Goldston syndrome: report of a case.

Cerebrohepatorenal malformation is a rare familial disorder characterized by typical renal lesions combined with Dandy-Walker malformation, and congenital hepatic fibrosis. In this case report, a male premie with the diagnosis of cerebrorenal syndrome or so called Goldston syndrome is presented. Besides the rarity of this syndrome, this case is the second reported patient diagnosed prenatally.     

Polyamines in liver and their influence on chromatin condensation after 17-β estradiol treatment of Atlantic salmon

Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) were treated with 17- estradiol to induce vitellogenin synthesis in liver. This led to an increase in liver wet weight and total DNA. After incubation with micrococcal nuclease (EC 3.1.31.1) less soluble chromatin was obtained from nuclei of the estradiol treated than the control fish, but active gene regions were solubilized by the nuclease. Thus, in the estradiol treated fish soluble mononucleosomes contained hybridizable vitellogenin gene sequences. As a result of estradiol treatment the content in total liver of putrescine rose 3-fold, that of spermidine 2-fold, while spermine was unchanged. In muscle no significant changes were observed. The regulatory functions of polyamines during gene expression were investigated by binding (¹⁴C)spermine to isolated liver nuclei depleted of endogenous polyamines. The number of binding sites was higher in nuclei of estradiol treated than control fish. (^14C)spermine associated preferentially with micrococcal nuclease insensitive chromatin. Thus, the high content of putrescine and spermidine in liver supported the view of polyamine accumulation in proliferating tissues. The preferential binding to condensed chromatin indicated a stabilizing effect of polyamines on the organization of inactive chromatin structures.Abbreviations MNase micrococcal nuclease - PMSF phenylmethylsulfonylfluoride     

An inverse problem in neural processing

Any neural network aimed at the coding sensory events must contain computational properties which generally allow the organism to reconstruct the input signals with some degree of accuracy-else the association between stimulus and response would, at best, be uncertain. In this paper we investigate the problem of reconstructing external input signals to neural networks when the activity profiles of only some of its member cells are known. The evolution and activities of such cells are defined by an earlier formulation of one of us (Ouztöreli 1979) and, here, we restrict our application to local curcuits within the vertebrate retina. Solutions to this inverse coding problem are presented for specific network equations and examplified with 1, 3, and 5 neuron cases.This work was partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under Grant A-4345 to M.N.O. and grant A-4395 to T.M.C. through the University of Alberta     

Control mechanisms of a neural network

In this paper we consider some classical control theoretic properties of a nonlinear neural network proposed by Ouztöreli (1979) to represent the activities of constiuent neurones in terms of the input signals and coupling (associative) properties. By breaking the network into linear and nonlinear components we have been able to localize the nonlinearities in the individual neural response latencies through the system.This work was partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada by Grant NSERC-A 4345 to M.N.O. and Grant NSERC-A 2568 to T.M.C. through the University of Alberta     

Inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation by adriamycin

The antitumour antibiotic, adriamycin, inhibited oxidative phosphorylation in freshly prepared mitochondria from the heart, liver and kidney of the rat. It abolished respiratory control and stimulated ATPase activity. Succinate oxidation by heart mitochondria was extremely sensitive to the drug when hexokinase was present in the reaction medium. The sensitive site has been identified to lie in the region between the succinate dehydrogenase flavoprotein and ubiquinone of the respiratory chain.