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The effects of dietary plant and yeast cerebroside (glucosylceramide), a major sphingolipid in plants and yeast, on atopic dermatitis (AD) like symptoms were investigated in a mouse model. After 7 wk of feeding with a diet containing maize glucosylceramide, plasma IgE levels became significantly lower and in contrast, the levels of interleukin (IL)-12, which induces cellular immunity, became significantly higher in the AD mice than in the controls. However, the sphingolipid constituents of the skin fraction in the maize glucosylceramide fed group did not contain sphingoid bases of plant origin, such as 8-unsaturated sphingoid bases. The results of the present study indicated that dietary plant glucosylceramide prevented AD-like symptoms in AD model mice via regulation of Th1/Th2 balance. Practical applications: Dietary plant and yeast glucosylceramides have been shown to suppress AD-like symptoms in AD model mice via regulation of helper T-cell Th1/Th2 balance. Glucosylceramide are capable of preventing AD and may be useful in skincare products.

Summary We have studied the effects of recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rG-CSF) on granulopoiesis and neutrophil functions in aged rats and aged mice. We subcutaneously injected rG-CSF or control vehicle into aged rats (22 months old and 25 months old) for 7 consecutive days. counted the peripheral neutrophils and evaluated the functions of neutrophils isolated from venous blood. The peripheral neutrophil count in aged rats tended to be increased as compared with that in young rats (11 weeks old). However, the neutrophils in aged rats exhibited a decline of superoxide anion (O2--) release and phagocytic activity as compared with young rats. The peripheral neutrophil count in aged rats was significantly increased 5–6-fold as many as the control value by rG-CSF treatment, which was accompanied by a significant enhancement of O2-release and of phagocytic activity being restored to normal levels or better. In another series of experiments, we subcutaneously injected rG-CSF or control vehicle into aged mice (24–28 months old) or young mice (8 weeks old) for 7 consecutive days, and evaluated the functions of neutrophils isolated from peritoneal cavity. The peritoneal exudate neutrophils from the aged mice exhibited a decline of phagocytic and chemo-tactic activity as compared with the young mice. These functions in both young and aged mice were significantly enhanced by rG-CSF-treatment, and these functions in rG-CSF-treated aged mice were restored to a level higher than the level in control young mice. These findings demonstrate that rG-CSF is capable of enhancing granulopoiesis and restoring the age-related decline of neutrophil functions.

This paper presents a numerical analysis for the scattering of horizontally polarized waves incident on a conducting rectangular cylinder (cross-section = 2a × 2b) by using the point matching method (PMM). the order of simultaneous equations in the analysis has been reduced to one-fourth by using the four-phase symmetrical coordinate method. This has led to a high accuracy of the analysis even for large values of kp0 (k: wavenumber, p0 = √a2 + b2. This paper presents also the numerical results of scattering electromagnetic fields by a conducting rectangular cylinder lying on a flat ground (x-z plane) which are derived from the two components of four-phase symmetrical coordinate analysis satisfying the boundary conditions on the x-z plane. to obtain our numerical results, we did the following: (1) made comparison with the results and discussions of others on similarities and discrepancies among those results, which have led to the justification of PMM, (2) presentation of high-precision results by PMM for the problems which were analyzed with poor accuracy by other researchers; (3) presentation of scattered far-field patterns by the skyscraper “Sunshine-60” in Tokyo as an example for a large value of kp0 = 84.73, comparing vertical polarization. Lastly, a simple method is proposed to calculate approximate scattering fields for large values of kp0 the applicability limit if shown for this approximation method by comparing those results with the accurate results by PMM.