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Biomedical subjects

Y Kudo

Publications and source records attributed to Y Kudo.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

[A comparative study of caregivers of the elderly with dementia between 1982 and 1991].

The purpose of this study is to clarify the changes of the caregivers'status with comparison of two cross-sectional studies. The subjects were 658 (primary, in 1982) and 705 (secondary, in 1991) group members of "The Association of Families Caring for Elderly Persons with Dementia". The summary of results are as follows: 1) The mean life span of a person suffering dementia was found to be longer in 1991 than 1992. 2) In 1991, about 30 percent of the patients in all age groups were hospitalized and about 70 percent of the patients were treated at home. These facts indicated that the medical facilities had expanded their capacities during the 9 year period for receiving the elderly with dementia. 3) Family members who wished to live independently supported the idea that care should be given by a decreased number of individuals within the family. In that sense, the family's power of caregiving was decreased. 4) The range of main caregivers' informal social-support-network was remarkably expanded. 5) The more the service were expanded, the more the service were utilized by the caregivers. However, the quality and the quantity of the services provided are still not sufficient to meet the caregivers' need. 6) In balance, the difficulties caregivers used to face, seemed to be decreased in 1991.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Effects of estrogen and parathyroid hormone on osteoblastic activity via regulating the binding activity of insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4 in SaOS-2 cells: implications for the pathogenesis of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

The cellular mechanisms involved in the accelerated bone loss occurring in association with estrogen deprivation as seen following the menopause have not been fully understood. Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) is the local regulator of osteoblasts and one of its binding protein, insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4 (IGFBP-4), binds to IGF-I and suppresses its biological activity. We have therefore studied the effects of 17 beta-estradiol and parathyroid hormone (PTH) on binding activity of IGFBP-4 and osteoblastic activity using SaOS-2 osteoblastic cells. DNA and collagen synthesis were enhanced by IGF-I or 17 beta-estradiol and suppressed by PTH in a concentration dependent manner. The inhibitory effect of PTH on DNA and collagen synthesis was abolished by the presence of IGF-I or 17 beta-estradiol. The binding activity of IGFBP-4 was stimulated 2-fold by 10 nM PTH, while this PTH-induced IGFBP-4 production was completely inhibited by the addition of 17 beta-estradiol. The stimulated DNA and collagen synthesis by IGF-I or 17 beta-estradiol were inhibited by IGFBP-4 in a concentration dependent manner. The simplest explanation is that 17 beta-estradiol suppressed the inhibitory effect of PTH on osteoblastic activity by inhibiting the PTH-induced increment of IGFBP-4 binding activity in SaOS-2 cells.

Cells, Cultured↗
PubMed1995

Upstream and intron regulatory regions for expression of the rat neuron-specific enolase gene.

Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) occurs in mature neurons and paraneurons. We have isolated the genomic clone coding for rat NSE and clarified its gene structure. In order to analyze the regulatory sequence in the 5'-upstream region and introns, we carried out transient expression experiments of NSE genomic DNA fragments fused to chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene which were transfected into several cultured cells. The used cells were primary cultured rat neurons, PC12, neuroblastoma 35, neuroblastoma 103, C6, primary cultured rat glial cells and HeLa cells. The promoter sequence (190 bp) upstream to the transcription initiation site was important in the expression of CAT gene in these cells. From the experiments with external and internal deletion mutants of the fusion gene, the cis-acting regulatory region responsible for the enhanced expression of the CAT activity in the primary cultured neuron and PC12 cells was found to be localized at upstream 500 bp sequence of the intron 1 and 1.5 kbp upstream sequence of the transcription initiation site. In the upstream important sequences, there were the nearest sequences for AP-1 binding motif, AP-2 binding element, SP-1 binding sequence, cAMP response element, half site of glucocorticoid receptor (GRE) binding sequence, half site of thyroid hormor receptor (TR) or retinoic acid receptor (RAR) binding sequence and MTF-1 binding sequence. Furthermore, Octamer-6 binding motifs also were found. In the intron 1, 5' end upstream 50 bp and downstream 100 bp were the most important sequences. We found the nearest sequences for cAMP response element, E2F binding sequence, early growth response (EGR)-1 binding motif, half site of TCF-1 binding sequence and a neuron-specific element-like sequence in the intron 1.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

Purification and characterization of thrombopoietin.

A thrombopoietic factor, termed thrombopoietin (TPO), was highly purified directly from the plasma of sublethally irradiated 1,100 rats by measuring the production of megakaryocytes from a highly enriched population of rat megakaryocyte progenitor cells (CFU-MK). The rat plasma TPO is a glycoprotein and strongly hydrophobic. The total activity and purification yields obtained were about 29% and 1.49 x 10(8), respectively. The amino acid sequences of the two peptide fragments prepared from the purified 19 kDa TPO were analyzed, and used for the cloning of rat and human TPO cDNAs. It was found that the 19 kDa TPO was truncated but comprised at least 163 amino acids. The sequence of human TPO cDNA revealed that the TPO was identical to the c-Mpl ligand. Both rat and human TPOs expressed in COS-1 cells exhibited significant activity toward the CFU-MK in vitro, and were active in stimulating platelet production in mice. These results indicate that a thrombopoietic factor originally found in the irradiated rat plasma is a ligand for the rat c-Mpl.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1995

A case of subacute necrotizing fasciitis.

We report a 48-year-old woman who developed necrotizing groin fasciitis with insidious onset. Before she visited us, she had been unsuccessfully treated with several kinds of antibiotics by other doctors for one month, because of a small ulcer covered by blackish necrotic tissue. She was referred to us because of high fever, an ulcer on the left labium majus, and a cellulitis-like lesion with severe pain on the lower abdomen. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Streptococcus intermedius, and Bacteroides uniformis were isolated from the wound. After aggressive debridement on the eighth day after admission of the whole indurated area and the fascia of the underlying muscle, healthy granulation tissue covered the defect, and the wound was finally closed with a skin graft Long-term administration of antibiotics along with insufficient and delayed surgical treatment were considered to have caused the full development of this disease.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1995

[Protective effects of LipoPGE1, prostaglandin E1 incorporated in lipid microspheres, against liver injury caused by ischemia-reperfusion].

Effect of LipoPGE1 on liver injury caused by ischemia-reperfusion were compared with that of PGE1-CD, cyclodextrin clathrated PGE1, in rats. LipoPGE1 (10 micrograms/kg) and PGE1-CD (10 micrograms/kg) were gradually injected into the portal vein 5 min both prior to ischemia and prior to reperfusion. In only the group receiving injections of vehicle alone, rats died within 2 days after the episode of 90-min liver ischemia. The survival rate of all rats treated with LipoPGE1 was higher than that of rats who received vehicle alone, which indicates that LipoPGE1 pretherapy improved the survival of rats after liver ischemia-reperfusion. LipoPGE1 markedly suppressed elevations of GOT, GPT, and LDH, lipid peroxide and aromatic amino acid levels in the plasma caused by ischemia-reperfusion of the liver. When animals were given a single dose of LipoPGE1 prior to reperfusion, LipoPGE1 also suppressed elevations of GOT, GPT, LDH and lipid peroxide levels caused by 30-min of liver ischemia followed by 12-hr reperfusion. These suppressive effects with LipoPGE1 were stronger than those of PGE1-CD. These findings suggest that LipoPGE1 may have therapeutic applications in the treatment of hepatic injury.

Alprostadil↗
PubMed1995

Simultaneous measurement of pulmonary diffusing capacity for CO and cardiac output by a rebreathing method in patients with pulmonary diseases.

Pulmonary diffusing capacity for CO (DLCO) and cardiac output (Q) were simultaneously measured by a noninvasive rebreathing method (RB) in 15 normal subjects and in 60 patients, including cardiac diseases (CD), bronchial asthma (BA), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (PF). DLCO and Q were tested by the single breath method (SB) and the dye-dilution method (Dye), respectively. DLCO (RB) correlated well with DLCO (SB) (r = 0.890, p < 0.001). Q(RB) also correlated well with Q(Dye) (r = 0.909, p < 0.001). Factors affecting DLCO (RB) were age, height, body surface area, O2 consumption, Q, hematocrit (Het) and Q.Hct, among which Q.Hct was the prominent influential determinant. DLCO per lung volume was smaller in COPD and PF than in BA or healthy subjects, while, the ratio of DLCO/(Q.Hct) was significantly higher in COPD than in PF. Simultaneous measurements of DLCO and Q offer comprehensive characterization for functional changes in lung parenchyma.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Ocular movement during reading in patients with congenital nystagmus.

When a healthy person reads sentences arranged horizontally, the eye movement pattern is a series of regular saccades and rest periods. However, eye movements while patients with oculomotor disturbances are reading remain to be defined. In this study, 4 patients with congenital nystagmus (CN) were studied. Coordinated movements of eye and head are also studied by a new apparatus with terrestrial magnetism sensor. While subjects were reading, an eye movement pattern was superimposed by the CN waveform and showed few rest periods. Eye velocity of less than 4 degrees/s was noted in almost every cycle of the eye movements while the patients with CN were reading. When they were requested to read sentences and simultaneously rotate their head naturally, the head movements had the effect of cancelling the eye instability. This finding may be interpreted as a kind of "eye-head coordination".

Attention↗
PubMed1995

[Secondary tumor of the temporal bone with internal auditory meatus involvement--histopathological study].

Nineteen cases of secondary tumor of the temporal bone with involvement of the internal auditory meatus (IAM) were studied. The cases were classified into 4 invasion modes; direct extension from head and neck tumors (12 cases), hematological dissemination (3 cases), diffuse leptomeningeal carcinomatosis (3 cases), and direct extension of tumors from the intracranium (1 case). There were some differences in the manner in which the tumor had spread among these 4 modes. In most cases involving "direct extension from head and neck tumors", the tumor had invaded the pyramis, and then the Eustachian tube and the middle ear. When the inner ear or the IAM was involved, it was directly invaded by massive tumor. In all cases of "hematological dissemination", metastatic tumor was found bilaterally, but there were some differences in the manner of invasion between the two sides. In "leptomeningeal carcinomatosis" and "intracranial tumor", the tumor had invaded the temporal bone bilaterally via the IAM. In the IAM, cochlear and inferior vestibular nerves were more vulnerable to tumor invasion than facial and superior vestibular nerves. It was suggested that there are some differences in vulnerability to tumor invasion between the superior and inferior vestibular nerves. The bottom of the IAM presented a barrier-like effect against the spread of tumor from the IAM to the labyrinth. In some cases, however, there was massive tumor invasion of the internal ear directly from the IAM. Whether denervation of the ganglionic neurons (spiral or vestibular) causes secondary degeneration of peripheral sensory endorgans remains controversial. In some cases in our series, degeneration of the auditory or vestibular peripheral organs might be attributed to denervation of neurons in the spiral or vestibular ganglia. In other cases, however, auditory and vestibular peripheral organs remained intact despite severe degeneration of ganglionic neurons.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Production of thrombopoietin (TPO) by rat hepatocytes and hepatoma cell lines.

Recently, we purified rat thrombopoietin (TPO) from plasma of irradiated rats (XRP) by measuring its activity that stimulated the production of megakaryocytes from megakaryocyte progenitor cells (CFU-MK) in vitro. We then cloned the cDNAs for rat and human TPO. In this study, we found the production of TPO by hepatocytes isolated with the collagenase perfusion method from both normal and thrombocytopenic rats, by a two-step fractionation of hepatocyte culture medium (CM). Subsequently, CM of rat hepatoma cell lines was screened for the presence of TPO; three cell lines, H4-II-E, McA-RH8994, and HTC, were found to produce TPO. According to the purification procedure for TPO from XRP, TPO was partially purified from 2 L CM of each of three cell lines with a six-step procedure. In the final reverse-phase column, TPO from each cell line was eluted with the same retention time as that from XRP, and the TPO fraction exhibited megakaryocyte colony-stimulating activity (Meg-CSA). TPO-active fraction eluted from the final reverse-phase column was separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), extracted from the gel, and assayed. TPO activity from each cell line was found in the respective molecular weight region, indicating the heterogeneity of the TPO molecule. Using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), we detected the expression of TPO mRNA in hepatocytes, three hepatoma cell lines, normal rat liver, and X-irradiated rat liver. Northern blot analysis showed that TPO mRNA was expressed mainly in liver among the various organs tested. These data demonstrate that TPO is produced by rat hepatocytes and hepatoma cell lines and suggest that liver may be the primary organ that produces TPO.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

[Screening program with urinary porphyrins--application to clinical finding in latent porphyrias].

Judging from the incidence of porphyria in Japan, most cases can be diagnosed by measurement of the amount of porphyrin in the urine. Normally, the analysis of porphyrin in urine is performed by high-performance liquid chromatography but this requires about 40 minutes per specimen. However, if one simply measures coproporphyrin I and III only, then one specimen can be measured in about 10 minutes. If screening is performed using this method, those subjects in which high levels of coproporphyrin I and III are detected can undergo further test of urine, blood and feces to detect porphyrin and related materials. Using this screening methods in high school students, 2 cases of congenital porphyria were detected. One case was hereditary coproporphyria and the other was acute intermittent porphyria. If this method is added to screening methods normally used for health checkups, cases of porphyria should be detected with ease.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

[Two dimensional analysis of neural activities by calcium imaging].

The development of fluorescent Ca2+ indicators made us possible to measure the intracellular Ca2+ concentration easily. Furthermore the analysis of fluorescent images obtained by a fluorescence microscope became easy and popular, because of the tremendous development of computers and related hardwares. Time courses and topographical differences in Ca2+ concentration can be demonstrated as two dimensional color-coded images. Such images are sometimes quite persuasive. That is just "Seeing is believing". We can detect a completely new site of biological phenomena through this method. This article will describe many different types of Ca2+ indicators and applications to biological image analysis. Especially the method called "macro" image analysis can demonstrate the regional difference in changes of the Ca2+ concentration of slice preparation during medical treatment of cerebral ischemia. Already more than ten years have passed since the first demonstration of a fluorescent Ca2+ indicator, quin 2, and the methods using such Ca2+ indicators become important in the field of experimental biology.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

[Recent progress in development of psychotropic drugs (1)--Anti-anxiety drugs].

Anti-anxiety drugs are widely used for patients with neurosis or psychosomatic diseases due to the stress of contemporary society. The high efficacy of benzodiazepine (BZD) or its analog, which contains diazepam, is well-known. While these compounds have strong anti-anxiety effects, it has recently been pointed out that they have some side effects when used as daytime tranquilizers and induce drug dependence. The cause of these side effects is thought to be that typical BZD is a full agonist of BZD receptors. For this reason, partial agonists, inverse agonists and antagonists of BZD receptors are being developed. Furthermore, some non-BZD anti-anxiety drugs are also being developed to avoid the side effects of BZD. One of these is a 5-HT1A agonist, which has a high affinity for 5-HT receptors, because it is reported that 5-HT is related to anxiety in the septum-hippocampus system. In addition, the anti-anxiety effect of 5-HT3 agonist is being investigated, while the anti-anxiety effect of cholecystokinin agonists is also attracting attention. Because these new anti-anxiety drugs are more potent and have fewer side effects than BZD, they may achieve widespread clinical use.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

[Studies on the bone metabolisms in either after natural menopause or surgical menopause: implications of IGF-IGFBP system for postmenopausal osteoporosis].

It is well established that accelerated bone loss occurs in association with estrogen deprivation as seen following the natural menopause and in premenopausal women undergoing surgical oophorectomy (i.e., surgical menopause). We have measured serum levels of bone biochemical markers after both natural menopause and surgical menopause. Circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), which is considered to be the local regulator of osteoblast activity and one of its binding protein, insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4 (IGFBP-4) which binds to IGF-I and suppress its biological activity, were also measured. Bone mineral density measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry was decreased more rapidly after surgical menopause. A concomitantly higher rate of bone turnover as assessed by bone biochemical markers was observed after surgical menopause, and thus the levels of procollagen type I C-peptide, pyridinoline and deoxypyridinoline were increased. The serum levels of IGF-I were significantly reduced after natural menopause compared with that after surgical menopause. The levels of IGF-I were correlated with bone mineral density after natural menopause (r = 0.62, p < 0.001), but no significant correlation was observed between these two variables after surgical menopause. The binding activity of IGFBP-4 was significantly greater after surgical menopause than after natural menopause. A stronger inverse correlation existed between the binding activity of IGFBP-4 and bone mineral density after surgical menopause (r = -0.90, p < 0.001) compared to that after natural menopause (r = -0.29, p < 0.05). The simplest explanation is that whereas the loss of bone depends upon the decreased level of IGF-I after natural menopause, after surgical menopause it depends upon the increased level of IGFBP-4.

Bone Density↗
PubMed1994

Temperature-dependent Ca2+ mobilization induced by hypoxia-hypoglycemia in the monkey hippocampal slices.

Mobilization of [Ca2+]i in the monkey hippocampal slices during transient hypoxia-hypoglycemia and KCl-induced depolarization was analyzed by microfluorometric imaging and anti-PIP2 immunohistochemistry. Hypoxia-hypoglycemia provoked the largest [Ca2+]i mobilization of CA-1 temperature-dependently whereas [Ca2+]i mobilization by KCl-induced depolarization occurred independent of the temperature in CA-2. Immunohistochemical analysis of the hippocampus after hypoxia-hypoglycemia showed an increased PIP2 staining preferentially in the perikarya of CA-1 neurons. These data suggest that release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores caused by PIP2 breakdown may induce elevated [Ca2+]i.

Animals↗