A case of adrenal myelolipoma complicated with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Introduction: Prader-Willi syndrome is a congenital disorder that occurs in one in 10 000-30 000 children and is characterized by obesity, short stature, and intellectual disability. Case presentation: A 24-year-old male patient with Prader-Willi syndrome presented with an enlarged adrenal tumor. Computed tomography detected a well-defined mass. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed an increased signal intensity predominantly in fatty areas, suggesting adrenal myelolipoma. Laparoscopic left adrenalectomy was performed. Postoperatively, the patient developed mild pulmonary atelectasis, myelolipoma was confirmed by histopathology, and there was no recurrence at approximately 2 years postoperatively. Conclusion: This is the first report of Prader-Willi syndrome complicated with adrenal myelolipoma, which was removed laparoscopically.

Optimization of the inter-domain structure of galectin-9 for recombinant production.

We previously developed a stable form of galectin-9, an immunomodulatory animal lectin with a truncated linker peptide (G9Null), to overcome the protease sensitivity of wild-type galectin-9. G9Null is highly resistant to proteolysis, while the modification marginally improved the low solubility of the wild-type protein. To increase its solubility, we further modified the remaining linker region of G9Null. A 10-amino acid deletion with a single amino acid substitution resulted in an ∼400% increase in solubility and yield without an adverse effect on its biological activity. This mutant protein might be useful for large-scale recombinant production needed for evaluation of the therapeutic potential of galectin-9.