[Evaluation of a UF-1000i screening method to identify the bacteriuria for cultures and susceptibility testing].

Urine culture remains the gold standard for diagnosing urinary tract infections, but most clinical samples yield negative results. Fast screening methods will improve the turnaround time and also reduce the associated costs. We evaluated the detection of bacteria using the Sysmex UF-1000i urine analyzer to identify negative samples which do not need further culture testings. The bacterial counts of the UF-1000i method and of the conventional culture of 197 samples, including 117 samples of midstream urine (MU) and 80 from catheter ports (CU), were prospectively compared, and the patient backgrounds were reviewed. The cut-off values to determine the necessity for culture were 2.7 bacteria/microL for MU and 11.0 bacteria/microL for CU samples, and 16.2% of the MU and 30.0% of the CU samples did not require cultures. These cut-off values are similar to those described in previous studies, however, our findings suggest that it would therefore be possible to reduce the need for unnecessary samples by the use of our cut-off values, which utilize the CU and MU samples separately. The cost reduction was calculated to be $239-306 per 100 samples. This UF-1000i screening method is an acceptable modality which improves the turnaround time, workload and cost to perform urine cultures.

Role of inducible or neuronal nitric oxide synthase in neurogenesis of the dentate gyrus in aged mice.

We evaluated mainly the iNOS (inducible nitric oxide synthase) and nNOS (neuronal NOS) expression in the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus in young adult (8-week-old) and aged (60-week-old) mice. The present study demonstrates that the expression of nNOS was more pronounced than that of iNOS expression in the dentate gyrus of aged mice. Our study also suggests that aged mice exhibited a significant loss of motor activity as compared with young adult animals. Furthermore, our results provide that no significant change in the number of Neu N (Neuronal nuclei)-immunopositive neurons and GFAP (glial fibrillary acidic protein)-immunopositive astrocytes was observed in the dentate gyrus between young adult and aged mice. In contrast, a significant change in the number of Iba 1(ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule 1)-immunopositive microglia in aged mice was observed in the dentate gyrus as compared to young adult animals. These results provide the novel evidence showing that the expression of nNOS may be crucial for the role of neurogenesis of the SGZ of the dentate gyrus in aged mice. Furthermore, our present findings demonstrate that the inhibition of nNOS expression in the SGZ of the dentate gyrus during aging processes may offer novel therapeutic strategies for anti-aging in humans.

Comprehensive behavioral analysis of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV knockout mice.

Calcium-calmodulin dependent protein kinase IV (CaMKIV) is a protein kinase that activates the transcription factor CREB, the cyclic AMP-response element binding protein. CREB is a key transcription factor in synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation. To elucidate the behavioral effects of CaMKIV deficiency, we subjected CaMKIV knockout (CaMKIV KO) mice to a battery of behavioral tests. CaMKIV KO had no significant effects on locomotor activity, motor coordination, social interaction, pain sensitivity, prepulse inhibition, attention, or depression-like behavior. Consistent with previous reports, CaMKIV KO mice exhibited impaired retention in a fear conditioning test 28 days after training. In contrast, however, CaMKIV KO mice did not show any testing performance deficits in passive avoidance, one of the most commonly used fear memory paradigms, 28 days after training, suggesting that remote fear memory is intact. CaMKIV KO mice exhibited intact spatial reference memory learning in the Barnes circular maze, and normal spatial working memory in an eight-arm radial maze. CaMKIV KO mice also showed mildly decreased anxiety-like behavior, suggesting that CaMKIV is involved in regulating emotional behavior. These findings indicate that CaMKIV might not be essential for fear memory or spatial memory, although it is possible that the activities of other neural mechanisms or signaling pathways compensate for the CaMKIV deficiency.