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The shunt flow from the coronary artery to pulmonary arteries was evaluated in 6 patients with coronary-pulmonary fistula by lung perfusion scintigraphy with technetium-99m macroaggregated albumin. In 2 patients, whose degree of visualization of pulmonary arteries by coronary angiography was relatively high, lung perfusion scintigrams demonstrated the defects at the distal of coronary-pulmonary fistulas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the origins and diversity of invasive species can reveal introduction and invasion pathways, and inform an effective management of invasive species. Tall goldenrod, Solidago altissima, is a herbaceous perennial plant native to North America and it has become a widespread invasive weed in East Asian countries. We used microsatellite and chloroplast DNA markers to obtain information on neutral processes and on genetic diversity in native and invaded populations of S. altissima and to infer how it invaded and spread in Japan. We found that introduced (n = 12) and native (n = 20) populations had similar levels of genetic diversity at nuclear SSR loci. Genetic structure analysis indicated that at least two independent colonization events gave rise to current S. altissima populations in Japan. The majority (68%) of the Japanese S. altissima were genetically similar and likely shared a common origin from a single or a small number of populations from the southern USA populations, while the populations in Hokkaido were suggested to arise from a different source. Our results suggest that multiple and mass introductions have contributed to the persistence and rapid adaptation of S. altissima promoting its widespread establishment throughout Japan.

Frequency distributions of various plasminogen phenotypes in Japanese and American white populations were studied using electrofocusing in polyacrylamide gels followed by zymography and immunofixation. Using a synthetic substrate, tosyl-lysine-alpha-naphthyl ester, for zymography allowed zymography and immunofixation to be performed sequentially on the same gel plate. By this method, a nonfunctional abnormal plasminogen variant, plasminogen Tochigi, was readily detected in both plasma and serum. The gene frequency of this abnormal variant in a Japanese population was 0.018, whereas the abnormal variant was not detected in an American white population, suggesting the very rare occurrence of this variant in whites. Two common alleles, A and B, clearly identified in neuraminidase-treated samples, were observed at gene frequencies of 0.98 and 0.003, respectively, in the Japanese. These values are significantly different from the reported values in whites of 0.69 for A and 0.3 for B.