Normal volunteers, aged 30 to 99 years, were studied with MRI. Age was related to estimated volumes of: gray matter, white matter, and CSF of the cerebrum and cerebellum; gray matter, white matter, white matter abnormality, and CSF within each cerebral lobe; and gray matter of eight subcortical structures. The results were: 1) Age-related losses in the hippocampus were significantly accelerated relative to gray matter losses elsewhere in the brain. 2) Among the cerebral lobes, the frontal lobes were disproportionately affected by cortical volume loss and increased white matter abnormality. 3) Loss of cerebral and cerebellar white matter occurred later than, but was ultimately greater than, loss of gray matter. It is estimated that between the ages of 30 and 90 volume loss averages 14% in the cerebral cortex, 35% in the hippocampus, and 26% in the cerebral white matter. Separate analyses were conducted in which genetic risk associated with the Apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele was either overrepresented or underrepresented among elderly participants. Accelerated loss of hippocampal volume was observed with both analyses and thus does not appear to be due to the presence of at-risk subjects. MR signal alterations in the tissues of older individuals pose challenges to the validity of current methods of tissue segmentation, and should be considered in the interpretation of the results.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Eosinophilic lung inflammation in particulate-induced lung injury: technical consideration in isolating RNA for gene expression studies.

Particulate and other pollutant exposures are associated with lung injury and inflammation. The purpose of this study was to develop an approach by which intact RNA could be obtained from inflamed lung tissue from particulate-exposed animals in order to correlate injury with specific gene expression. Male Sprague Dawley (SD) and Fischer-344 (F-344) rats were intratracheally instilled with saline or residual oil fly ash (ROFA) particles, 8.3 mg/kg body weight in saline. At various time points following ROFA instillation, lungs were either lavaged or used for RNA isolation. ROFA exposure produced an increase in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) neutrophils in both SD and F-344 rats. A time-dependent increase in eosinophils occurred only in SD rats but not in F-344 rats. Extraction of inflamed pulmonary tissue having a high influx of eosinophils for RNA using the conventional acid guanidinium thiocyanate phenol-chloroform (AGPC) procedure failed to provide undegraded RNA suitable for RT-PCR and Northern blot analysis of beta-actin mRNA expression. Mixing intact total RNA from saline control rat lungs with degraded RNA samples from inflamed lung yielded a gel profile of degraded RNA, indicating the presence of ribonuclease-like activity in the RNA extracted from lung tissues having eosinophil influx. Evidently, the conventional AGPC procedure failed to completely remove ribonuclease activity associated with ROFA-induced pulmonary eosinophil influx. This study reports a single-step modification to the AGPC extraction method that does not require additional reagents or additional precipitation steps for extracting undegraded RNA from nuclease-rich inflamed lung tissue. The aqueous layer resulting from mixing homogenate and chloroform is extracted a second time using an equal volume of AGPC buffer followed by addition of chloroform and centrifugation. The second aqueous phase is then treated as described in the conventional RNA extraction protocol. This simple and convenient modification does not require multiple precipitations of RNA and yields undegraded RNA from inflamed lung tissue with a slightly higher A260/A280 ratio without affecting overall RNA recovery. The results indicate that undegraded RNA could not be isolated using the routine AGPC-based isolation technique from lung tissue containing eosinophils following ROFA exposure. The degraded RNA preparations were unsuitable for gene expression studies. However, undegraded RNA can be isolated from these tissues by modifying the original AGPC RNA extraction procedure, which is suitable for gene expression analysis using northern blot and RT-PCR techniques.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Nucleoproteins in regulation of gene function.

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Adenine Nucleotides↗