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Historical investigations of the functional restoration for recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis are reviewed and some advancement in recent studies are introduced. A preliminary experiment is reported in which the ansa hypoglossi and the sternothyroid muscle pedicle was implanted into the denervated posterior cricoarytenoid muscle in dogs. From these experiments we have concluded that the ansa hypoglossi and sternothyroid muscle pedicle, which has been shown to transmit efferent inspiratory bursts, is capable of restoring function to the paralyzed posterior cricoarytenoid muscle in some dogs.

S-Adenosyl- l -methionine: scoulerine-9-O-methyltransferase (SMT:EC 2.1.1.-), the enzyme which catalyses the transfer of the S-methyl group of S-adenosyl- l -methionine to the 9-hydroxyl group of scoulerine, was purified to homogeneity from cultured Coptis japonica cells and its enzymological properties were characterized. The purified SMT had an apparent pI of 4.7, a native molecular mass of 120–140 kDa (gel filtration) and a subunit molecular mass of 41 kDa (SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). The enzyme did not require a divalent cation for activity, and the addition of Ca2+, Cu2+ and Mn2+ at 1 mM inhibited enzyme activity by 64, 72 and 59%, respectively. p-Chloromercuribenzoate inhibited the activity by 41% at 0.5 mM, whereas N-methylmaleimide and iodoacetamide were without effect even at 5 mM. Berberine and palmatine (end products of the biosynthetic pathway of which SMT catalyses an intermediate step) also inhibited the activity by 70% at 5 mM. SMT was specific for the methylation of scoulerine. Substrate-saturation kinetics of the purified enzyme for (R,S)-scoulerine and SAM were typical Michaelis-Menten type with Km values of 0.1 and 0.17 mM, respectively. The enzyme was inhibited by S-adenosylhomocysteine and its Ki value for S-adenosylhomocysteine versus SAM was 0.17 mM.

Cultured tobacco cells accumulate several pathogenesis-related proteins. A neutral PR-5 protein, PR-5d, was purified to homogeneity from such cells. PR-5d has highly hydrophobic characteristics, but hydropathy analysis of its primary structure did not show a hydrophobic domain. In a series of bioassays, purified PR-5d showed inhibitory activity against several phytopathogenic and non-phytopathogenic fungi as do other members of the PR-5 protein family. To study the antifungal mechanism based on three dimensional structure of PR-5d, purified PR-5d was crystallized. The preliminary X-ray analysis of the crystal revealed that the crystals belong to space group C2, with cell dimensions a = 80.2 A, b = 63.8 A, c = 45.7 A, and beta = 107.2 degrees, and diffract at least 1.8 A resolution.

Background Left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction is known as an early marker of myocardial alterations in patients with diabetes. Because microvascular disease has been regarded as an important cause of heart failure or diastolic dysfunction in diabetic patients, we tested the hypothesis that coronary flow reserve (CFR), which reflects coronary microvascular function, is associated with LV diastolic dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods We studied asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes but without overt heart failure. Transthoracic Doppler echocardiography was performed that included pulsed tissue Doppler of the mitral annulus and CFR of the left anterior descending artery (induced by adenosine 0.14 mg/kg/min). The ratio of mitral velocity to early diastolic velocity of the mitral annulus (E/e′) was used as a surrogate marker of diastolic function. We also evaluated renal function, lipid profile, parameters of glycemic control and other clinical characteristics to determine their association with E/e′. Patients with LV ejection fraction 2.0 mg/dl) or type 1 diabetes were excluded. Patients with a CFR

A portion of glucose yielded through hydrolysis of sucrose was consumed by immobilized cultured cells of Lavandula vera for pigment production when sucrose was employed as a carbon source under the limitation of nitrogen sources. Glucose was readily incorporated into the immobilized cells for pigment production, while the uptake of fructose was delayed compared with that of glucose. This time lag of fructose uptake resulted in the delayed induction of pigment production. Use of glucose as a carbon source accelerated pigment production and increased pigment productivity in successive batches of the incubation.

One function of the extrinsic 23-kDa protein in photosystem II (OEC23) is to retain Ca(2+ )and Cl(-), two essential cofactors for photosynthetic oxygen evolution. A truncated mutant of OEC23 (OEC23 Delta19) revealed that 19 residues of the N-terminus of OEC23 were necessary for Ca(2+ )retention but not for its proper interaction with OEC17, the extrinsic 17-kDa protein in photosystem II. The lost ability of OEC23 Delta19 to reconstitute the oxygen-evolving activity was partially restored by OEC17 binding, suggesting the involvement of OEC17 in Ca(2+ )retention in photosystem II.

Osmotin-like protein (OLP) is a neutral isoform in the group 5 pathogenesis-related (PR) tobacco proteins. The OLP gene, like the basic PR protein genes, is constitutively expressed in tobacco roots and cultured cells. OLP is not naturally present in intact healthy leaves, but ethylene treatment induces a high accumulation there. To study the mechanism of OLP gene expression as induced by ethylene, we cloned the gene from Nicotiana sylvestris, an ancestor of N. tabacum. Sequence analysis showed that it has no intron and that its promoter region contains two AGCCGCC sequences that are conserved in most basic PR-protein genes. The function of the AGCCGCC sequences in transgenic tobacco plants that harbor the wild and mutated OLP promoter::GUS fusion genes was analyzed. Mutation in the AGCCGCC sequences clearly inhibited the GUS expression induced by ethylene, indicative that the AGCCGCC sequence(s) is a DNA element(s) responsive to ethylene. An EREBP2 protein, isolated as one of the proteins binding to the AGCCGCC sequence of the tobacco beta-1,3-glucanase gene, also was found to bind to the AGCCGCC sequence(s) of OLP gene. These results suggest that the ethylene-induced expression of OLP is regulated by a trans-acting factor(s) common to basic PR-proteins.

Coptis japonica is a perennial medicinal plant grown in Asia, and its rhizome is used as crude drug, in which berberine is highly accumulated as the main alkaloid. In this study, a transformation method for C. japonica using Rhizobium has been established. Young petioles were infected with Rhizobium radiobactor Gv3101 (pMP90) harboring a plasmid with β-glucuronidase (gus) driven by cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter and hygromycin phosphotransferase (hpt) gene as the selection marker. GUS assay showed that 46% of the calli grown on hygromycin plates clearly expressed the gus gene. As an application of the transformation method, an endogenous cDNA encoding an ABC protein, CjMDR1, which is involved in berberine transport, was introduced in sense orientation. Cjmdr1 transgenic plant (Sense-2) regenerated from hygromycin resistant callus line had a single copy of integrated hpt gene in its genomic DNA. Northern analyses of the Sense-2 plant showed that Cjmdr1 mRNA levels were lower in all organs examined than those of wild-type plant, which suggested that co-suppression of Cjmdr1 expression occurred. Indeed, the berberine content in Sense-2 was also suppressed. This is the first report of stable transformation of Coptis spp. and also of the alteration of a secondary metabolite by transport engineering.

A full-length cDNA, Cjmdr1, which belongs to the multidrug-resistant (mdr) gene family, was isolated by nested RT-PCR from alkaloid-producing cultured cells of Coptis japonica. The cDNA is 4192 nucleotides long and has an ORF of 1289 amino acids. Northern analysis of the intact plant showed a clear preference in its expression in the rhizome, where alkaloids are highly accumulated compared to other organs.

The lateral coherence of an extremely broad-area laser diode is examined. The device was fabricated using molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). For a 350- mu m-wide mesa laser, a single-lobed phase-locked narrow beam was obtained owing to the use of a high-uniformity quantum well graded-index waveguide separate confinement heterostructure (GRIN-SCH) with a short-period (AlGaAs)(GaAs) superlattice MBE-fabricated barrier layer. >

A novel fabrication technique for a real refractive-index-guide inner-stripe laser by a single-step crystal growth is reported. The injected current is confined in the p-type silicon-doped GaAs region on the V-shaped groove with (111)A slopes by the crystal-orientation-dependent amphoteric nature of the silicon impurity in GaAs.

Production d'un pigment bleu par les cellules en culture de L. vera dans un milieu liquide ou certains composes contenant du soufre comme la L-cysteine, DL-homocysteine, L-cystine ou DL-homocystine sont presents

An edge-emitting light-emitting diode (LED) with a wide emitting region for optical sensing and information processing which requires slit-shaped light sources is discussed. Through the use of a high-quantum efficiency single-quantum-well structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy an output power as high as 3 mW at an injected current of 100 mA with a 50- mu m-wide mesa structure is achieved at the 780-nm emission wavelength. A uniform and rectangular intensity profile, which is suitable for practical use, is obtained with a mesa-restricted structure. >

AlGaAs layers with a featureless specular surface morphology were grown successfully on an exactly (111)B oriented GaAs substrate by migration‐enhanced epitaxy (MEE) even at growth temperatures below 500 °C. We have also observed reflection high‐energy electron diffraction (RHEED) intensity oscillation of AlGaAs on a (111)B oriented substrate by MEE. The single quantum well (SQW) is prepared by MEE on a (111)B and a (100) substrate simultaneously, and the photoluminescence intensity from (111) SQW is shown to be about 50 times higher than that from (100) SQW.

Short-period (AlGaAs)m(GaAs)n superlattices have been applied to the active layer in a GRIN-SCH multi-quantumwell laser diode using molecular beam epitaxy. A short wavelength of 720 nm and high-temperature CW operation at over 100°C were achieved with a low threshold current of 24 mA and high differential quantum efficiency of 75% at room temperature.

Background We hypothesized that clinical factors other than glycemic control may influence abnormal cardiac function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We aimed to investigate the independent factors for abnormal cardiac function among clinical factors in T2DM. Methods We studied 148 asymptomatic patients with T2DM without overt heart disease. Echocardiographic findings were compared between diabetic patients and 68 age-matched healthy subjects. Early (E) and late (A) diastolic mitral flow velocity and early diastolic mitral annular velocity (e’) were measured for assessing left ventricular (LV) diastolic function. We evaluated insulin resistance, non-esterified fatty acid, high-sensitive CRP, estimated glomerular filtration rate, waist/hip ratio, abdominal visceral adipose tissue (VAT), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and other clinical characteristics in addition to glycemic control. VAT and SAT were quantified by computed tomography. Results In T2DM, E/A and e’ were significantly lower, and E/e’, left atrial volume and LV mass were significantly greater than in control subjects. In multivariate liner regression analysis, VAT was an independent determinant of left atrial volume (β =0.203, p=0.011), E/A (β =−0.208, p=0.002), e’ (β =−0.354, p Conclusion Excessive visceral fat accompanied by adipocyte dysfunction may play a greater role than glycemic control in the development of diastolic dysfunction and LV hypertrophy in T2DM.