Female sex steroid induced epithelial changes in the gallbladder of the ovariectomized Syrian hamster.

Ovariectomized Syrian hamsters treated by female sex steroids during a 1-month period show gallbladder surface epithelial changes in the fundic area consistent with apical bulging and decapitations of the epithelial cells. These events were detected in the infundibulum and the fundic or body regions of estrogen- and estrogen+progesterone-treated hamsters. In control hamsters, these events were restricted to the region in the vicinity of the bile duct. Following steroid treatment, intraluminal deposits detected resembled Ca-bilirubinate deposits described in previous studies while decapitations are similar to endometrial epithelium changes associated with hormonal physiological changes or treatments. Moreover some small electron-dense deposits are comparable to those found in human cholesterol gallstones. This report indicates that, besides an alteration in bile composition, cell fragments originating from the surface epithelium of the bile duct and/or of the gallbladder mucosal epithelium could participate in gallstone nucleation.     

Lipids of Angiostrongylus cantonensis (Nematoda: Metastrongyloidea): a comparison between young adults and gravid worms

1. All major classes of lipids were found in the young adults in brain (22 days post-infection) and gravid Angiostrongylus cantonensis in lung of rats (34 days post-infection) comprising approximately 60% of phospholipids, 30% of neutral lipids and the rest, glycolipids. 2. The relative composition of phospholipids were quite similar between worms from the two different habitats, with phosphatidylcholine predominating. The glycolipid profiles were also similar. 3. More neutral lipids in the worms from brain existed as cholesterol and cholesterol esters than those from the lung. More than 20% of the fatty acids in these lipids of the brain were found as C10-C14 acids while oleic acid was the main component in the lung worm.     

Indication of dynamic neurovascular coupling from inconsistency between EEG and fMRI indices across sleep–wake states

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - Neurovascular coupling (NVC), the transient regional hyperemia following the evoked neuronal responses, is the basis of blood oxygenation level-dependent techniques...     

Ubiquitous Polygenicity of Human Complex Traits: Genome-Wide Analysis of 49 Traits in Koreans

Recent studies in population of European ancestry have shown that 30%∼50% of heritability for human complex traits such as height and body mass index, and common diseases such as schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis, can be captured by common SNPs and that genetic variation attributed to chromosomes are in proportion to their length. Using genome-wide estimation and partitioning approaches, we analysed 49 human quantitative traits, many of which are relevant to human diseases, in 7,170 unrelated Korean individuals genotyped on 326,262 SNPs. For 43 of the 49 traits, we estimated a nominally significant (P<0.05) proportion of variance explained by all SNPs on the Affymetrix 5.0 genotyping array (). On average across 47 of the 49 traits for which the estimate of is non-zero, common SNPs explain approximately one-third (range of 7.8% to 76.8%) of narrow sense heritability.The estimate of is highly correlated with the proportion of SNPs with association P<0.031 (r ² = 0.92). Longer genomic segments tend to explain more phenotypic variation, with a correlation of 0.78 between the estimate of variance explained by individual chromosomes and their physical length, and 1% of the genome explains approximately 1% of the genetic variance. Despite the fact that there are a few SNPs with large effects for some traits, these results suggest that polygenicity is ubiquitous for most human complex traits and that a substantial proportion of the “missing heritability” is captured by common SNPs.     

Triiodothyronine effect on some parameters of carbohydrate metabolism in rat blood and liver. I. In vivo effect of triiodothyronine on liver glycogen content, blood metabolites and serum glycogenolytic activity

Short (7 days) T3-treatment has no influence on the plasma glucose and FFA concentration and blood lactate level, as well as on the hepatic glycogen content in the rats. The rise in T3 levels, observed in our study, was accompanied by a fall in T4 concentrations, indicating suppression of the endogenous T4 production. On the other hand, glycogenolytic activity of rat serum in vitro is the highest in the system: control liver slices-serum of rats pretreated with T3 as compared to the system: control liver slices-control serum. These observations may lead to conclusions, that serum of rats pretreated with T3 contains factors exhibiting the greater ability to mobilize glucose from liver slices than the control serum (euthyroid). The possibility, that pretreatment with T3 may cause a decrease in the number and/or affinity of beta-adrenergic receptors in the rat liver, is discussed.     

Evaluation of burn blister fluid

Although edema is evident immediately after a burn, the diffusion of nutrient chemical constituents of the body is not impaired. Blister fluid, not unlike plasma or serum, contained all substances found in the body, including parenterally administered penicillin. The elevation of potassium and the cation to anion imbalance is primarily due to the Na/K cellular pump malfunction, and the destruction of the permeability of the cell membrane is most likely a direct result of complement and other cellular enzymes, which include the prostaglandins and thromboxanes. The elevated SGOT, CPK, and LDH indicated severe trauma to the cells in the immediate area of burn and possibly to the skeletal muscle. The presence of immunoglobulins indicated that high-molecular-weight proteins diffuse equally well during this edematous phase (IgM, 900,000; IgG, 190,000). Evidence of this nature strongly suggests that the integrity of the burn blister by maintained.