Combined Staining by Thiolacetic Acid and Bielschowsky Methods

Tongues of mice were fixed in 10% Baker's Ca-formalin and sectioned at 50 μ with a freezing microtome. The thiolacetic acid method (Wachstein et al., J. Histochem. Cytochem., 9: 325-39) was used for motor endplates and after this cholinesterase staining, the Bielschowsky method was applied for nerve fibers. Thus, both motor endplates and nerve fibers were fully demonstrated.     

Serum immunoreactive pancreatic phospholipase A2 in patients with various malignant tumors.

The high incidence (40.6%) of elevated serum pancreatic phospholipase A2 (PLA2) was demonstrated in patients with various malignancies. Serum PLA2 was significantly increased in cancer patients compared with healthy sex- and age-matched blood donors (358.4 +/- 168.0 vs. 241.7 +/- 69.0 ng/dl; p less than 0.01). No correlation was observed between serum PLA2 and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in these patients. Although patients with advanced and distantly metastatic cancer of the liver, gallbladder and pancreas showed higher PLA2 levels in serum than those with early cancer, patients with other cancers showed no correlation between serum PLA2 and clinical stage. A combined assay of PLA2 and CEA increased the sensitivity of detection of cancers to 60.8%.     

The structure of jujubosides A and B,the saponins isolated from the seeds of Zizyphus jujuba

Stepwise chemical and enzymatic hydrolyses of jujubosides A and B, the saponins of the seeds of Zizyphus jujuba, afforded prosapogenins I, II and III. The sequence and configuration of the sugar linkages in the saponins and the pro-sapogenins were determined from the PMR data and the application of Klyne's rule of molecular rotations and structures were assigned to jujubosides A and B.     

Shear-induced arrangement of cells in cake during crossflow filtration of Escherichia coli cells

Summary The specific resistance of the cake formed in the crossflow filtration of Escherichia coli was higher than that formed in the dead-end filtration. The scanning electronmicrographs revealed that the cells in the cake formed in the crossflow filtration were oriented in the direction of the circulation flow, while the cells deposited at random in the dead-end filtration. The shear-induced arrangement of cells might increase the specific resistance of the cake in crossflow filtration.     

Preferential Stimulation of Extracellular Release of Dopamine in Rat Frontal Cortex to Striatum Following Competitive Inhibition of the N-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptor

Abstract: Using a brain microdialysis technique, we have shown in the rat that local infusion of a selective and competitive N -methyl- d -aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, cis -4-phosphonomethyl-2-piperidine carboxylic acid (CGS-19755), into the medial frontal cortex via dialysis tubing caused a concentration-related increase in the extracellular release of dopamine, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, and homovanillic acid in the cortical region. Coinfusion of a sodium channel blocker, tetrodotoxin, completely inhibited the ability of the NMDA antagonist to augment frontal dopamine metabolism. These findings suggest that dopamine neurons projecting to the frontal cortex might be under a tonic transsynaptic inhibition exerted by excitatory amino acid neurotransmission via the NMDA receptor at the level of dopamine terminal fields.     

Characterization of a monoclonal antibody, HTA28, recognizing a histone H3 phosphorylation site as a useful marker of M-phase cells.

Mitosis is a valuable indicator of active tissue proliferation but, other than morphological characteristics, there have hitherto been no markers available to detect only M-phase cells. However, a newly established monoclonal antibody (MAb), HTA28, recognizing histone H3 (H3) harboring phosphoserine 28, allows visualization with mitotic chromosomal condensation. In this study we investigated the use of HTA28 for immunohistochemical (IHC) detection of M-phase cells in the regenerating rat liver after partial hepatectomy (PH). Groups of three to five rats were sacrificed at intervals up to 72 hr after PH and proliferation was then assessed by IHC staining using HTA28 and other markers. The temporal pattern of the HTA28 staining index (SI) was very similar to that for the mitotic index (MI), also showing similarities to the bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling index (LI) with a time lag. The HTA28 SI proved to be higher than MI at every time point in line with HTA28 immunoreactivity maintained for all stages of M-phase. The spatial distribution of HTA28-positive cells corresponded with those of other proliferative cell markers. These therefore provide strong evidence for the applicability of HTA28 as an M-phase marker. We also showed that antigenicity for HTA28 is lost if tissue is not immediately fixed after sampling.     

Synthesis and interactive properties of an oligonucleotide with anthraquinone at the sugar fragment

The synthesis of a self-complementary oligonucleotide possessing an anthraquinonylmethyl substituent at the designated sugar fragment, 5'-CCU(2'AQ)AGCTAGG (1), is described. The anthraquinonylmethyl group was introduced to 2'-hydroxyl moiety of uridine, which was then converted to the protected phosphorobisdiethylamidite derivative. This reagent was used for the solid-phase synthesis of the modified oligonucleotide 1. The UV and CD melting behaviors indicate that the modified oligonucleotide 1 can form a duplex in aqueous buffer solution similar to the unmodified strand 5'-CCTAGCTAGG (7). The observed melting temperatures for the duplexes 1 and 7 were 57.4 and 40.0 degrees C, respectively. The temperature-dependent change in the intensity of the induced CD at around 335 nm reflected directly to the melting behaviors of duplex 1, indicating that the anthraquinone groups intercalate into the base pairs in the duplex. The intercalation-induced stability of the duplex translates into a free energy cost of 5.2 kcal/mol. The present work provides a novel method for enhancing the affinity of oligonucleotides for their complementary sequences.