Pericarditis,pleural effusion,and pneumonitis with transient mitochondrial antibodies.

Four women with fever, arthromyalgias, pericarditis, pleural effusion, high erythrocyte sedimentation rates, and lymphopenia had mitochondrial antibodies in the serum in the absence of antinuclear antibody. Their illness lasted 5-12 weeks and the antibody test results became negative on remission. Absence of specific bacteriological findings, normal antistreptolysin O titres, resistance to antibiotics, and good response to steroids suggested that these cases represented a milder and less persistent form of the syndrome resembling systemic lupus erythematosus described by German authors.     

Analysis of ribosomal DNA restriction patterns in the genusKluyveromyces

Riboprinting was used to determine the relationships among strains belonging to 15 species of the genusKluyveromyces. The small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) was amplified using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and subjected to a battery of nine restriction enzymes. Similarity coefficients between strains were calculated based on shared and unique restriction fragments. Cluster analysis revealed three major groups that generally correlated with previously reported relationships based on other molecular data. Variations in SSU rDNA restriction fragments may be used for differentiation of theKluyveromyces strains included in this study.The U.S. Government right to retain a non-exclusive, royalty free licence in and to any copyright is acknowledged.     

Identifying DNA splice sites using hypernetworks with artificial molecular evolution

Identifying DNA splice sites is a main task of gene hunting. We introduce the hyper-network architecture as a novel method for finding DNA splice sites. The hypernetwork architecture is a biologically inspired information processing system composed of networks of molecules forming cells, and a number of cells forming a tissue or organism. Its learning is based on molecular evolution. DNA examples taken from GenBank were translated into binary strings and fed into a hypernetwork for training. We performed experiments to explore the generalization performance of hypernetwork learning in this data set by two-fold cross validation. The hypernetwork generalization performance was comparable to well known classification algorithms. With the best hypernetwork obtained, including local information and heuristic rules, we built a system (HyperExon) to obtain splice site candidates. The HyperExon system outperformed leading splice recognition systems in the list of sequences tested.     

Patients with Alzheimer's disease show an increased content of 15 Kdalton somatostatin precursor and a lowered level of tetradecapeptide in their cerebrospinal fluid

The relative proportions of both somatostatin-14 and its precursors somatostatin-28 and the 15 Kdalton prosomatostatin were evaluated by radioimmunoassay in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer's disease. It was observed that the patients have a lowered content in the tetradecapeptide somatostatin while they exhibit a significant increase in unprocessed 15 Kda precursor. These results indicate that these patients possess impaired processing mechanisms which may be responsible for the lowered content in mature somatostatin-14. These observations may provide a valuable test for the ante-mortem diagnosis of the disease. They are discussed in connection with others suggesting that Alzheimer's patients may be selectively altered in their somatostatinergic neurones of their cerebral cortex (Morrison et al. (1985) Nature 314, 90-92. Roberts et al. (1985) Nature 314, 92-94).     

A study of human myocardial tissue in Chagas' disease: distribution and frequency of inflammatory cell types

Although many reports have described the presence of inflammatory cells in chagasic lesions, the precise role(s) of these cells and whether their numbers in the lesions correlate with lesion severity are not known. In this work, we determined the numbers of mononuclear cells, neutrophils and eosinophils present in lesion sites of heart tissue sections from one acute and nine chronic chagasic patients. These numbers were independently recorded for five types of histologic patterns (HP) defined by the following characteristics: interstitial myocarditis with degeneration and necrosis of muscle fibers (HP I), interstitial myocarditis with preservation of muscle fibers (HP II), minimal or absent myocarditis with essentially preserved myocardium (HP III), interstitial fibrosis (HP IV), and myocytolysis (HP V). The largest numbers of inflammatory cells were found in HP I where substantial numbers of eosinophils were found. Eosinophils were frequently seen in areas showing HP I in the tissue sections from the patients with the most severe myocarditis (in terms of the high frequency of necrotic areas in HP I). Eosinophils were also seen in areas of HP III, i.e. in relatively preserved areas of tissue sections from patients displaying the most severe myocarditis, although in lesser numbers than found in HP I. The smallest numbers of inflammatory cells were seen in HP III, where the myocardium was essentially intact. Although significant numbers of inflammatory cells were seen in HP II and IV, eosinophils were either present in small numbers or absent, and there was no obvious correlation between the content of any of the monitored cell types and the overall intensity of myocarditis. The presence of relatively large proportions of eosinophils in tissue areas with HP I type of lesions would appear to implicate these cells in the production of chagasic heart lesions.     

Mitomycin C effect on Robertsonian translocations

Centromeric breaks and dissociation of Robertsonian translocations have been suggested to be the cause of a few cases of mosaicism. One possible explanation for dissociation could be that the point of reunion of the two acrocentrics would be a structurally fragile site. Mitomycin C (MMC) treatment of lymphocyte cultures from 6 patients having a Robertsonian translocation showed that in cases 1 and 2, who were already mosaics, MMC induced a statistically significant increase of the number of cells with the dissociated translocation. In the remaining cases a preferential centromeric break on the translocation was observed, indicating instability of the region. The relationship of monocentric and dicentric translocations, the viability of the cells resulting from the dissociation, and the clinical implications are discussed.     

Genome‐wide association study identifies loci associated with liability to alcohol and drug dependence that is associated with variability in reward‐related ventral striatum activity in African‐ and European‐Americans

Genetic influences on alcohol and drug dependence partially overlap, however, specific loci underlying this overlap remain unclear. We conducted a genome‐wide association study (GWAS) of a phenotype representing alcohol or illicit drug dependence (ANYDEP) among 7291 European‐Americans (EA; 2927 cases) and 3132 African‐Americans (AA: 1315 cases) participating in the family‐based Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism. ANYDEP was heritable (h ² in EA = 0.60, AA = 0.37). The AA GWAS identified three regions with genome‐wide significant (GWS; P < 5E‐08) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosomes 3 (rs34066662, rs58801820) and 13 (rs75168521, rs78886294), and an insertion‐deletion on chromosome 5 (chr5:141988181). No polymorphisms reached GWS in the EA. One GWS region (chromosome 1: rs1890881) emerged from a trans‐ancestral meta‐analysis (EA + AA) of ANYDEP, and was attributable to alcohol dependence in both samples. Four genes (AA: CRKL, DZIP3, SBK3; EA: P2RX6) and four sets of genes were significantly enriched within biological pathways for hemostasis and signal transduction. GWS signals did not replicate in two independent samples but there was weak evidence for association between rs1890881 and alcohol intake in the UK Biobank. Among 118 AA and 481 EA individuals from the Duke Neurogenetics Study, rs75168521 and rs1890881 genotypes were associated with variability in reward‐related ventral striatum activation. This study identified novel loci for substance dependence and provides preliminary evidence that these variants are also associated with individual differences in neural reward reactivity. Gene discovery efforts in non‐European samples with distinct patterns of substance use may lead to the identification of novel ancestry‐specific genetic markers of risk.     

Overexpression of an Arabidopsis thaliana galactinol synthase gene improves drought tolerance in transgenic rice and increased grain yield in the field

Drought stress has often caused significant decreases in crop production which could be associated with global warming. Enhancing drought tolerance without a grain yield penalty has been a great challenge in crop improvement. Here, we report the Arabidopsis thaliana galactinol synthase 2 gene (AtGolS2) was able to confer drought tolerance and increase grain yield in two different rice (Oryza sativa) genotypes under dry field conditions. The developed transgenic lines expressing AtGolS2 under the control of the constitutive maize ubiquitin promoter (Ubi:AtGolS2) also had higher levels of galactinol than the non‐transgenic control. The increased grain yield of the transgenic rice under drought conditions was related to a higher number of panicles, grain fertility and biomass. Extensive confined field trials using Ubi:AtGolS2 transgenic lines in Curinga, tropical japonica and NERICA4, interspecific hybrid across two different seasons and environments revealed the verified lines have the proven field drought tolerance of the Ubi:AtGolS2 transgenic rice. The amended drought tolerance was associated with higher relative water content of leaves, higher photosynthesis activity, lesser reduction in plant growth and faster recovering ability. Collectively, our results provide strong evidence that AtGolS2 is a useful biotechnological tool to reduce grain yield losses in rice beyond genetic differences under field drought stress.     

Insensitivity of maximum expiratory flow to bronchodilation in normal dogs

We examined the effects of the inhaled parasympatholytic agent atropine and the sympathomimetic agent salbutamol on partitioned frictional pressure (Pfr) losses to the site of flow limitation (choke point, CP) in dogs to see how changes brought about by these agents would affect maximum expiratory flow (Vmax) and response to breathing 80% He-20% O2 (delta Vmax) in terms of wave-speed theory of flow limitation. In open-chest dogs, a Pitot-static tube was advanced down the right lower lobe to locate CP, to determine CP lateral and end-on pressures (PE), and to partition the airway into peripheral (alveoli to sublobar) and central (sublobar to CP) segments. Measurements were obtained at approximately 50% vital capacity. After inhalation, CP locations were unchanged with both bronchodilating agents. After atropine inhalation, Pfr central was decreased by one-half compared with base line. Despite the decrease in Pfr central, however, Vmax failed to increase after atropine because of altered bronchial area pressure (BAP) behavior at the CP site. After salbutamol inhalation, Pfr peripheral was reduced by about one-half compared with base line. However, Vmax failed to increase, because this reduction was too small to significantly increase the CP pressure head (i.e., PE). delta Vmax was also insensitive to these agents. Our results show mechanisms by which small changes in Pfr, as well as the complex interaction of changes in Pfr and BAP, may limit the use of Vmax in detecting bronchodilation at different airway sites.