarly, galanin infusions did not significantly alter pancreatic glucagon responses to iv arginine. In all experimental situations, on cessation of the galanin infusions, prompt elevation of plasma insulin levels occurred. These results suggest that in the conscious dog, galanin administration produces a relatively selective, but readily reversible, inhibition of insulin secretion stimulated by oral nutrients or iv arginine.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Renal medullary system of blood pressure control.

The renal medulla contains cells in its papillary portion, the renomedullary interstitial cells (RIC), that secrete a blood pressure-controlling hormone. This hormone system has been identified by classic types of experiments as developed by Bayliss and Starling, Goldblatt, Byrom and Dodson and Berthold. The antihypertensive neutral renomedullary lipid is the putative hormone. This hormonal system is antagonized by angiotensin II. It antagonizes the blood pressure (BP) elevating effects of salt.

Angiotensin II↗
PubMed1985

The morphology and antihypertensive effect of renomedullary interstitial cells derived from Dahl sensitive and resistant rats.

The renomedullary interstitial cell (RIC) has been implicated in the antihypertensive action of the kidney. This cell has been isolated in tissue culture and shown to have an antihypertensive action in several models of experimental hypertension. Morphometric studies of RIC in vivo from Dahl rats sensitive and resistant to the hypertensive effects of high-salt diets indicate major differences between the RICs. These cells were therefore isolated from salt-sensitive and salt-resistant strains of rat, grown, and maintained in tissue culture. Major morphologic differences between the two cell lines were noted and persisted for multiple tissue culture passages. The cells from resistant animals were larger and had more lipid granules. These differences were similar to those seen in vivo. In short-term experiments these cells were compared for their antihypertensive effect. The two cell lines were injected subcutaneously into two groups of hypertensive recipient rats, one group of Dahl salt-sensitive rats on a high-salt diet and one group of Wistar rats subjected to the one-kidney, one-clip Goldblatt procedure. In both cases differences were noted between the cell lines. These data support the concept that differences between the Dahl salt-sensitive and salt-resistant rats may be related to variations in their RIC.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Normal modes for specific motions of macromolecules: application to the hinge-bending mode of lysozyme.

A method is presented for finding particular normal modes for large molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. The method is based on an iterative approach that extracts eigenvectors of interest from the full second-derivative matrix. Application of the method to the interdomain (hinge-bending) motion of lysozyme yields a frequency of 3.6 cm-1. This is similar to the value obtained from earlier adiabatic-energy-minimization studies. Analysis of the mode shows that the relaxation associated with the hinge bending is highly delocalized; that is, the dihedral angle and energy changes are distributed over many residues, including some (e.g., Trp-28) that are distant from the cleft and hinge region.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Nucleotide sequences of the Pseudomonas savastanoi indoleacetic acid genes show homology with Agrobacterium tumefaciens T-DNA.

We report the nucleotide sequences of iaaM and iaaH, the genetic determinants for, respectively, tryptophan 2-monooxygenase and indoleacetamide hydrolase, the enzymes that catalyze the conversion of L-tryptophan to indoleacetic acid in the tumor-forming bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. savastanoi. The sequence analysis indicates that the iaaM locus contains an open reading frame encoding 557 amino acids that would comprise a protein with a molecular weight of 61,783; the iaaH locus contains an open reading frame of 455 amino acids that would comprise a protein with a molecular weight of 48,515. Significant amino acid sequence homology was found between the predicted sequence of the tryptophan monooxygenase of P. savastanoi and the deduced product of the T-DNA tms-1 gene of the octopine-type plasmid pTiA6NC from Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Strong homology was found in the 25 amino acid sequence in the putative FAD-binding region of tryptophan monooxygenase. Homology was also found in the amino acid sequences representing the central regions of the putative products of iaaH and tms-2 T-DNA. The results suggest a strong similarity in the pathways for indoleacetic acid synthesis encoded by genes in P. savastanoi and in A. tumefaciens T-DNA.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1985

Mumps as a cause of admission to hospital: an estimate for Western Australia 1981.

Close to 40% of children admitted to Princess Margaret Hospital with mumps over the period 1979 to 1982 were diagnosed retrospectively as a result of virological tests and their illness was not coded as being due to mumps. This clinical underestimate of the incidence of mumps is due to the frequent absence of salivary gland enlargement, especially in preschool children. In such cases there is usually evidence of inflammation of the upper respiratory tract. The main clinical features leading to admission were neck stiffness, fits and high fever. An appropriate adjustment was made to the figures obtained from the computerised data on discharges with the diagnosis of mumps from Western Australian hospitals in 1981. This led to the estimate that 104 patients suffering from mumps were discharged from hospital during that year. It was also estimated that mumps was responsible for 379 in-patient days. Our findings show that the benefit cost ratios for mumps immunization of others are underestimates.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Sexually abused children and adolescent identity development.

This study of 29 female adolescents revealed a history of sexual abuse in 18 of the subjects. Four of the girls had an incest history. Results from the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) rating scale revealed two distinct kinds of symptom profiles: the distressed and the no-problem. Treatment implications are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

A simple nutrition screening procedure for hospital patients.

Nutrition screening is the process of identifying hospital patients with a high risk for nutrition problems who may require comprehensive nutrition assessment. Dietitians at a 700-bed teaching hospital recently implemented a nutrition screening program remarkable for efficient use of existing personnel resources. The three-step procedure includes a nutrition questionnaire completed by the patient in the hospital admissions office, measurement of each patient's height and weight by an admissions nurse, and addition of the patient's serum albumin concentration plus summary and recommendations for nutrition intervention by a registered dietitian. The procedure reduces the time needed for individual evaluation from 25 to 5 minutes and results in 1 1/2-hour time saving per day per clinical dietitian. Patients designated as "high risk" by this method appear to be more seriously ill, as shown by significantly longer hospitalization. The nutrition screening procedure described is simple, efficient, and applicable to a wide variety of institutional settings.

Admitting Department, Hospital↗
PubMed1984

Calorie and protein intake and balance of men and women consuming self-selected diets.

The calorie and protein intakes of 16 women and 13 men consuming self-selected diets over a 1-yr period were determined. During four 7-day balance periods, corresponding to the four seasons of the year, duplicates of diets consumed and urine and feces excreted were collected for analysis and calculations of available energy and nitrogen balance. During the four balance periods, the food intakes and thus the calorie and protein intake of the subjects decreased as documented by 7-day food records immediately before and after the balance periods. This unexpected decrease in food consumption made the nitrogen (N) balance results difficult to interpret. The energy digestibility of these diets ranged from 87 to 98% (mean +/- SD, 93.7 +/- 2.3). The nitrogen digestibility of the diets ranged from 80 to 96% (mean +/- SD, 88.6 +/- 3.4). The analyzed calorie values (heats of combustion) of the diet composites were approximately the same as calorie values of these diets calculated from diet records using food tables. This is surprising since calorie values in food tables are available energies which have been corrected by a coefficient of availability.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Morphometric studies on the rat renal papilla of resistant and sensitive strains in partial nephrectomy salt hypertension.

The renomedullary interstitial cell (RIC) was studied morphometrically in the partial nephrectomy-salt (Chanutin-Ferris) model of hypertension. The RIC were compared in four strains of rat, two of them being resistant to the induction of this form of hypertension and two of them being sensitive. The Dahl salt-resistant (R/JR) rat was compared to a commercial Sprague-Dawley (SD) strain, and a Wistar derived strain discovered in Belgrade by Susic and Kentera (WB) was compared to a commercial Wistar strain (W). In both studies, resistance and sensitivity correlated well with the state of the RIC before the experimental procedure, the resistant strain having more numerous and better granulated RIC than the sensitive strain. It may therefore be possible to predict salt-resistance or sensitivity in rats by morphological examination of the RIC.

Animals↗
PubMed1983

CPR skills retention of lay basic rescuers.

In 1979-1980, 950 telephone company personnel were trained and tested at the basic rescuer level on recording manikins. In October 1981, a random group of 40 were retested without warning on the recording manikin. Skills retention was measured by comparing the tapes from training and retesting. Sixteen (40%) of those retested were able to perform effective ventilations and compressions of the manikin with 60% to 70% average retention compared to their training scores. The remaining 24 (60%) had ineffective ventilations or compressions or both. The two groups did not differ in the performance level achieved during training, or in the time interval between training and retesting. Eleven individuals retested at 13 to 14 months did not perform better than those retested later, suggesting the maximum skills deterioration had occurred within the first year. However, the effective performance group on the average were younger, and the majority had first aid training in addition to their CPR training. Only one had CPR retraining. This study supports the following recommendations: 1) lay basic rescuers should be retrained within the first year; 2) further studies of the factors influencing retention are advisable; 3) the younger age groups should be the first priority for citizen CPR training; and 4) because first aid training appears to improve CPR retention, training in both should be encouraged.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Harmonic dynamics of proteins: normal modes and fluctuations in bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor.

A normal mode analysis making use of an empirical potential function including local and nonlocal (nonbonded) interactions is performed for the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor in the full conformational space of the molecule (1,740 degrees of freedom); that is, all bond lengths and angles, as well as dihedral angles, are included for the 580-atom system consisting of all heavy atoms and polar hydrogens. The heavy-atom frequency spectrum shows a dense distribution between 3 and 1,800 cm-1, with 350 modes below 216 cm-1. Most of the low-frequency modes, of which many have significant anharmonic character, are found to be delocalized over the protein. The root-mean-square amplitudes of the atomic fluctuations are calculated at 300 K from the normal modes and compared with those obtained from a solution molecular dynamics simulation based on the same potential function; very good agreement is obtained for the variation in the main-chain fluctuations as a function of residue number, though larger differences occur for the side chains. The fluctuations are generally, though not always, dominated by frequencies below 30 cm-1, in accord with the results of the dynamics simulation. The vibrational contributions to the thermodynamic properties of the protein are calculated as a function of temperature; the effects of perturbations on the spectrum, suggested for ligand or substrate binding, are examined. The analysis demonstrates that, in spite of the anharmonic contributions to the potential, a normal mode description can provide useful results concerning the internal motions of proteins.

Animals↗