Stress on a postpartum mother inhibits the secretion of growth hormone in the offspring and causes persistent growth impairment.

Children exposed to environmental stress in the early neonatal period often develop psychiatric or somatic diseases in adulthood. In the present study in mice, we examined how postpartum stress on the mother influences their pups and thus tried to provide new insight into the management of idiopathic short stature. The dams were exposed to daily 3-h immobilization stress (IS) only for 3 weeks from the day after delivery. When compared to the pups of nonstressed dams (control pups), those of the IS dams (IS pups) showed lower body weight and height, which persisted even into adulthood. Their nutritional status was normal. The IS pups also showed low serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and poor responses to growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) stimulation on day 22 and were behaviorally hyperactive at 8 weeks. Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated that the number of pituitary GH-positive cells in response to treatment with GHRH was markedly decreased in the IS pups compared to the control pups. The IS dams did not show apparent behavioral abnormalities except downregulation of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene expression in the hippocampus. These results suggest that the perturbation of GH secretion in the pituitary glands is involved in the lifelong growth impairment of the IS pups.

Human leukocyte antigen serologic and DNA typing of Behçet's disease and its primary association with B51.

Ninety Japanese patients with Behçet's disease (BD) were typed for human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1, -DQA1-, -DQB1, and -DPB1 alleles by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method and for HLA-A, -B, -C, -DR, and -DQ antigens by conventional serologic typing. Serologic HLA typing showed a remarkably significant increase of HLA-B51 and a significant decrease of HLA-DQw1 in the patients with BD, especially those with ocular lesions including complete type, as compared with the control group (for B51, chi-squared = 46.75, P corrected < 0.001, relative risk [RR] = 7.9; for DQw1, chi-squared = 12.10, P corrected < 0.01, RR = 0.4). By PCR-RFLP genotyping, no significant difference was revealed in any class II alleles between the patient and the control groups in the corrected P value test, but P value analysis showed the significantly high frequency of DRB1*0802 and the significantly low frequencies of DQA1*0103, DQB1*0601, and DQB1*0501. No significant difference was observed in any DPB1 alleles by either P value analysis. These results indicated that the primary and primordial gene(s) responsible for the susceptibility to BD, especially related to ocular lesions, were not located in the HLA class II gene region but were in or very close to the HLA-B locus in the class I region. They also suggested the possibility that BD was a symptom complex associated with some independent diseases.

Expression of E2A-HLF chimeric protein induced T-cell apoptosis, B-cell maturation arrest, and development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The E2A-HLF fusion gene, generated by t(17;19)(q22;p13) in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), encodes a chimeric transcription factor in which the trans-activating domains of E2A are fused to the DNA-binding and dimerization domains of hepatic leukemic factor (HLF). To investigate its biological role, we generated transgenic mice expressing E2A-HLF using Ig enhancer and promoter, which direct transgene expression in cells committed to the lymphoid lineage. The transgenic mice exhibited abnormal development in the thymus and spleen and were susceptible to infection. The thymus contained small numbers of thymocytes, and TUNEL staining showed that higher population of thymocytes were undergoing apoptosis. The spleen exhibited a marked reduction in splenic lymphocytes and the flow cytometric analyses and the in vitro colony formation assays showed that the B-cell maturation was blocked at a very early developmental stage. These findings indicated that the expression of E2A-HLF induced T-cell apoptosis and B-cell maturation arrest in vivo and that the susceptibility of the transgenic mice to infection was due to immunodeficiency. Moreover, several transgenic mice developed acute leukemia, classified as T-ALL based on the surface marker analysis and DNA rearrangements, suggesting that an additional event is required for malignant transformation of lymphoid cells expressing E2A-HLF. Our findings provide insight into the biological function of E2A-HLF in lymphoid development and also its role in leukemogenesis.