Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Y Ota.
A case of progressive systemic sclerosis associated with colonic involvement is described. Barium-enema examination revealed segmental involvement. Colonoscopic examination of the whole range of the involved colon revealed wide-mouthed diverticula with interspersed rigid areas and numerous ulcerations. These colonoscopic findings appeared to be distinct from those associated with tuberculosis and Crohn's disease.
BACKGROUND: Crohn's colitis, frequently accompanied by stenosis or narrowing, can be difficult to assess through conventional methods. We evaluated the usefulness of virtual computed tomographic colonography (CTC) for the detection of colonic lesions due to Crohn's disease. METHODS: Forty-two lesions in 33 patients with Crohn's disease were examined by CTC and barium enema (BE). Twenty-two patients also were examined by colonoscopy (CS). The visualization ability of CTC was compared with those of the other two methods. RESULTS: In the visualization of elevated lesions, there was no significant difference between CTC and BE (18 of 20, p = 0.487) or between CTC and CS (15 of 16, p = 0.99); however, ulcerative lesions were less often visualized by CTC. However, CTC enabled identification of serious lesions in the colon proximal to the stenosis in nine patients and was superior to BE and CS in terms of its ability to visualize the proximal site of the stenosis (p = 0.003). CONCLUSION: CTC is clinically useful for the evaluation of Crohn's colitis, especially those with stenotic lesions.
Resistance to cisplatin is a major impediment to the successful treatment of ovarian cancer, but the precise nature of the resistance is still unclear. In the current study, we aimed to investigate and compare the protein expression profiles in cisplatin-sensitive and cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell lines. We employed the recent development of surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization ProteinChip technology to measure protein expression in three human ovarian cancer cell lines (KF-1, MN-1, and A2780) and their sublines (KF-r, MN-r, and A2780cp) resistant to cisplatin. The ProteinChip Arrays were analyzed using the ProteinChip Reader. We did not find any regularity in protein expressions in secretions of cisplatin-sensitive and cisplatin-resistant cells. But on the IMAC3 array, we captured 12 identical expressions which represent a subset of proteins whose expression levels are different between parent ovarian cancer cells and their cisplatin-resistant cells. In particular, at the molecular weight of 7829 d, three kinds of parent cell lines exhibited an elevated expression and their cisplatin-resistant sublines revealed a lowered expression. At the molecular weight of 6881 d, for KF and MN cell lines, opposite protein expressions were seen in the parent cell line and its cisplatin-resistant subline. We think the interesting protein expressions perhaps suggest some mechanisms involved in cisplatin resistance.
We found that diisopropylamine dichloroacetate (DADA), known as a vasodilator, enhanced growth of keratinocytes in 4 days culture at 1-30 microg/ml, and such promoting effects of cell proliferation were reconfirmed by measuring DNA synthesis using [(3)H]thymidine incorporation. On the other hand, this substance enhanced synthesis of keratin K1, a potent marker of differentiation in keratinocytes, at 1-100 microg/ml in low calcium (0.1 mM) or high calcium medium (1. 25 mM). Moreover, the formation of cornified envelope, another potent marker of differentiation in keratinocytes, was also promoted by DADA at a concentration of 0.1-10 mM which includes valid concentration of DADA for the enhancement of keratin K1 formation (1-100 microg/ml: 0.05-0.5 mM DADA). These results indicate that DADA has a double function, enhancement of both proliferation and differentiation of cells, which could be linked to the turnover of skin epidermis. Furthermore, in order to analyze the effect of DADA on keratinocytes, we examined the effects of each component of this substance, diisopropylamine (DIA) and dichloroacetate (DCA), on keratinocytes. As the result of these investigations, evidence was found that DCA was effective on enhancement of cell growth, but DIA was ineffective. Moreover, we found that DCA was effective on keratinocyte differentiation by evaluating the enhancement of a differentiation marker, formation of cornified envelopes, within 10 mM, while DIA was not effective. Therefore, we concluded that only DCA was an active component of the DADA molecule for the proliferation and the differentiation of keratinocytes in vitro.
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