Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M Fujioka.
Multilocular cystic nephroma is an uncommon and usually benign nephroblastic neoplasm. Considering its therapeutic indication, it is important to distinguish this lesion from malignant renal masses. The lesion usually shows a well-encapsulated, multilocular cystic mass on US and CT. Occasionally, imaging studies are not useful for preoperative diagnosis, however, surgical biopsy should be considered for correct pathological diagnosis.
Rats intraperitoneally injected with a daily dose of cupric nitrilotriacetate (Cu-NTA), which contained 4 to 7 mg of copper/kg body weight, showed submassive liver necrosis, hemolytic anemia, and acute renal tubular necrosis at the beginning of the experiment and intermittently after 4 weeks of injections. All rats that survived over 8 weeks exhibited liver fibrosis with portal-portal, portal-central, and central-central bridging. In all rats that survived over 16 weeks, micronodular cirrhosis of the liver or extensive liver fibrosis was observed. The copper content of the cirrhotic/fibrotic liver was above 250 micrograms/g dry weight. Electron-microscopic x-ray analysis at day 93 revealed that copper stored in secondary lysosomes was always accompanied by a proportional amount of sulfur (correlation coefficient, 0.98; P less than 0.005). An experimental model of copper toxicosis in terms of copper-induced cirrhosis of the liver was established with exogenous copper chelated by nitrilotriacetate.
This paper describes a hip joint surgical simulation system using a three-dimensional image (X-ray CT images). We developed this system in cooperation with surgeons, and we have already applied it to several clinical examples. According to a surgeon who used our system for actual surgical plannings, most of the hip joint surgeries operated at the present time can be simulated. Our system has useful functions in order to plan surgeries such as interference check in movement of a bone and display of the attached surface of bone. We show an actual surgical planning process performed by the surgeon with our system.
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Rat liver guanidinoacetate methyltransferase, produced in Escherichia coli by recombinant DNA technique, possesses five cysteine residues per molecule. No disulfide bond is present. Analysis of the chymotryptic peptides derived from the iodo[14C]acetate-modified enzyme shows that Cys-90, Cys-15, Cys-219, and Cys-207 are alkylated by the reagent in order of decreasing reactivity. Incubation of the enzyme with excess 5,5'-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoate) (DTNB) in the absence and presence of cystamine [2,2'-dithiobis(ethylamine)] causes the appearance of 4 and 5 mol of 2-nitro-5-mercaptobenzoate/mol of enzyme, respectively. Reaction of the methyltransferase with an equimolar amount of DTNB results in an almost quantitative disulfide cross-linking of Cys-15 and Cys-90 with loss of a large portion of the activity. The methyltransferase is completely inactivated by iodoacetate following nonlinear kinetics. Comparison of the extent of inactivation with that of modification of cysteine residues and the experiment with the enzyme whose Cys-15 and Cys-90 are cross-linked suggest that alkylation of Cys-15 and Cys-90 results in a partially active enzyme and that carboxymethylation of Cys-219 completely eliminates enzyme activity. The inactivation of guanidinoacetate methyltransferase by iodoacetate or DTNB is not protected by substrates. Furthermore, disulfide cross-linking of Cys-15 and Cys-90 or carboxymethylation of Cys-219 does not impair the enzyme's capacity to bind S-adenosylmethionine. Thus, these cysteine residues appear to occur outside the active-site region, but their integrity is crucial for the expression of enzyme activity.
Rat liver glycine methyltransferase, a homotetramer, exhibits sigmoidal rate behavior with respect to S-adenosylmethionine (Ogawa, H., and Fujioka, M. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 3447-3452). The binding experiment shows that the sigmoidicity observed in initial velocity kinetics is explained by the cooperative binding of S-adenosylmethionine to the catalytic sites residing on each subunit. Limited proteolysis of glycine methyltransferase with trypsin in the presence of S-adenosylmethionine yields an enzyme lacking the NH2-terminal 8 residues. The proteolytically modified enzyme retains a tetrameric structure. The truncated enzyme shows no cooperativity with respect to S-adenosylmethionine binding and kinetics. It has values of Vmax and Km for glycine identical to those of the native enzyme, but a 3-fold lower [S]0.5 value for S-adenosylmethionine. The proteolytic modification is without effect on the circular dichroism and fluorescence spectra. Furthermore, the protein fluorescence of the modified enzyme is quenched upon addition of S-adenosylmethionine to the same extent as observed with the native enzyme. These results suggest that a short NH2-terminal segment, which lies outside the active site, is important for communication between subunits.
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A sensitive and accurate method for the quantitative estimation of testosterone propionate in human plasma was developed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry/selected ion monitoring. The method employing stable isotopically labelled testosterone propionate as tracer was employed to follow the time course of plasma testosterone propionate and its active metabolite testosterone in normal men. Intramuscularly administered (19,19,19-2H3)testosterone propionate was readily transferred from the injection site to systemic circulation. Plasma (19,19,19-2H3)testosterone levels were maintained above the physiological testosterone level for 48 h, while plasma levels of endogenous testosterone changed little.
Upper gastrointestinal examinations with simultaneous cardiorespiratory monitoring were performed in 39 older premature infants with persistent apnea. Swallowing incoordination was documented to be causatively related to persistent apnea in such infants, especially with feeding. Direct relationship between apnea and gastroesophageal reflux was not documented in this study.
In the Saitama prefecture in Japan, VMA (vanillyl mandelic acid) screening spot test for detection of neuroblastoma has been performed in 173,046 infants in the years 1981-1986 and 15 infants were found to have neuroblastoma. Two infants had mediastinal tumors and the remainder 13 had intraabdominal tumors. Only 7 infants had palpable masses. Although CT was documented to be the best imaging procedure to provide sufficient information for treatment, conventional radiographic examinations of the chest and abdomen, and abdominal ultrasonography were able, as initial imaging procedures, to detect reasonably small neuroblastomas in infants with a positive VMA screening test.
Rat serine dehydratase cDNA clones were isolated from a lambda gt11 cDNA library on the basis of their reactivity with monospecific immunoglobulin to the purified enzyme. Using the cDNA insert from a clone that encoded the serine dehydratase subunit as a probe, additional clones were isolated from the same library by plaque hybridization. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the largest clone obtained showed that it has 1444 base pairs with an open reading frame consisting of 1089 base pairs. The deduced amino acid sequence contained sequences of several portions of the serine dehydratase protein, as determined by Edman degradation. Rat liver serine dehydratase mRNA virtually disappeared from livers of rats fed a protein-free diet for 5 days. Several genomic clones were isolated from two libraries. Determinations of the transcription start site and the structure of the 3' flanking region of the gene indicated that the coded mRNA is 1504 nucleotides long. The 5' promoter region contained a variety of sequences similar to several consensus sequences believed to be important for the regulation of specific gene expression.
Five cDNA clones encoding rat liver guanidinoacetate methyltransferase (S-adenosyl-L-methionine: guanidinoacetate N-methyltransferase, EC 2.1.1.2) were isolated from a lambda gt11 cDNA library by use of a polyclonal antibody to the purified enzyme. Sequence analysis of the longest cDNA indicated that it consisted of 711 base pairs (bp) of coding region, 51 bp of 5' noncoding region, and 162 bp of 3' noncoding region excluding the poly(A) tail. The amino acid sequence deduced from the cDNA contained the sequences of NH2-terminal and three tryptic peptides. The predicted amino acid composition and molecular weight were in excellent agreement with those obtained with the purified enzyme. Introduction of the cDNA into plasmid pUC118 having the lac promoter resulted in a production in Escherichia coli of a Mr 26,000 polypeptide in the presence of isopropyl beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside. This protein represented as much as 5% of the bacterial soluble protein and showed the guanidinoacetate methyltransferase activity. Sequence analysis and tryptic peptide mapping indicated that the enzyme obtained by the recombinant DNA procedures was structurally identical to the liver enzyme, except for the absence of the NH2-terminal blocking group. Also, the enzyme showed kinetic properties indistinguishable from those of the liver enzyme.
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Discordant hepatic uptake between Tc-99m HIDA and Tc-99m colloid occurred in a 63-year-old female with segmental biliary obstruction due to cholangioma. Radiographic CT and a percutaneous transhepatic cholangiogram revealed the obstructed right hepatic duct as well as the dilated intrahepatic duct in the right lobe. At surgery this was confirmed, and a 2 cm mass encasing the right hepatic duct was identified. It should be included in the gamut of discordant hepatic uptake of Tc-99m IDA and Tc-99m colloid.
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