Enhancement of excess electron transfer efficiency in DNA containing a phenothiazine donor and multiple stable phenanthrenyl base pairs

EET grown ohm: Excess electron transfer (EET) was observed within a DNA duplex containing π-stacked phenothiazine as an electron donor, phenanthrenes as electron carriers and 5-bromouracil as an electron trap. Increasing the number of phenanthrenyl base pairs increased EET efficiency.

Imaging Diagnosis - Lack of Contrast Enhancement in Metastatic Cerebral Adenocarcinoma

A 7-year-old female spayed Scottish Terrier was presented with central nervous system symptoms suggestive of a lesion in the forebrain. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging revealed multifocal disease in the forebrain. Because of complete lack of contrast enhancement, the changes were attributed to lesions of inflammatory origin.Histopathology of the brain revealed multiplemetastatic lesions of an adenocarcinoma. Brainmetastases in general show contrast enhancement. The reason for a complete absence of contrast enhancement is unknown. Previous administration of corticosteroids, increased diffusion time of contrast medium, increased intracranial pressure in combination with an intact blood–tumor barrier is discussed as possible reasons.

Enhancement of Drug-Specific Lymphocyte Proliferation Using CD25-Depleted CD3(+) Effector Cells

Background: The lymphocyte transformation test (LTT) is used for in vitro diagnosis of drug hypersensitivity reactions. While its specificity is over 90%, sensitivity is limited and depends on the type of reaction, drug and possibly time interval between the event and analysis. Removal of regulatory T cells (Treg/CD25(hi)) from in vitro stimulated cell cultures was previously reported to be a promising method to increase the sensitivity of proliferation tests. Objective: The aim of this investigation is to evaluate the effect of removal of regulatory T cells on the sensitivity of the LTT. Methods: Patients with well-documented drug hypersensitivity were recruited. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells, isolated CD3(+) and CD3(+) T cells depleted of the CD25(hi) fraction were used as effector cells in the LTT. Irrelevant drugs were also included to determine specificity. (3)H-thymidine incorporation was utilized as the detection system and results were expressed as a stimulation index (SI). Results: SIs of 7/11 LTTs were reduced after a mean time interval of 10.5 months (LTT 1 vs. LTT 2). Removal of the CD25(hi) fraction, which was FOXP3(+) and had a suppressive effect on drug-induced proliferation, resulted in an increased response to the relevant drugs. Sensitivity was increased from 25 to 82.35% with dramatically enhanced SI (2.05 to 6.02). Specificity was not affected. Conclusion: Removal of Treg/CD25(hi) cells can increase the frequency and strengths of drug-specific proliferation without affecting specificity. This approach might be useful in certain drug hypersensitivity reactions with borderline responses or long time interval since the hypersensitivity reaction. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

En Vivo: If We Call Them Will They Come? A Telephone-based Brief Motivational Enhancement Intervention Targeting TV Time

Introduction: The prevalence of overweight among children has doubled in the last twenty years, and Texas children rank near the top as the nation’s heaviest. Time spent television viewing may not only expose children to advertising for unhealthy foods, but may also take the place of physical activity.

The effect of desmopressin on platelet function: a selective enhancement of procoagulant COAT platelets in patients with primary platelet function defects.

1-deamino-8-d-arginine vasopressin (desmopressin [DDAVP]) is clinically efficacious in patients with mild platelet function disorders but it is not known which mechanisms mediate this effect. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of in vivo DDAVP administration in these patients. We assessed von Willebrand factor (VWF), factor VIII, platelet activation and aggregation, platelet-dependent thrombin generation, and platelet intracellular Na(+)/Ca(2+) fluxes, before and 2 and 4 hours after DDAVP (0.3 µg/kg). We found (1) no significant changes for P-selectin expression, PAC-1 binding, δ-granule content and secretion, and platelet-aggregation; (2) significant decreases of secretion of α-granules and GPIIb-IIIa activation induced by adenosine 5'-diphosphate, convulxin, and thrombin; (3) significant increases of procoagulant platelets induced by convulxin/thrombin and platelet-dependent thrombin generation; and (4) significant increases of intracellular Na(+)/Ca(2+) concentrations. We show that in vivo DDAVP selectively and markedly enhances the ability to form procoagulant platelets and increases platelet-dependent thrombin generation by enhancing Na(+)/Ca(2+) mobilization. This report indicates that the beneficial hemostatic effect of DDAVP is not limited to an increase in large VWF multimers. An enhancement of platelet procoagulant activity appears to be an additional and (at least in platelet disorders) -possibly clinically relevant mechanism of DDAVP's action.

5-ALA complete resections go beyond MR contrast enhancement: shift corrected volumetric analysis of the extent of resection in surgery for glioblastoma

BACKGROUND The technique of 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) tumor fluorescence is increasingly used to improve visualization of tumor tissue and thereby to increase the rate of patients with gross total resections. In this study, we measured the resection volumes in patients who underwent 5-ALA-guided surgery for non-eloquent glioblastoma and compared them with the preoperative tumor volume. METHODS We selected 13 patients who had received a complete resection according to intraoperative 5-ALA induced fluorescence and CRET according to post-operative T1 contrast-enhanced MRI. The volumes of pre-operative contrast enhancing tissue, post-operative resection cavity and resected tissue were determined through shift-corrected volumetric analysis. RESULTS The mean resection cavity (29 cm(3)) was marginally smaller than the pre-operative contrast-enhancing tumor (39 cm(3), p = 0.32). However, the mean overall resection volume (84 cm(3)) was significantly larger than the pre-operative contrast-enhancing tumor (39 cm(3), p = 0.0087). This yields a mean volume of resected 5-ALA positive, but radiological non-enhancing tissue of 45 cm(3). The mean calculated rim of resected tissue surpassed pre-operative tumor diameter by 6 mm (range 0-10 mm). CONCLUSIONS Results of the current study imply that (i) the resection cavity underestimates the volume of resected tissue and (ii) 5-ALA complete resections go significantly beyond the volume of pre-operative contrast-enhancing tumor bulk on MRI, indicating that 5-ALA also stains MRI non-enhancing tumor tissue. Use of 5-ALA may thus enable extension of coalescent tumor resection beyond radiologically evident tumor. The impact of this more extended resection method on time to progression and overall survival has not been determined, and potentially puts adjacent and functionally intact tissue at risk.

Measurements of Production Properties of K0S mesons and Lambda hyperons in Proton-Carbon Interactions at 31 GeV/c

Spectra of K0S mesons and Λ hyperons were measured in p+C interactions at 31 GeV/c with the large acceptance NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS. The data were collected with an isotropic graphite target with a thickness of 4% of a nuclear interaction length. Interaction cross sections, charged pion spectra, and charged kaon spectra were previously measured using the same data set. Results on K0S and Λ production in p+C interactions serve as reference for the understanding of the enhancement of strangeness production in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Moreover, they provide important input for the improvement of neutrino flux predictions for the T2K long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan. Inclusive production cross sections for K0S and Λ are presented as a function of laboratory momentum in intervals of the laboratory polar angle covering the range from 0 up to 240 mrad. The results are compared with predictions of several hadron production models. The K0S mean multiplicity in production processes and the inclusive cross section for K0S production were measured and amount to 0.127 ± 0.005 (stat) ± 0.022 (sys) and 29.0 ± 1.6 (stat) ± 5.0 (sys) mb, respectively.

Luminescence Enhancement after Adding Stoppers to Europium(III) Nanozeolite L

Stopper molecules attached to nanozeolite L (NZL) boost the luminescence of confined Eu3+-β-diketonate complexes. The mechanism that is responsible was elucidated by comparing two diketonate ligands of different pKa and two aromatic imines, and by applying stationary and time resolved spectroscopy. The result is that the presence of the imidazolium based stopper is favorable to the sustainable formation of Eu3+-β-diketonate complexes with high coordination by decreasing the proton strength inside the channels of NZL. A consequence is that strongly luminescent transparent films can be prepared using aqueous suspension of the stopper modified composites.

Enhancement of bone healing using non-glycosylated rhBMP-2 released from a fibrin matrix in dogs and cats

OBJECTIVES To test a non-glycosylated recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (ngly-rhBMP-2)/fibrin composite, which has been shown experimentally to enhance healing of bone defects in rodents, in a clinical case series of dogs and cats undergoing treatment for fracture non-unions and arthrodesis. METHODS A ngly-rhBMP-2/fibrin composite was applied in 41 sites in 38 dogs and cats for which a cancellous bone autograft was indicated, replacing the graft. RESULTS Bridging of the bone defect with functional bone healing was achieved in 90 per cent of the arthrodesis and fracture nonunions treated in this manner. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE This prospective clinical study demonstrates the beneficial effects of ngly-rhBMP-2 in a specially designed fibrin matrix on the treatment of bone defects, and validates the use of this composite as an alternative to bone autografts in dogs and cats.

Quality Assessment and Enhancement Method for high-resolution Fourier-Domain OCT Imaging of Retina Laser Lesions

We present an image quality assessment and enhancement method for high-resolution Fourier-Domain OCT imaging like in sub-threshold retina therapy. A Maximum-Likelihood deconvolution algorithm as well as a histogram-based quality assessment method are evaluated.

Distortion-free enhancement of terahertz signals measured by electro-optic sampling. I. Theory

We present three methods for the distortion-free enhancement of THz signals measured by electro-optic sampling in zinc blende-type detector crystals, e.g., ZnTe or GaP. A technique commonly used in optically heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect spectroscopy is introduced, which is based on two measurements at opposite optical biases near the zero transmission point in a crossed polarizer detection geometry. In contrast to other techniques for an undistorted THz signal enhancement, it also works in a balanced detection scheme and does not require an elaborate procedure for the reconstruction of the true signal as the two measured waveforms are simply subtracted to remove distortions. We study three different approaches for setting an optical bias using the Jones matrix formalism and discuss them also in the framework of optical heterodyne detection. We show that there is an optimal bias point in realistic situations where a small fraction of the probe light is scattered by optical components. The experimental demonstration will be given in the second part of this two-paper series [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, doc. ID 204877 (2014, posted online)].