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The accuracy of right ventricular (RV) quantification by three-dimensional echocardiography (3DE) has been reported mainly in patients with a normal RV. However, there are no data regarding the accuracy of 3DE in patients with a dilated RV, as in shunt diseases. In this study, we evaluated the accuracy of 3DE and that of volumetric cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) for assessment of RV and left ventricular (LV) stroke volume (SV) and the pulmonary (Qp)/systemic (Qs) blood flow ratio in patients with an atrial septal defect (ASD) using the two-dimensional phase contrast (2DPC) method as the gold standard.

A protocol for ester condensation between equimolar amounts of carboxylic acids and alcohols catalyzed by bulky diarylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonate is described. We also present procedures for the synthesis of N-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-N-mesitylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonate. The present ester condensation proceeds well under mild conditions even without the removal of generated water. The synthesis of N-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-N-mesitylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonate will take ∼5 days. The ester condensation reactions will take ∼6 h to 3 days.

Bulky diarylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonates effectively promote dehydration reactions, such as condensation reactions to give esters and the dehydrative cyclization of 1,3,5‐triketones. In particular, N‐(2,6‐diphenylphenyl)‐N‐mesitylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonate shows much higher catalytic activity than C6F5SO3H under reaction conditions without the removal of generated water, even though the former is a weaker acid. Its crystallization gives an aggregated cyclic ion pair, which is composed of two diarylammonium cations, four pentafluorobenzenesulfonate anions, and two oxonium cations. This ion pair is strongly stabilized by four intermolecular and two intramolecular π–π attractive interactions and 10 hydrogen bonds. The extremely high catalytic activity of N‐(2,6‐diphenylphenyl)‐N‐mesitylammonium pentafluorobenzenesulfonate in the dehydration reactions may be ascribed to the local hydrophobic environment of the tightly aggregated ammonium salts.

ABSTRACT: Soluble and detergent‐solubilized placental extracts were studied for their modulatory effects upon the proliferation of lymphocytes stimulated by various activating agents. It was shown that soluble placental extract (SPE) exerted an inhibitory effect on the lymphoproliferation triggered by alloantigen or LPS but not by Con A or the combined action of PMA + calcium ionophore A 23187. This effect was also observed with SPE precipitated by 30% of ammonium sulfate (SPE30). On the other hand, a solubilized placental extract (SzPE) that was obtained by using octyl‐β‐D‐glucopyranoside inhibited the stimulation triggered by alloantigen, LPS, and Con A but did not affect the protein kinase C pathway. The modulatory effects were observed not only when SPE (or SPE30) and SzPE were added at the time of culture initiation but also at 24 h before or after the activating agents. Preincubation with SPE30 or SzPE immobilized on plastic surface, however, transduced an enhanced lymphoproliferative response to alloantigen and mitogen Con A but not to LPS. The above results suggest that placental substances exerted their modulatory effects by interfering mainly with the antigen or mitogen lymphoproliferation pathways.

Sporamin, the tuberous root storage protein of the sweet potato, accounts for about 60 to 80% of the total soluble protein of this organ. The amount of sporamin present in other organs is very low, or even not detectable, in the normal field-grown plants. However, the stem of sweet potato plantlets grown axenically on agar medium containing sucrose was found to accumulate large amounts of sporamin. Two-dimensional gel electrophoretic profiles of sporamin precursors synthesized in vitro by poly(A)+ RNA are indistinguishable between tuberous roots of the field-grown plants and stems of the axenically cultured plants, suggesting that an essentially identical set of the members of sporamin multigene family are expressed in these two organs under different growth conditions. Transgenic tobacco plants having a CAT (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase) fusion gene with the 5' upstream region of a sporamin A gene, gSPO-A1, show preferential expression of CAT activity in stems when the plants are maintained in axenic culture on sucrose medium as is the case for sporamin in sweet potato. Deletion analysis revealed that the DNA sequence of gSPO-A1 between -94 and -305, relative to the transcription start site, is important for its expression in tobacco. This region contains two of the previously postulated putative regulatory elements conserved between sporamin A and B genes.

Microimmunofluorescence using Terasaki plates and a direct plate freezing method were combined for effective screening of hybridoma supernatants. The microplates, in which the fused cells (myeloma and spleen cells) were cultured and hybridoma colonies were growing, were frozen after harvest of supernatants and saved at −80 C for several weeks without affecting antibody production ability of hybridomas. Microimmunofluorescence was performed in Terasaki plates on which target cells were attached by poly‐l‐lysine and glutaraldehyde or by short time culture of the cells in Terasaki plates. The direct plate freezing method prevented initial hybridoma cells from changes or disappearance of antibody productions during screening of hybridoma supernatants; the microimmunofluorescence staining method permits fast and detailed estimation of specificity of antibodies of hybridomas by saving time and minimal consumption of supernatant for checking. The combination of these two methods is a powerful tool for obtaining desired monoclonal antibodies.

Background:While several reports suggest that severe tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is associated with poor prognosis, the indication for surgical intervention has not been established owing to not only a high operative mortality but also a lack of evidence predicting clinical outcomes.Hypothesis:Owing to the hemodynamic association of severe TR with elevated pressures on the right-side heart, which leads to venous congestion as worsening renal function, we hypothesized a robust association of multiorgan dysfunction with clinical outcomes in patients with severe TR. Thus, we focused on the association of laboratory biomarkers of liver and renal functions with clinical outcomes.Methods:We identified 1087 consecutive patients with severe TR who underwent echocardiography and retrospectively obtained clinical data.Results:Of these patients, 37 and 1050 had primary and secondary TR. During the follow-up periods (median, 1.6 years), composite adverse events (all-cause death or hospitalization for heart failure: HF) occurred in 280 patients. Among 8 biomarkers, the multivariate analysis adjusted for age, sex, and HF hospitalization history revealed that plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and serum blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels were associated with composite adverse events (BNP, per 100-pg/ml increase, hazard ratio (HR), 1.02, 95% confidential interval (CI), 1.00, 1.04; BUN, per 1mg/dl-increase, HR, 1.02, 95%CI, 1.01, 1.03; both p<0.05); comparable area under the ROC curves: 0.641 and 0.638, respectively. In contrast, biomarkers of liver function such as total bilirubin did not persist. Notably, BUN levels were significantly associated with clinical outcomes even in the patients with BNP levels lower than the cutoff value (BNP <333 pg/ml) (p<0.05) (Figure).Conclusion:These findings show that BUN level is a predictive biomarker in patients with severe TR, reflecting a different aspect of the pathophysiology represented by BNP levels.

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Sporamin, a major tuberous root protein of sweet potato, was found to accumulate in large quantities in excised leaves and petioles when such explants were supplied with high concentrations of sucrose. Although a small amount of sporamin could be detected in leaves and petioles treated with 1% or lower concentrations of sucrose, the maximum level of induction required sucrose at a concentration of 3% or higher. The appearance of sporamin polypeptides in leaves and petioles treated with 3% sucrose followed a lag period of about one day, while a significant amount of sporamin mRNAs was already detectable in petioles after one day of treatment with sucrose. Addition of silver nitrate to the medium did not affect the accumulation of sporamin, suggesting that this induction is not due to the effect of ethylene induced by wounding of the tissue. The accumulation of sporamin could also be induced by glucose and by fructose, but not by man-nitol, suggesting that changes in carbohydrate and/or energy metabolism in the cell may be involved in the induction. Callus tissues obtained by treatment of leaf segments with 1-naphthaleneacetic acid did not accumulate sporamin even though these cells were cultured on agar medium that contained 3% sucrose. However, when callus tissues were allowed to grow after transfer to a medium that contained 6-benzylaminopurine and sucrose, accumulation of large amounts of sporamin was induced. These results suggest that, while expression of genes coding for sporamin can be induced in organs other than the tuberous root by a process that does not accompany the differentiation of tissue, the induction of expression of sporamin genes by sucrose requires that cells be competent in some specific, but as yet unidentified, way.