UK policy on folate fortification of foods

The UK Food Standards A gency has decided not to recommend fortification of foods with folate, the family of vitamins associated with the prevention of neural tube defects in babies. This is a change in attitude from previous recommendations made by a series of committees and reports in the UK. Notably, it differs from US policy on the matter. The debate may not be over yet, however.     

An analysis of the mammalian ventricular action potential

Summary A Hodgkin-Huxley model for ventricular excitation is abstracted from electrophysiological data. A singular perturbation analysis of the 8-dimensional phase portrait of the model characterizes the role of calcium during the plateau phase of the ventricular action potential and demonstrates how the calcium refractory period prevents tetanization. Supported in part by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA     

Fetal thermal dose considerations during the obstetrician's watch: Implications for the pediatrician's observations

There are a number of seemingly "usual" thermal episodes during pregnancy for which it is relatively easy to determine a rudimentary aspect of thermal dose; these episodes include fever, labor, labor plus epidural, and the normally-occurring 0.5 degrees C temperature elevation above maternal core temperature of the fetus during the entirety of the third trimester. Complications can involve, for instance, fever during the third trimester. We consider the thermal doses of five different but "usual" or "normal" hyperthermic episodes during human pregnancy and compare those doses with the thermal doses involved with both single and cohort exposures of pregnant guinea pigs throughout their gestational period. The end-point studied in the guinea pigs was microencephaly. In nine of the 10 comparisons (human fetal thermal dose vs. guinea pig fetal thermal dose) the human dose is substantially larger than that of the guinea pig thermal dose, which was substantially teratogenic. This situation is essentially the inverse of the type of information contained in the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) on drugs, in which it is not unusual to discern that at high drug levels there may be teratogenic effects in laboratory animals, but such effects were not observed at "clinical" drug levels in animals or subsequent clinical trials. With hyperthermic events, however, it appears that the teratogenically-effective thermal dose levels associated with animal testing are quite low relative to those thermal doses associated with relatively "normal" obstetric observations during a pregnancy.     

Cardiovascular abnormalities in Folr1 knockout mice and folate rescue

BACKGROUND: Periconceptional folic acid supplementation is widely believed to aid in the prevention of neural tube defects (NTDs), orofacial clefts, and congenital heart defects. Folate-binding proteins or receptors serve to bind folic acid and 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, representing one of the two major mechanisms of cellular folate uptake. METHODS: We herein describe abnormal cardiovascular development in mouse fetuses lacking a functional folate-binding protein gene (Folr1). We also performed a dose-response study with folinic acid and determined the impact of maternal folate supplementation on Folr1 nullizygous cardiac development. RESULTS: Partially rescued preterm Folr1(-/-) (formerly referred to as Folbp1) fetuses were found to have outflow tract defects, aortic arch artery abnormalities, and isolated dextracardia. Maternal supplementation with folinic acid rescued the embryonic lethality and the observed cardiovascular phenotypes in a dose-dependant manner. Maternal genotype exhibited significant impact on the rescue efficiency, suggesting an important role of in utero folate status in embryonic development. Abnormal heart looping was observed during early development of Folr1(-/-) embryos partially rescued by maternal folinic acid supplementation. Migration pattern of cardiac neural crest cells, genetic signals in pharyngeal arches, and the secondary heart field were also found to be affected in the mutant embryos. CONCLUSIONS: Our observations suggest that the beneficial effect of folic acid for congenital heart defects might be mediated via its impact on neural crest cells and by gene regulation of signaling pathways involved in the development of the pharyngeal arches and the secondary heart field.     

自体软骨细胞修复兔膝关节全层软骨缺损的实验研究

目的：研究自体软骨细胞复合于人脐带Wharton胶支架对兔膝关节全层软骨缺损的修复效果。方法：经自体关节软骨细胞 经体外培养后复合到制备人脐带Wharton 胶取向支架内构建细胞- 支架复合体,选取健康清洁新西兰兔23 只,雌雄不拘,体重 2.5-3.0 kg,取滑车沟中下部制作全层软骨缺损模型后随机分成A、B和C 组。A组(n= 10)：植入自体软骨细胞+人脐带Wharton 胶取向支架复合体;B组(n= 10)：植入单纯人脐带Wharton 胶取向支架;C组(n= 3)：不做任何处理正常兔。分别于术后3 个月和6 个月各处死后取材进行生物力学特性评估检测。结果：压痕实验显示在3 个月时A 和B 组修复区组织刚度分别达到正常软骨的 45.72%和25.25%,且A组刚度明显优于B组,均低于C组( P<0.05);到6 个月时各自达到正常软骨刚度的69.76%和35.14%,同 样A 组刚度明显优于B 组,均低于C 组( P<0.05)且在同期个各组之间均有显著性差异（F=80.309,P<0.05）。结论：体外培养的自 体软骨细胞与人脐带Wharton 胶复合在体内的微环境作用下修复软骨缺损效果良好,为软骨组织工程提供了一种新支架材料。