Right lower lobe oedema as a rare sign of left heart failure

Two cases of right lower lobe oedema are presented as a supposedly very rare sign of left heart failure after myocardial infarction in the presence of acute mitral regurgitation. Causes of unilateral oedema and its clinical relevance in the diagnostic and therapeutic perspectives are discussed, and a review of the literature on this topic is presented.     

Histochemical detection of horseradish peroxidase activity in the rat by the vibratome-paraplast method

A method is described for the histochemical detection of horseradish peroxidase in Paraplast Plus embedded brain sections. The procedure uses 150-micron-thick Vibratome-cut slices of glutaraldehyde-paraformaldehyde-fixed brain tissue. Tetramethylbenzidine stabilized by diaminobenzidine/cobalt/H2O2 is used as chromogen. The Vibratome-cut slices are dehydrated through a graded series of acetone, cleared in toluol and flat-embedded in Paraplast Plus embedding medium. Serial sections can be cut as thin as 5-7 micron. The method is universal in its application and permits optimal visualization of labeled neurons with great morphological detail at the light-microscopic level.     

Burn Injury Reduces Neutrophil Directional Migration Speed in Microfluidic Devices

Thermal injury triggers a fulminant inflammatory cascade that heralds shock, end-organ failure, and ultimately sepsis and death. Emerging evidence points to a critical role for the innate immune system, and several studies had documented concurrent impairment in neutrophil chemotaxis with these post-burn inflammatory changes. While a few studies suggest that a link between neutrophil motility and patient mortality might exist, so far, cumbersome assays have prohibited exploration of the prognostic and diagnostic significance of chemotaxis after burn injury. To address this need, we developed a microfluidic device that is simple to operate and allows for precise and robust measurements of chemotaxis speed and persistence characteristics at single-cell resolution. Using this assay, we established a reference set of migration speed values for neutrophils from healthy subjects. Comparisons with samples from burn patients revealed impaired directional migration speed starting as early as 24 hours after burn injury, reaching a minimum at 72–120 hours, correlated to the size of the burn injury and potentially serving as an early indicator for concurrent infections. Further characterization of neutrophil chemotaxis using this new assay may have important diagnostic implications not only for burn patients but also for patients afflicted by other diseases that compromise neutrophil functions.     

Lipase catalyzed reactions of aliphatic and arylaliphatic carbonic acid esters

Symmetrical dialkyl carbonates and dibenzyl carbonates reacted with various nucleophiles in the presence of Candida antarctica lipase B in organic solvents. For example, reaction of dibutyl and dibenzyl carbonate with an alcohol gave a mixture of the mono- and disubstituted products. Aminolysis, however, afforded only the carbamates, without subsequent reaction to the ureum derivatives. The reaction rates were rather low compared with carboxylic esters; the reactivity increased in the order dimethyl相似文献