Deshima 2.0: Rapid Redshift Surveys and Multi-line Spectroscopy of Dusty Galaxies.

We present a feasibility study for the high-redshift galaxy part of the Science Verification Campaign with the 220-440 GHz deshima 2.0 integrated superconducting spectrometer on the ASTE telescope. The first version of the deshima 2.0 chip has been recently manufactured and tested in the lab. Based on these realistic performance measurements, we evaluate potential target samples and prospects for detecting the [CII] and CO emission lines. The planned observations comprise two distinct, but complementary objectives: (1) acquiring spectroscopic redshifts for dusty galaxies selected in far-infrared/mm-wave surveys; (2) multi-line observations to infer physical conditions in dusty galaxies.

Atacama sub-millimeter telescope experiment polarimeter (APol) I: design and lab-test result: publisher's note.

This publisher's note corrects errors in the author affiliations, abstract and the Funding sections in Appl. Opt.59, 2593 (2020).APOPAI0003-693510.1364/AO.378008.

Atacama sub-millimeter telescope experiment polarimeter (APol) I: design and lab-test result.

In this paper, the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE) is presented. A 10-m aperture telescope hosts a camera equipped with a transition edge sensor (TES). We developed a fore-optics module-"APol," to convert the 271 pixels of the TES working at 350 GHz into a sensitive imaging polarimeter without sacrificing the image quality and the ${7.5}^\prime$7.5' field of view. Here, we describe the detailed optical design of APol and present the results of the preliminary test in a laboratory.

CCR7-expressing B16 melanoma cells downregulate interferon-γ-mediated inflammation and increase lymphangiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment.

The expression of the CC chemokine receptor-7 (CCR7) by cancers, including melanoma, augments lymph node (LN) metastasis, but little is known about its role in lymphangiogenesis and anti-tumor immunity. We injected control B16 murine melanoma cells (pLNCX2-B16) and CCR7-overexpressing B16 cells (CCR7-B16) in murine footpads and compared resulting tumors at the protein and mRNA level using immunostaining, Affymetrix gene microarray and quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR. Although control and CCR7-B16 primary tumors were of similar size, LN metastasis was dramatically enhanced in CCR7-B16 tumors. Microarray analysis of leukocyte-depleted pLNCX2-B16 and CCR7-B16 tumor cell suspensions showed that three major groups of genes linked to interferon (IFN)-γ signaling pathways (for example, STAT1, CXCR 9-11, CCL5 and CXCL10, major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I and MHC II) were downregulated in the CCR7-B16 tumor microenvironment, suggesting activation through CCR7 can downregulate pathways critical for host anti-tumor immunity. In addition, mRNA expression of the lymphatic marker podoplanin was upregulated in CCR7-B16 tumors by 3.35-fold versus control tumors. Anti-podoplanin monoclonal antibody staining revealed a three-fold increase in intratumoral CCL21-expressing lymphatic vessels, as well as a two-fold increase in the number of invading tumor cells per lymphatic vessel in CCR7-B16 versus control tumors. Enhanced anti-vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C) staining was present in CCR7-B16 versus control tumors, suggesting that VEGF-C may have a role in the CCR7-mediated lymphangiogenesis. In summary, CCR7-B16 tumors show a striking decrease in IFN-γ-mediated inflammatory gene expression in contrast to increased expression of VEGF-C, CCL21 and podoplanin by lymphatic vessels. Enhanced lymphangiogenesis may contribute to the dramatic increase in LN metastasis that is observed in the CCR7-expressing tumors.

Hyperviscosity syndrome associated with systemic plasmacytosis.

Systemic plasmacytosis is characterized by plasma cell proliferation in multiple organs including skin, and by polyclonal hypergammaglobulinaemia. Hyperviscosity-related retinopathy has never been described with this condition, to our knowledge. We report a case of systemic plasmacytosis in a 49-year-old Japanese woman, who presented with fever, multiple erythematous plaques, hypergammaglobulinaemia, renal failure and bilateral retinal haemorrhage. Reduction of immunoglobulin with oral steroid reversed the retinopathy related to hyperviscosity syndrome. When marked hypergammaglobulinaemia is found in a patient with systemic plasmacytosis, funduscopic examination should be performed to reveal early asymptomatic retinal changes, because the retinopathy is treatable by control of the underlying disease.

Optical guiding of atoms through a hollow-core photonic band-gap fiber.

We demonstrate the first guiding of atoms through a hollow-core photonic band-gap fiber. Rb atoms from a thermal oven source travel through 6.1 and 4.0 cm long fibers with a guiding potential 1/e(2) radius of 3.0 microm. When the photon scattering rate is small, the observed guiding efficiency is greater than 70%. An unexpected low-speed cutoff is attributed to inefficient optical coupling.

Interleukin 12 production by monocytes from patients with psoriasis and its inhibition by ciclosporin A.

BACKGROUND: Psoriasis is a T-helper (Th)1 cytokine-mediated chronic skin disease and interleukin (IL)-12 has been shown to play a major role in the development of Th1 responses. OBJECTIVES: To elucidate the role of IL-12 in the pathogenesis of psoriasis and to study the effect of ciclosporin A (CsA) on Th1 deviation of this disease. PATIENTS/METHODS: We investigated IL-12 production by stimulated monocytes from patients with psoriasis who were treated with or without CsA. Monocytes were stimulated with interferon-gamma plus lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or Staphylococcus aureus Cowan strain I (SAC). The amount of IL-12 p70 produced by stimulated monocytes was evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: Compared with those from normal controls, LPS- but not SAC-stimulated monocytes from patients with psoriasis produced significantly higher amounts of IL-12. Interestingly, LPS-stimulated monocytes from patients with psoriasis treated with CsA produced significantly decreased amounts of IL-12 compared with those patients not treated with CsA. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that IL-12 production by monocytes may have a critical role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and that the therapeutic effect of CsA on psoriasis may be achieved by correcting the deviation of the Th1/Th2 balance.

Characteristics of periodontal ligament subpopulations obtained by sequential enzymatic digestion of rat molar periodontal ligament.

Periodontal ligament (PDL) consists of different cell populations in various differentiation stages. In the present study, we isolated cell populations from rat molar PDL by sequential enzymatic digestion and characterized growth potential and mineralization activity of the PDL subpopulations (PDL-SP) to throw light on the mechanism of PDL remodeling and, in its turn, periodontal tissue regeneration. PDL attached to extracted rat molars was digested 2 mg/ml collagenase and 0.25% trypsin at 37 degrees C for 30 min. Then four consecutive digestions were performed for 20 min each in a fresh digestive solution. The solutions were centrifuged to collect released cells and 5 PDL subpopulations (30M-, 50M-, 70M-, 90M-and 110M-PDL-SP) were obtained. Light microscopic observation showed that about a half of PDL in width attached on the root surface of extracted teeth and 30M-PDL-SP was considered to contain cells mainly from middle portion of PDL. Scanning electron microscopic examination indicated that 110M-PDL-SP was enriched by root lining cementoblastic cells. 30M-PDL-SP showed a high level of proliferative activity. Although the growth potential of a subpopulation decreased in PDL-SP toward the root surface, 110M-PDL-SP had a high proliferative activity equivalent to that of 30M-PDL-SP. Analyses of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and mineralization activities showed that higher activities in PDL-SP toward the surface of roots and that 110M-PDL-SP had the highest activity of ALP and the largest number of mineralization nodules. The present study shows as supposed by previous studies on cell kinetics in PDL that subpopulations with larger growth potential were generally located in the middle portion of PDL and those with higher mineralization activities toward the surface of the roots. It is suggested, however, that a possible pathway of PDL cell turnover may exist within the PDL-SP on the root surface in addition to the generally recognized pathway from the middle area of PDL to root surface.

Drug-induced hypersensitivity syndrome associated with transient hypogammaglobulinaemia and increase in serum IgE level.

Drug-induced hypersensitivity syndrome (DIHS) is a rare but severe disease with multiorgan failure. Recently, the association of the human herpesvirus (HHV) family, particularly of HHV-6, with DIHS has been reported. We report a 43-year-old female diagnosed as having DIHS based on the clinical course and laboratory examinations. The HHV-6 reactivation was demonstrated by significantly increased levels of the specific antibody in her paired sera and by polymerase chain reaction of HHV-6 DNA. Notably, transient hypogammaglobulinaemia was detected in the early stage of the disease, which was associated with the disease activity. By contrast, the serum IgE level and eosinophils were increased 2 or 3 weeks later. In addition, serum levels of interferon gamma, interleukin (IL)-4 and soluble IL-2 receptor, which were increased in the early phase of the disease, decreased gradually after the corticosteroid therapy.

Significant elevation of serum levels of eotaxin-3/CCL26, but not of eotaxin-2/CCL24, in patients with atopic dermatitis: serum eotaxin-3/CCL26 levels reflect the disease activity of atopic dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic and relapsing inflammatory skin disease characterized by the predominant infiltration of T cells, eosinophils and macrophages in lesional skin. Recently, eotaxin-2/CCL24 and eotaxin-3/CCL26 were identified as CC chemokines that signal exclusively via the CCR3 receptor and have eosinophil-selective chemoattractant activity, as does eotaxin/CCL11. We previously reported that serum levels of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC)/CCL17 and macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC)/CCL22 were correlated with the severity of AD. In this report, we investigated the participation of eotaxin-2/CCL24 and eotaxin-3/CCL26 in AD, first measuring the serum levels of eotaxin-2/CCL24 and eotaxin-3/CCL26 in 30 patients with AD, 20 patients with psoriasis vulgaris and 20 healthy controls. The serum levels of eotaxin-3/CCL26 (but not eotaxin-2/CCL24) were significantly higher in patients with AD than in either healthy controls or patients with psoriasis vulgaris; furthermore, the eotaxin-3/CCL26 levels in patients with moderate and severe AD were significantly higher than eotaxin-3/CCL26 levels in patients with mild AD. The serum eotaxin-3/CCL26 levels tended to decrease after treatment, but there was no significant difference between groups. Moreover, the serum eotaxin-3/CCL26 levels were significantly correlated with the serum TARC/CCL17 and MDC/CCL22 levels, eosinophil numbers in peripheral blood and the scoring AD (SCORAD) index. Our study strongly suggests that serum levels of eotaxin-3/CCL26, but not of eotaxin-2/CCL24, have a notable correlation with disease activity of AD and that eotaxin-3/CCL26, as well as TARC/CCL17 and MDC/CCL22, may be involved in the pathogenesis of AD.

Measurement of atomic lifetimes with a mode-locked laser.

We present a new technique for measuring atomic lifetimes with a mode-locked laser. A single laser pulse excites the atoms and a subsequent frequency-doubled pulse ionizes the excited-state atoms. The ions are collected and counted. The measurement is repeated using excitation and detection pulses with different time separations, which determines the excited-state decay rate. We demonstrated this technique for the 6P(3/2) state of cesium. The measured lifetime was 30.5 ns and had a statistical uncertainty of 0.1 ns. Systematic effects limited the overall experimental uncertainty to approximately 0.6 ns in this initial experiment.

Importancia del Helicobacter pylori en la patogénesis del cáncer gástrico. Modelos experimentales en roedores / Importance of Helicobacter pylori in pathogenesis of gastric cancer: Experimental models in rodents

En el Instituto de Cáncer, la prevalencia de la infección de H. pylori en suero presentó un valor de significancia en el grupo con cáncer gástrico comparado con los controles estudiados por edad y sexo. Este estudio sugirió una relación epidemiológica entre la infección por H. pylori y cáncer gástrico. H. pylori muestra un complejo sistema de enzimas, las cuales le sirven para una amplia variedad de funciones. Los efectos tóxicos son producidos por ureasa (UR), fosfolipasa (PL) y alcoholdeshidrogenasa. En el Instituto nos abocamos a la tarea de efectuar una exploración métodica de las actividades enzimáticas en mucosa infectada con H. pylori utilizando el técnica de TLC-autorradioluminografía (cromatografía en papel fino-autorradioluminografía). Este método tiene un margen dinámico amplio y puede ofrecer una técnica analítica para estudiar un compuesto radioactivo y sus enzimas en la mucosa infectad con H. pylori. Fueron estudiadas muestras de biopsias provenientes de 21 pacientes con cáncer gástrico y 95 controles. Aunque una actividad aumentada de UR indica la presencia de lesión mediante H. pylori, las actividades de ADH y PL muestran la cronicidad del daño mucoso en cada grupo. Claramente, el perfil enzimático mostrado en el estudio refleja las "adaptaciones" fisiológicas secundarias a una mucosa lesionada en forma crónica, pero su relación con cáncer gástrico y H. pylori ameritan estudios más profundos. Existe la necesidad urgente de entender los procesos de carcinogénesis utilizando modelos animales. Se realizó un estudio preliminar para explorar el efecto de la infección por H. pylori sobre la inducción de cáncer en roedores C57BL/6 infectados con H. pylori y tratados en agua con N-Metil-N-nitrosourea(MNU). En términos de incidencia en el desarrollo de neoplasias mostró un imcremento en el grupo de MNU infectado previamente con H. pylori. Dichos hallazgos muestran que el modelo animal es adecuado para investigar el efecto de promoción en carcinogénesis gástrica

Reduced expression of CD44 variant 9 is related to lymph node metastasis and poor survival in squamous cell carcinoma of tongue.

Expression of CD44v9 was immunohistochemically studied in 120 biopsy specimens from primary squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the tongue and correlated with clinicopathological findings of the SCCs. The tumors were classified into three groups according to immunostaining pattern of CD44v9; 53 cases with distinct positivity in all cancer cells except for those in the central part of nests (Group 1, non-reduced group), 42 cases with reduced expression in peripheral cells of nests (Group 2, reduced group), and 25 cases with complete disappearance of the expression in one or more nests (Group 3, negative group). Nineteen of 25 (76%) tumors in Group 3 and 14 of 42 (33%) in Group 2 exhibited lymph node metastasis, compared with only 8 of 53 (15%) in Group 1. The average survival time in Groups 1, 2 and 3 was 4496+/-204, 3866+/-379 and 2719+/-359 days, respectively and became shorter with the reduction of CD44v9 expression. These results suggest that the down-regulation of CD44v9 in SCC of the tongue may relate to the detachment of tumor cells from primary lesions, establishment of lymph node metastasis and consequently the death of patients.

Comparative study of lymphocyte-suppressive potency between prednisolone and methylprednisolone in rheumatoid arthritis.

We compared lymphocyte-suppressive potencies of prednisolone and methylprednisolone in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). IC(50)s of the glucocorticoids (GCs) on concanavalin A-induced blastogenesis of peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 44 RA patients and 30 healthy subjects were estimated in vitro, and differences in the IC(50)s of the two GCs were evaluated. The mean (+/-SD) IC(50)s for prednisolone and methylprednisolone on PBMC-blastogenesis of RA were 17.2+/-17.1 and 12.6+/-18.4 ng/ml, respectively, and no significant differences were observed between prednisolone-IC(50) and methylprednisolone-IC(50). In contrast, the mean IC(50)s of prednisolone and methylprednisolone on healthy PBMCs were 19.4+/-22. 4 and 3.7+/-3.9 ng/ml, respectively, and thus methylprednisolone potency was significantly higher than prednisolone potency (p<0.01). Methylprednisolone potency against PBMCs in RA patients exhibiting a high level of rheumatoid factor (RF) (>20 IU/ml) and the rheumatoid arthritis particle-agglutination value (RAPA) (>80) was significantly higher than that of patients exhibiting a lower level of RF or RAPA (p<0.05). In prednisolone-IC(50), however, such differences between the two patient-subgroups were not observed. Unlike reported cases of renal transplantation and healthy subjects, there was no difference in the lymphocyte-suppressive potencies for both prednisolone and methylprednisolone on RA-PBMCs. However, PBMCs from RA patients exhibiting high levels of RF or RAPA are more sensitive to methylprednisolone rather than prednisolone.

Immunoexpression of transforming growth factor beta in desmoplastic ameloblastoma.

Desmoplastic ameloblastoma (DA) is an unusual subtype of ameloblastoma histologically characterized by the pronounced collagenized stroma. In the present study, the immunolocalization of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta), one of the most potent local factors for modulating extracellular matrix formation, was observed in DA in order to study its participation in the stromal desmoplasia. Seven cases of DA, including a "hybrid" lesion, were studied together with ten cases of ordinary follicular and plexiform ameloblastomas as the control. In contrast to ordinary ameloblastomas, marked immunoexpression was observed in all DAs but one. In the "hybrid" lesion, TGF-beta was not expressed in the area of follicular ameloblastoma but in that of DA. These results show that TGF-beta produced by tumor cells of DA plays a part in the desmoplastic matrix formation.