肝外胆管解剖变异和先天发育异常MRCP研究

目的:归纳肝外胆管解剖变异和先天发育异常的MRCP(magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography,MRCP)表现。方法:回顾分析2010年1月到2015年6月间PACS存储的6817例图像资料,首先判定图像质量,然后记录肝门区胆管分支汇入方式、胆囊管插入位置、胆管先天发育异常及其表现。结果:1590例存在肝外胆管解剖变异和先天发育异常。其中胆囊管汇入位置异常发生率14.72%(787/5347),肝门区胆管分支汇入状态异常发生率17.97%(961/5347)。包括肝门区胆管分支汇入状态正常,胆囊管汇入位置异常575例,发生率10.75%(575/5347)。胆囊管汇入位置正常,肝门区胆管分支汇入状态异常749例,发生率14.01%(749/5347)。胆囊管汇入位置和肝门区胆管分支汇入状态异常并存212例,发生率3.96%(212/5347)。先天性发育异常即先天胆管扩张症54例,发生率1.01%(54/5347)。结论:肝外胆管解剖变异和先天发育异常复杂多样,MRCP能够准确显示大部分解剖变异种类及其毗邻关系,但是受图像质量及所罹患病种制约。     

贲门失弛缓症治疗的现状和进展

贲门失弛缓症尚无根治的方法,但90%以上的患者经积极治疗后可得到缓解。对于初发贲门失弛缓症患者,临床症状轻,可通过调整饮食习惯及药物治疗缓解症状,随着时间的延长,病情逐渐加重,药物治疗不满意时,可行内镜下治疗。内镜下球囊扩张治疗、BT注射治疗及暂时性支架置入治疗,均具有良好的短期疗效和安全性,但长期疗效暂时性支架置入治疗优于扩张治疗,扩张治疗优于BT注射治疗。对老年患者、不能行扩张或手术者,可予内镜下BT注射治疗。POEM作为一种新技术,具有较好的发展前景。手术治疗创伤大,费用高,但是对于扩张治疗失败或需多次扩张治疗的患者,手术治疗是一种有效的治疗方式。本文就贲门失弛缓症的治疗现状及进展作此综述,旨在为患者寻找一种个性化、有效、创伤小、费用低的治疗方式。     

Determination of the tensile mechanical properties of the segmented mitral valve annulus

The mitral valve annulus is a complex and irregular component of the mitral valve apparatus, serving both a structural and sphincteric role. We have sought to determine the mechanical properties of the mitral valve annulus segmentally. Twenty porcine hearts were dissected to isolate the annulus. The annulus was segmented into four sections: anterior, posterior, and left and right commissural sections. Ten of these were tensile tested to failure as control samples. The remaining ten were digested in order to fully isolate the annulus from the myocardium, and subsequently tensile tested to failure. Histological samples of each segment were analysed to determine collagen/annular content. Whole segments of muscular annulus were tensile tested to failure; the stress and strain at failure and location of failure were determined in these larger specimens. Our results demonstrated that the anterior annulus is stiffer than the posterior segment by a factor of approximately 27 at a 2% strain level, and approximately 13 at a 6% strain. There is a trend in the results that identifies that the muscular annulus is stiffest at the right commissural segment, while the posterior segment tends to be the least stiff. The stiffness of the samples can be correlated with the area associated with the dense collagen annulus using histological analysis. Finally, the weakest section of the mitral valve annulus was identified as the intersection of the right commissural segment and the posterior segment.     

Ranking and clustering of Drosophila olfactory receptors using mathematical morphology

This article introduces an alignment-free clustering method in order to cluster all the 66 DORs sequentially diverse protein sequences. Two different methods are discussed: one is utilizing twenty standard amino acids (without grouping) and another one is using chemical grouping of amino acids (with grouping). Two grayscale images (representing two protein sequences by order pair frequency matrices) are compared to find the similarity index using morphology technique. We could achieve the correlation coefficients of 0.9734 and 0.9403 for without and with grouping methods respectively with the ClustalW result in the ND5 dataset, which are much better than some of the existing alignment-free methods. Based on the similarity index, the 66 DORs are clustered into three classes - Highest, Moderate and Lowest - which are seen to be best fitted for 66 DORs protein sequences. OR83b is the distinguished olfactory receptor expressed in divergent insect population which is substantiated through our investigation.     

Quantifying Ca2+ Current and Permeability in ATP-gated P2X7 Receptors

ATP-gated P2X7 receptors are prominently expressed in inflammatory cells and play a key role in the immune response. A major consequence of receptor activation is the regulated influx of Ca²⁺ through the self-contained cation non-selective channel. Although the physiological importance of the resulting rise in intracellular Ca²⁺ is universally acknowledged, the biophysics of the Ca²⁺ flux responsible for the effects are poorly understood, largely because traditional methods of measuring Ca²⁺ permeability are difficult to apply to P2X7 receptors. Here we use an alternative approach, called dye-overload patch-clamp photometry, to quantify the agonist-gated Ca²⁺ flux of recombinant P2X7 receptors of dog, guinea pig, human, monkey, mouse, rat, and zebrafish. We find that the magnitude of the Ca²⁺ component of the ATP-gated current depends on the species of origin, the splice variant, and the concentration of the purinergic agonist. We also measured a significant contribution of Ca²⁺ to the agonist-gated current of the native P2X7Rs of mouse and human immune cells. Our results provide cross-species quantitative measures of the Ca²⁺ current of the P2X7 receptor for the first time, and suggest that the cytoplasmic N terminus plays a meaningful role in regulating the flow of Ca²⁺ through the channel.     

Smooth muscle actin isoforms: A tug of war between contraction and compliance

In higher vertebrates, smooth muscle (SM) contains two tissue-specific actin isoforms: α-SMA and γ-SMA, which predominate in vascular and visceral SM, respectively. Whether α-SMA has been extensively studied and recognized for its contractile activity in SM and SM-like cells such as myofibroblasts, myoepithelial and myoid cells, the distribution and role of γ-SMA remained largely unknown. We developed a new specific monoclonal antibody against γ-SMA and confirmed that γ-SMA predominates in the visceral system and is minor in the vascular system, although more expressed in highly compliant veins than in stiff arteries. Contrary to α-SMA, γ-SMA is absent from myofibroblasts in vitro, and in fibrotic diseases in vivo. We raised the hypothesis that, whereas α-SMA is responsible for the “contractile” activity, γ-SMA would be involved in the “compliance” of SM and SM-like cells. Several models support this hypothesis, namely veins vs. arteries and the physiological modifications occurring in the uterus and mammary glands during pregnancy and lactation. Our results suggest that, in addition to enteric smooth muscles, γ-SMA is expressed in all the tissues submitted to an important dilation including veins, gravid uterus, and lactating mammary glands. The hypothesis of two complementary mechanical roles for the two SMA isoforms is sustained by their different intracellular distributions and by functional assays.     

Application of wavelet analysis to ecological data

Ecological data are difficult to analyze due to complexity residing in the ecological systems with the variables varying in non-linear fashion. Efficient methods are required to properly extract information out of the complex data. Wavelets have good time–frequency (time-scale) localization, can represent data parsimoniously, and can be implemented with very fast algorithms. Brief backgrounds and computational aspects of wavelets were outlined for implementation to ecological data analysis. Wavelets are well suited for building mathematical models of ecological data and the statistical analysis of combined effects of complex factors in ecological network. Wavelet based analysis and synthesis may lead researchers in ecological studies to new insights and novel theories for understanding complex ecological and environmental phenomena.