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Previous studies indicate that cat jaw-muscle spindle afferents can be divided into two types (type I and II) on the basis of their axonal trajectories. The present study examined the relationship between spindle afferent fibers and their target masseter alpha-motoneurons in the cat by using the intracellular horseradish peroxidase (HRP) injection technique, and provided several new findings on the synaptic organization generated between the two. Five type I afferent fiber-motoneuron pairs and nine type II afferent-motoneuron pairs were well stained with HRP. The following conclusions were drawn: 1) A motoneuron received contacts from only one collateral of any given spindle afferent. 2) The number of contacts made between an afferent and a motoneuron ranged from one to three. 3) The contacts made by a spindle afferent were on the same dendrite or dendrites branching from the same primary dendrite. 4) The vast majority of the contacts made by an afferent on a motoneuron were distributed in the dendritic tree within 600 microns from the soma, i.e., in the proximal three fourths of the dendritic tree. The differences observed between the two afferent types were as follows. First, type II afferent terminals made contacts on more distal dendrites of the motoneurons than did type I afferent terminals. Second, the contacts made between a type I afferent and a motoneuron were clustered together, but those made between a type II afferent and a motoneuron were widely dispersed. The present results provided the general rules of synaptic contacts between the spindle afferents and masseter alpha-motoneurons, and demonstrated that the spatial distribution of synaptic contacts on the dendritic tree was different between type I and type II afferents.

Polyoxyethylene(PEO)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) block copolymers bearing ammonium group at the one side chain end was prepared and the enhancing activity on the drug permeation through the skin was investigated in vitro. The enhancing mechanism was discussed by simulating the permeation profile with a Fickian diffusion equation. These copolymers efficiently promoted the transdermal drug permeation and the activity considerably depended on the degree of polymerization of PEO and PDMS. Concerning the role of each part in the molecule, the compound consisting of all moeities, namely PEG, PDMS and cationic group showed highest enhancing activity. From the result of calculation of partition and diffusion parameters, it was revealed that these compound increased only drug partition from vehicle to the skin. Moreover, this materials scarcely showed the skin irritation.

The localization of 2 isoforms of glucose transporters (GLUT1 and GLUT4) in 75 patients with renal cell carcinoma was examined immunohistochemically. Paraffin sections were immunostained with either anti-GLUT1 or GLUT4 antibody by the avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex method. In 55 of 75 patients, GLUT1 staining was demonstrated at the plasma membrane of the cancer cells. In the clear cell subtype, 44 of 52 (84.6%) patients were positive for GLUT1. We did not detect positive staining for GLUT1 in the spindle cell type. In the mixed cell subtype, positive staining was recognized in only the areas of clear cell carcinomas (10 of 13; 76.9%). Positive staining for GLUT1 did not show any significant correlation with tumor grade or extent. Heterogeneous expression of GLUT1 was observed in tumor cell mass: some tumor cells were positive for GLUT1, while other cells were not. In adjacent normal tissue, GLUT1 staining was only recognized at the plasma membrane of some renal tubules. GLUT4 staining was not recognized in either tumor or normal tissues.

A series of the experiments is planning to achieve a better mixing in an incomplete baffled and tall vessel with a modified impeller, which is an object of the industrial engineers. This work is the first one and is planned to establish the method of the measurement of the micromixing through examinations of well known combinations of a complete baffled vessel with the disc turbine(DT), marine propeller(PM). An incomplete baffled vessel with the inclined fan turbine(IFT) was also examined. A method of the continuous injection of the NaOH solution into the fluorescent dye solution is presented. Degree of the dispersion of the solute into the molecular level in the impeller region is very delayed and approximately depends on the power consumption per unit volume. Homogenization with the PM is performed at lower power input compared with that with the DT. The IFT is not preferable to apply for the tall vessel. However, it is found that a small baffle near liquid surface could promote the local micromixing near it.

The preparation of novel transdermal penetration enhancers derived from 2-pyrrolidone were carried out, and the enhancing activities of drug permeation through the skin were evaluated by means of in vitro experiment. All the enhancers contain a short alkyl group, such as methyl, ethyl, propyl or butyl group, at 1-position and a dodecyl group at 3-position of 2-pyrrolidone ring. The enhancing activities were considerably influenced by the length of the short alkyl group at 1-position. 1-Propyl and 1-butyl-3-dodecyl-2-pyrrolidone showed the effective enhancement of penetration of indomethacin through the skin in 60 wt% ethanolic aqueous solution. Moreover, the similar enhancing activities of these compounds were also observed even in ethanolic vehicle.

Phosphonate, phosphoramidate and phosphate derivatives containing long alkyl groups were prepared, and their activities enhancing drug penetration through the skin were evaluated by means of in vitro experiments. The effect of chemical structure of these compounds on enhancing activity was investigated. Among the phosphonate and phosphoramidate derivatives, compounds having a hexadecyl group showed the most effective enhancement of transdermal penetration of indomethacin. For the phosphate derivatives, the enhancing activities were almost equal in the compounds containing dodecyl, tetradecyl and hexadecyl group. All the compounds having an octyl group were not effective in penetration enhancement. Diethyl hexadecylphosphonate and diethyl hexadecylphosphoramidate brought about the highest enhancing activities among these compounds, and the permeability coefficient of indomethacin was about 10-fold as much as that without enhancer. The relationship between the enhancing activities and the lipophilicities of these compounds was discussed.

The existence of a mycoplasmal arginine deiminase which catalyzes the conversion of L-arginine to L-citrulline has been postulated. Here we show the partial amino acid sequence of arginine deiminase of Mycoplasma arginini and the complete nucleotide sequence of the arginine deiminase gene of M. arginini. The open reading frame deduced from this sequence consists of 1,230 bp encoding 410 amino acids. The mature form of this enzyme contains 409 amino acids after the deletion of the first methionine. In this open reading frame, TGA nonsense codons are used as tryptophan codons; this usage was verified by determination of the amino acid sequence. The molecular weight of the enzyme calculated from the deduced amino acid sequence is 46,372. Recently, the nucleotide sequence of the arginine deiminase gene of M. arginini was reported by Kondo et al. (K. Kondo, H. Sone, H. Yoshida, T. Toida, K. Kanatani, Y.-M. Hong N. Nishino, and J. Tanaka, Mol. Gen. Genet. 221:81-86, 1990). However, their sequence differed from ours in several places and especially at the C terminus.

A miniature X-ray tube is tested in place of a conventional radioisotope source. The test is made for the resistive plastic tube counter whose cathode induced signals are utilized for position measurement. The optimum resolution of 0.17 mm is obtained by collimated X-rays. This result is promising for designing a precision luminosity monitor of the AMY detector at TRISTAN, KEK.

The catalytic activity and selectivity of metal oxides and complex oxides for the liquefaction of bituminous coal and lignite are reviewed first and discussed in connection with surface properties of catalysts. However, it has been realized that the functions of catalysts are not fully understood. Thus, in the present work, the hydrocracking of diphenylmethane, diphenyl ether, and benzyl phenyl ether as model compounds of coal, the dehydration of 2-propanol as a test reaction for cracking ability (acidity) of a catalyst, and the hydrogenation of naphthalene as a test reaction for hydrogenation ability of a catalyst were studied by employing various metal oxide and complex metal oxide catalysts. It has been concluded that the acidic property of a catalyst plays an important role for CC bond cleavage, while the hydrogenation ability of a catalyst is important for CO bond cleavage. This conclusion was found to be in agreement with the results of liquefaction of Akabira coal (carbon content: 83.0%) and Big Brown lignite (carbon content: 72.3%). That is, the highly acidic catalysts exhibited high activities for liquefaction of bituminous coals with high carbon content, whereas catalysts possessing high hydrogenation ability showed high activities for liquefaction of lignite containing a large amount of oxygen. The best three catalysts for Akabira coal were MoO 3 Fe 2 O 3 SnO 2 , MoO 3 TiO 2 , and Fe 2 O 3 SO 4 2- , whose activities were almost comparable to a well known MoO 3 CoOAl 2 O 3 catalyst, though they did not contain expensive cobalt. For Big Brown lignite, MoO 3 TiO 2 was the best among the various catalysts.

The evaluation of strength of ceramics is an important problem in their application to engineering components. Although fracture initiating from inherent flaws in ceramics is supposed to be analyzed through linear elastic fracture mechanics, the applicability of a plane-strain fracture toughness criterion is in dispute.

A case of mesenteric panniculitis is presented in which the main signal was an abdominal pulsable mass and severe obstruction of the lymphatic vessels of the mesentery. A review of the literature was done.

A 41-nucleotide-long duplex DNA, which contains the translation termination codon TAA in six reading frames and lactose operator sequence of Escherichia coli, has been synthesized. This fragment may be useful not only for producing a truncated protein encoded in a plasmid, but also for the identification of the precise coding region and translation direction of a bacterial gene in the cloned chromosomal segment. The synthetic fragment was inserted into beta-lactamase structural gene in pBR322 in order to test the in vivo activity. The plasmid produced mutant beta-lactamase reduced in size, as expected from the insertion site, and rendered the host bacterium constitutive for beta-galactosidase. Thus, termination codons and lactose operator in synthetic nucleotide appear to be functional in vivo.

Noninvasive cardiac volume measurement by computed tomography (CT) was attempted in this study. It was found that non-gated CT images were very close to the end-diastolic images by ECG-gated CT. Ten to fifteen non-gated scannings were obtained serially from the upper atria to the left diaphragm in 9 normal subjects and 72 patients (6 hypertensives, 7 aortic valvular diseases, 22 mitral valvular diseases, 5 shunt lesions and 33 ischemic heart diseases). To demarcate each chamber, contrast enhancement CT was performed by drip infusion in most cases, but it was done by 4-6 times bolus injections at the level of the left ventricle (LV) to visualize LV lumen in ischemic cardiac patients who had ventriculography. The volume was calculated by summing each slice's volume which was obtained from the area times slice thickness (Fig. 2). The total cardiac volume and the volume of each chamber (LA, RA, RV and LV) were calculated. The interventricular septum and LV wall were included into LV volume. There was a good relationship (r = 0.90) between the total cardiac volume by CT and that by chest X-ray (PA and lateral views) (Fig. 4). Each volume by CT in 9 normal subjects was: 353 +/- 30 ml/m2 in total, RA: 53 +/- 17 ml/m2, LA: 54 +/- 21 ml/m2, RV: 90 +/- 15 ml/m2, and LV: 123 +/- 15 ml/m2 (mean +/- SD), respectively, and an increment of each volume was shown according to the hemodynamic features of various heart diseases: the total volume was increased significantly in valvular disease (Fig. 5), RA and RV volumes in mitral valvular disease with tricuspid regurgitation and ASD (Figs. 6, 7) LA volume in mitral valvular disease and shunt lesion (Fig. 8) and LV volume in aortic valvular disease and mitral regurgitation (Fig. 9). Between the left ventricular lumen volume by Ct and its end-diastolic volume by ventriculography (area-length method), there was a good relationship (r - 0.81) in 17 cases without cardiac aneurysms out of 22 ischemic cardiac patients examined by ventriculography (RAO and LAO views) (Fig. 11). The cardiac CT was found very useful for measurements of cardiac volume, since it is noninvasive and quite simple yet reasonably accurate.

Using the solid phase phosphotriester method, a gene coding for human fibroblast interferon consisting of 166 amino acid residues was chemically synthesized. The gene obtained by ligation of 61 synthesized oligodeoxyribonucleotide fragments was inserted into the downstream of tryptophan promoter, and expressed in E. coli. Lysate of this E. coli showed the antiviral activity which was specifically neutralized by anti-fibroblast interferon antibody. No particular advantage was observed in the expression efficiency by the synthetic gene over that by the native gene.

Benign neoplasms are rare events in the extrahepatic biliary ducts, and scanty literary references on the subject are available. Four cases of obstructive jaundice caused by benign tumours of the extrahepatic biliary ducts have been reviewed. Two of them have also displayed lithiasis of the gallbladder and common bile duct. In three cases histopathologic confirmation was obtained, in contrast to the remaining case in which only a gross pathologic presumptive diagnosis was possible. Three patients underwent surgical resection, and in one of them hepatojejunostomy was performed. The patient with a presumptive diagnosis of "inflammatory polyp" was not submitted to surgery, due to the special circumstances of the case. The undisturbed follow-up of the four cases attested to the worthiness of the surgical procedures.