Lyprinol reduces inflammation and improves lung function in a mouse model of allergic airways disease.

BACKGROUND: Asthma is an inflammatory airway disease that is characterized by an influx of eosinophils to the lungs, mucus hypersecretion and T helper type 2 cytokine production. Recent dietary changes, including a decreased ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) intake, may have contributed to increased asthma rates and dietary supplementation with marine oil could have clinical benefits. OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of dietary supplementation with ω-3 PUFAs on allergic inflammation and lung function using a mouse model of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic airway disease (AAD). METHODS: BALB/c mice received a daily supplement of either fish oil (rich in ω-3 PUFA) or lyprinol (a complex mixture of various marine lipids plus vitamin E and olive oil) before and during AAD. The effects of supplementation on AAD were assessed. RESULTS: Lyprinol but not fish oil treatment reduced eosinophil influx into the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, the lung tissue surrounding the airways and the blood, decreased mucus hypersecretion in the lung and reduced airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). The effects of lyprinol were not associated with changes in serum IgG1 or IgG2a, or the release of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13 and IFN-γ. CONCLUSIONS: Lyprinol suppresses the development of allergic inflammation and AHR in AAD. The therapeutic potential of dietary supplementation with lyprinol for asthma warrants further investigation.

Graphesthesia: a test of graphemic movement representations or tactile imagery?

Patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBG) often demonstrate agraphesthesia in the same hand they demonstrate apraxia. To recognize letters written in their hand subjects can develop a spatial representation and access graphemic representations. Alternatively, people can use movement working memory and match movement patterns to stored letter movement representations. To learn the method normally used without vision, normal subjects (12) had letters written on their palm either in the normal manner or in a reverse direction. If letters written on the hand are recognized by their spatial features (as when visually reading) direction should not influence letter recognition, but if letters written on the hand are recognized by movement patterns, then in the reverse condition recognition should be impaired. When letters were written normally there were no differences in error between the tactile and visual modality. When letters were written in reverse, however, normal subjects made more errors in the tactile than visual condition. Normally, people identify letters written on their hand by covertly copying (mirroring) the examiner and then access letter movement representations. This might explain why patients with CBG often have agraphesthesia associated with apraxia.

Exclusion of defects in the skeletal muscle specific regions of the DHPR alpha 1 subunit as frequent causes of malignant hyperthermia.

The molecular defect predisposing to the majority of malignant hyperthermia (MH) cases is unknown, although various point mutations in the ryanodine receptor gene (RYR1) have been associated with susceptibility in a small proportion of cases. We report here that one of these, the Arg163Cys substitution, does not cosegregate with MH susceptibility. Comparison of cDNA sequences encoding the skeletal muscle specific components of the dihydropyridine receptor alpha 1 subunit between MH susceptible (MHS) and MH non-susceptible (MHN) patients was made in subjects without the reported MH linked RYR1 mutations. There were no differences within the sequence encoding the II-III loop or the IS3/IS3-IS4 segment, excluding defects in these functional segments of the alpha 1 subunit as frequent causes of MH.

31P-NMR spectroscopy: the metabolic profile of malignant hyperpyrexic porcine skeletal muscle.

31Phosphorus-NMR spectroscopy may have the potential to help in the noninvasive diagnosis of malignant hyperpyrexia (MH). Changes in the phosphate-metabolite profile of MH-susceptible (MHS) skeletal muscle occur more readily under conditions of anoxia than in control muscle. Induction of anoxia caused a rapid fall in intracellular phosphocreatine, an elevation of inorganic phosphate, and finally a diminution of ATP in MHS muscle. The onset of metabolic change was slower in control tissue. Increased oxygen consumption may occur in anoxic MHS muscle, which leads to accelerated glycolysis and a rapid fall in the intracellular high-energy phosphates. In MHS muscle an abnormality may exist in carbohydrate metabolism linked with poor resynthesis of the high-energy phosphates, which may be precipitated under anaerobic conditions. Accelerated muscle metabolism is also observed in the presence of 2 mM caffeine and 3% halothane in MHS muscle. Changes in the concentrations of metabolites could be mapped noninvasively under anoxic conditions using topical 31P-NMR.