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Background. Prostate cancer increasingly is becoming a medical problem in Japan. To maximize the chance for cure, extensive effort is being made to detect prostate cancer while confined to the gland.Methods. Determination was made of serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) in the early detection of prostate cancer in an Asian male population aged 55 years or older. Recommendation for biopsy was based solely on this parameter when its value exceeded 2.0 ng/ml in IMx immunoenzymetric assay.Results. Of 1189 men, 150 (12.6%) had elevated values. The proportion of males with serum PSA greater than 4.0 ng/ml was only 3.4%. Of the 99 males who underwent ultrasound-guided biopsies, 16 cancers were detected, a cancer detection rate of 1.3%. Most of these (81.3%) were clinically localized cancers. Seven patients with cancer had serum PSA levels below 4.0 ng/ml including 5 less than 3.0 ng/ml. These tumors would have been overlooked if the conventional cutoff levels of 4.0 ng/ml had been applied. Radical prostatectomy was conducted on 13 patients. All had histologic features of clinically significant cancer and 69.2% were pathologically confined within the gland.Conclusions. Elderly Asian males appear to have lower serum PSA than their Western counterparts. The optimal cutoff of serum PSA for early detection should be examined further in Asian male populations. Differences in the incidence of prostate cancer between ethnic groups may have been overestimated in previous studies owing in part to unawareness by the physician and general public. Though the frequent use of more sophisticated diagnostic modalities will likely disclose greater numbers of prostate cancers in Japan, whether early detection reduces mortality by minimizing risk of death from cancer remains a point to be determined. Cancer 1995; 76:463-72.

This paper presents a new optical drive system incorporating acceleration disturbance suppression control in the focus actuator. The new system uses a disturbance observer based on modern control theory to provide a wide range of detection. As a result, it has achieved a significant improvement in control robustness from conventional systems.

A VCR deck mechanism using high-performance actuators has been developed for high density recording and has realized a track density of 4200 TPI. Concurrently, a new type of tape transport adjustment method has been developed for the VCR deck using thin metal evaporated (ME) tape.

This paper describes new control technology for a VCR motor employing acceleration controller using disturbance and velocity observers based on modern control theory. The results show that this produces a robust system with lower wow - flutter.

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coliserovar O157 (O157) strains with highly similar pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns were isolated in Japan during 2007 and 2008. Several genetic features related to O157 evolution were investigated to indicate whether homoplasy might have contributed to the highly similar PFGE patterns in these strains. The O157 strains were classified in lineage I/II, as defined by a lineage-specific polymorphism assay-6 with an atypical allele in Z5935 (code: 231111). Analysis of the insertion sites of stx2phage in these strains showed that the sites were “occupied” in yehVand “intact” in wrbA,indicating that the strains were derived from “Cluster 1” of “Subgroup C.” When a specific single-nucleotide polymorphism in ECs2357 in clade 8 strains was investigated, all of the strains in the present study were confirmed to be clade 8 strains. These results indicated that the O157 strains in this study had common genetic features, suggesting that the highly similar PFGE patterns of these strains were not due to homoplasy. Because no common source of these strains could be identified in 2007 to 2008 in Japan, these strains may have emerged from a unique O157 clade 8 clone and then spread by dissemination in Japan.

A novel gene amplification method, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), has been recently developed as a rapid, specific diagnostic method for various infectious diseases. We have investigated whether LAMP can be used to detect small numbers of enteroaggregative Escherichia coli(EAEC) cells contaminated in food samples. Primers for LAMP reaction were designed with EAEC aggRgene sequences (available in GenBank). LAMP specificity with these primers was the same as that of PCR in a study of 37 EAEC and 42 non-EAEC bacterial strains. The sensitivity of the LAMP method was better than that of PCR in a study of serially diluted EAEC cells. The LAMP method was significantly more effective than was PCR in detecting EAEC-contaminated food samples (Fisher’s exact test, P<0.05). Therefore, the LAMP method described here should be useful for detecting small numbers of EAEC cells in food samples.

Ninety-five enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coliserovar O157 strains, including 30 strains isolated from 13 intrafamily outbreaks and 14 strains isolated from 3 mass outbreaks, were studied by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) typing, and the resulting data were subjected to cluster analysis. Cluster analysis of the VNTR typing data revealed that 57 (60.0%) of 95 strains, including all epidemiologically linked strains, formed clusters with at least 95% similarity. Cluster analysis of the PFGE patterns revealed that 67 (70.5%) of 95 strains, including all but 1 of the epidemiologically linked strains, formed clusters with 90% similarity. The number of epidemiologically unlinked strains forming clusters was significantly less by VNTR cluster analysis than by PFGE cluster analysis. The congruence value between PFGE and VNTR cluster analysis was low and did not show an obvious correlation. With two-step cluster analysis, the number of clustered epidemiologically unlinked strains by PFGE cluster analysis that were divided by subsequent VNTR cluster analysis was significantly higher than the number by VNTR cluster analysis that were divided by subsequent PFGE cluster analysis. These results indicate that VNTR cluster analysis is more efficient than PFGE cluster analysis as an epidemiological tool to trace the transmission of enterohemorrhagic E. coliO157.

When the latter half of the hup gene encoding a histone-like protein HSl of Streptomyces lividans TK24 was replaced by the kanamycin resistance gene, the hup mutant EY1 grew slowly in liquid medium and this delay was overcome by introduction of the complete hup . EY1 sporulated normally on solid medium, with no serious defects as observed in hupAB mutants of Escherichia coli . Therefore, HSl probably has a role in growth in the presence of liquid medium and this organism may possess another histone-like protein with functions overlapping those of HSl. We cloned the hup2 gene encoding another histone-like protein HSl2, which has two motifs of prokaryotic histone-like protein and eukaryotic histone H1. The amount of HSl2 increased in EY1, determined by western blotting analysis using an anti-His-tagged HSl2 polyclonal antibody. We are entertaining the notion that the increased amount of HSl2 partially suppressed the defects caused by the hup mutation.

pSA1.1 is a 9.1‐kb multicopy plasmid originally isolated from Streptomyces cyaneus(formerly S. azureus) ATCC 14921. This plasmid accumulates single‐stranded DNA in S. lividansand is therefore considered to replicate by a rolling‐circle replication. In the present work, the repgene encoding the replication initiator protein and the replication origin oriof pSA1.1 were determined. The repand oriare located on separate regions. The Rep protein of pSA1.1 belongs to superfamily I which includes A proteins of phages. Nucleotide sequence of the surrounding putative nicking site of pSA1.1 shows good agreement with those of the pC194 group plasmids and phages. The direction of replication was also determined.

In order to examine to what extent adrenergic mechanism contributes to the urethral pressure in patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy, changes in the intraurethral pressure in the prostatic zone were measured in vivo by both the urethral pressure profile technique and the balloon method before and after administration of alpha-adrenergic stimulants and an alpha-adrenergic blocker. The effect of spinal anesthesia on the urethral pressure was also investigated. It is suggested that 40 per cent of the total urethral pressure in patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy is due to alpha-adrenergic tone, and the remaining 53 per cent is due to static pressure resulting from the hypertrophied prostatic bulk. The in vitro study indicates that the increase in urethral pressure and appearance of rhythmic pressure waves after alpha-adrenergic stimulants are probably caused by contraction of the prostate, prostatic capsule and prostatic urethra.

The nucleotide sequence of spoIIIE-like and the sporulation-inhibitory and transfer gene (spi) in a conjugative plasmid, pSA1.1, of Streptomyces azureuswere examined to detect the promoter region. Using Southern blotting and a spifragment as probe, spi-like genes were detected in chromosomes of the host and other actinomycetes. These results suggest that there is a spi- and spoIIIE-like gene in chromosomes of some actinomycetes.

We evaluated the usefulness and safety of a bladder neck support prosthesis in patients with stress or mixed incontinence.

The effect of short-term inhalation of ozone (O3) on the content and metabolism of phospholipids, particularly lecithin (PC), in rat lung was studied. The PC level increased slightly, but significantly, in the lung of rats exposed to 2 ppm O3 for 3 h. However, the PC level remained within the control level following the exposure to 2.5 and 5 ppm of O3 for 3 h, while the lysolecithin (LysoPC) content greatly increased. The incorporation of [32P]orthophosphate (32Pi) and [14C]palmitic acid into PC in the lung slices obtained from the animals tended to increase following the exposure to 2 ppm for 3 h, but decreased following the exposure to O3 above 2.5 ppm for 3 h. On the other hand, the radioactivity of 32Pi in LysoPC of lung from the rats exposed to O3 above 2.5 ppm was significantly greater than that from the control. Such changes in the content of PC or LysoPC and in the incorporation of labeled precursors into them may be explained, at least in part, by the combination of the presently and previously observed changes in the activities of enzymes participating in PC metabolism pathway as follows: (1) the significant stimulation in the activity of LysoPC acyltransferase (LysoPC ATF), which can transfer fatty acids onto LysoPC, for palmitic acid at an earlier stage of the exposure to O3 at 2 and 2.5 ppm; (2) the depression in the activities of this enzyme and another ATF—LysoPC-LysoPC ATF, which can synthesize one molecule of disaturated PC from two moles of saturated-LysoPC-by increasing the O3 exposure time; and (3) the stimulation in the phospho-lipase A2 activity in the lung of rats exposed to 2 ppm of O3 for 6 h.

Insect lectins are important as part of nonspecific self-defense, but their antifungal mechanisms remain to be elucidated. Fungi contain glucans on the cell surface and insect glucan-binding proteins are considered to be essential for antifungal mechanisms. We purified glucose-binding proteins from hemolymph of pupae of the silkworm Bombyx mori, and the amino acid sequence analysis showed that their two proteins are 30-kDa lipoproteins, major components of B. morihemolymph. These lipoproteins specifically bound to glucose and glucans, suggesting that they are involved in insect self-defense systems.

pSA1.1 is a 9.1-kb multicopy plasmid originally isolated from Streptomyces cyaneus (formerly S. azureus) ATCC 14921. This plasmid accumulates single-stranded DNA in S. lividans and is therefore considered to replicate by a rolling-circle replication. In the present work, the rep gene encoding the replication initiator protein and the replication origin ori of pSA1.1 were determined. The rep and ori are located on separate regions. The Rep protein of pSA1.1 belongs to superfamily I which includes A proteins of phages. Nucleotide sequence of the surrounding putative nicking site of pSA1.1 shows good agreement with those of the pC194 group plasmids and phages. The direction of replication was also determined.

Streptomyces plasmid pSA1.1 accumulated single-stranded DNA as replication intermediates in S. lividans; therefore, this plasmid was considered to replicate by a rolling-circle mechanism. A DNA-binding protein (pI > 9.7 and about 10 kDa) was purified on a denatured DNA-Cellulose column, then on a native DNA-Cellulose column. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of this protein has a high homology with bacterial histone-like proteins. In the gel retardation assay, this protein bound with the single-stranded DNA of pSA1.1. We propose that this protein may participate in the replication of pSA1.1.