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Biomedical subjects

Miho Suzuki

Publications and source records attributed to Miho Suzuki.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

[Analyzing the factor structure and the sensory-relevance of impressions produced by words and drawings].

The impressions of words and drawings that represented the same concepts (joy, anger, tranquility, etc.) were examined by the semantic differential technique. In the word (W) condition where the participants were presented with only the word stimuli, two factors (Evaluation and Activity) were extracted. By contrast, in the drawing (D) condition where the participants only saw the drawings, three factors (Evaluation, Activity, and Potency) were extracted and the potency factor was found to have large factor loadings for the adjective-pairs containing high relevance to tactile sensation. The same tendencies were found in the drawing + word (DW) condition where the drawings and the words were presented simultaneously. These results revealed that the factor structure in the W condition differed from those in the D and the DW conditions, and that the drawings aroused tactile sensations. Further analysis in the evaluation factor implied that the impressions produced in the DW condition had unique characters that could not be reduced to those in the W and the D conditions.

Emotions↗

An Efficient Ligation Method in the Making of an in vitro Virus for in vitro Protein Evolution.

The "in vitro virus" is a molecular construct to perform evolutionary protein engineering. The "virion (=viral particle)" (mRNA-peptide fusion), is made by bonding a nascent protein with its coding mRNA via puromycin in a test tube for in vitro translation. In this work, the puromycin-linker was attached to mRNA using the Y-ligation, which was a method of two single-strands ligation at the end of a double-stranded stem to make a stem-loop structure. This reaction gave a yield of about 95%. We compared the Y-ligation with two other ligation reactions and showed that the Y-ligation gave the best productivity. An efficient amplification of the in vitro virus with this "viral genome" was demonstrated.

Journal Article↗

A case of primary mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the thyroid: molecular evidence of its origin.

Primary mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) of the thyroid is very rare, and its origin has not been fully determined. We report a case of MEC, the origin of which was demonstrated by thyroid specific genes expressed in a metastatic lymph node. A 52-year-old male presented with chest pain, weight loss and diffuse goitre. Ultrasonography showed the thyroid to be diffusely enlarged with numerous small calcifications. The tumour was found to be infiltrating the thyroid, lung, lymph nodes and first thoracic vertebra. A variant type of papillary thyroid carcinoma was suspected by fine needle aspiration cytology of the thyroid. An open biopsy specimen from an axillary lymph node revealed the tumour to be composed of three distinct cell types: mucin-producing cells, intermediate cells and a small amount of epidermoid cells with scattered psammoma bodies. Immunohistochemical studies showed the tumour cells to be negative for thyroglobulin and calcitonin, but positive for CEA. To examine the primary origin of the tumour, the expression of thyroid specific genes in the lymph node specimen was examined by RT-PCR. TTF-1, TTF-2, Pax-8, Na-I symporter and thyroid peroxidase mRNA were detected. The presence of these thyroid-specific mRNAs indicates that this MEC originated from thyroid follicular epithelium. This is the first molecular evidence of dedifferentiation from thyroid follicular cells to MEC.

Carcinoma, Mucoepidermoid↗