No abstract available.
Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active* ; Humans ; RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase*

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The introduction of Hansenula polymorpha for recombinant hepatitis B vaccine production allowed high product yield with plasmid stability and less glycosylation than conventional Saccharomyces cerevisiae system. A Green Cross HG-II vaccine formulated from HBsAg produced by a recombinant strain of the yeast H. polymorpha was evaluated for immunogenicity and safety in an open label triaL METHOFD: A 20 ug dose of Green Cross HG-II vaccine was administered intramuscularly at 0, 1 and 6 months at the deltoid region in 118 healthy adults seronegative for HBV markers. The anti-HBs titers were determined at one month after administration of the third dose of vaccine by radioimmunoassay. RESULTS: The seroconversion rate was 96.8% (90 out of 93), with seroprotective rate of 95.7% (89 out of 93). The geometric mean titers(GMT) of the anti-HBs response was 153.1mIU/ml in seroconverters. An age-dependent effect was observed in the anti-HBs response. But sex-dependent effect was not prominent. Reactogenecity was in incidence and general reactions were short-lasting and a mainly mild in severity. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study have shown that the Green Cross HG-II vaccine is safe and clinically well tolerated, a nd that it may provide protection against HBV infection.
Adult* ; Glycosylation ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; Hepatitis B Vaccines* ; Hepatitis B* ; Hepatitis* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Pichia ; Plasmids ; Radioimmunoassay ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; Yeasts

Cerebrocostomandibular syndrome is characterized by micrognathia, cleft palate, multiple thorax deformity and frequently, mental deficiency. Respiratory compromise is a common cause of death. We experienced a case of cerebrocostomandibular syndrome with congenital heart disease in a 2 day old female baby with the chief complaint of cyanosis and respiratory difficulty since birth. She was delivered by cesarian section due to delayed labor at IUP 42 weeks. The diagnosis was made on the basis of clinical features, radiologic findings and echocardiogram, which showed micrognathia, deformity of 3rd finger Lt, hemivertebrae of T1-T6 Lt., absence of 1-6th rib Lt., dextrocardia, tetralogy of fallot, atrial septal defect secondum. We reported this case and reviewed related litertures briefly.
Cause of Death ; Cleft Palate ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Cyanosis ; Dextrocardia ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Fingers ; Heart Defects, Congenital* ; Heart Septal Defects, Atrial ; Humans ; Intellectual Disability ; Parturition ; Ribs ; Tetralogy of Fallot ; Thorax

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to describe the essential structure of the lived experience of clinical nurses' interpersonal relations among nurses, patients, and others in the ward setting of the hospital. METHOD: Six nurses who have experienced from 4 to 7 years on the same ward setting, were interviewed. The data were collected from September, 2000 to May, 2001 and analyzed using Colaizzi's (1978) method of phenomenology. RESULT: In this study, 7 themes were extracted: difficulty of interpersonal relations after being familiar with work, developing good relations with doctors, patients, and their significant others as experience increased, generation gap among individual nurses, evaluating other nursing colleagues on their past experience in ward settings, avoiding nurses with whom one was in conflict, sometimes, resolving conflict through getting together with colleagues informally, having a limited interpersonal network, experiencing becoming mature through struggling with the difficulty of interpersonal relations. CONCLUSION: Nurse managers need to provide resources, opportunities, and information to clinical nurses through fully understanding the characteristics of nurses' interpersonal relations. In addition, they should minimize the factors which intervene with good interpersonal relations among clinical nurses.
Humans ; Intergenerational Relations ; Interpersonal Relations* ; Nurse Administrators ; Nursing

No abstract available.
Enterovirus* ; Humans ; Meningitis, Aseptic*

No abstract available.
Occupational Health*

Among the exotoxins produced by V. vulnificus, hemolysin (HS) has been reported to be the most potent one. To investigate the factors up- or down-regulating HS production in the context of pathogenesis, we observed the effects of salinity or/and temperature shifting, glucose, and acidic pH on the production of HS by V. vulnificus C7184 strain in vitro. Significantly more HS was produced when V. vulnificus was cultured in 0.9% salinity and 37 degrees C than in 2.5% and 25 degrees C. When the culture condition reflecting natural habitat of V. vulnificus (2.5% salinity and 25degrees C) was changed into that reflecting human body (0.9% salinity and 37 degrees C), 2.5 fold or more HS was produced than in the V. vulnificus being cultured continuously in 0.9% NaCl at 37 degrees C. This result suggests that V. vulnificus somehow recognizes the shifting in salinity and temperature and stimulate HS production. Glucose addition in the culture medium resulted in a dose- dependent decrease in the HS production. Glucose itself and acidic pH resulting from its metabolism both appeared to inhibit the HS production. Glucose in itself had more dominant role in suppressing the HS production than the lowered pH accompanying the metabolism of glucose. This result suggests that HS production is down-regulated in the presence of glucose and under environmental acidic pH.
Ecosystem ; Exotoxins ; Glucose* ; Human Body ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Metabolism ; Salinity* ; Vibrio vulnificus* ; Vibrio* ; Virulence

BACKGROUND: The sodium-iodide-symporter (NIS) is a plasma membrane glycoprotein with 13 putative transmembrane domains, which is responsible for concentrating iodide into the thyroid by an active transport and provides the mechanism for radioactive-iodine (RAI) therapy for thyroid cancer. However, undifferentiated thyroid cancers and about 2050% of differentiated thyroid cancers do not take up the RAI at therapeutic dose. The NIS has been cloned from rat and human (hNIS) and characterized recently. In an attempt to develop a new therapeutic strategy using hNIS gene for improving the efficacy of RAI therapy in thyroid cancers, we have constructed a recombinant adenovirus encoding the hNIS (Ad-hNIS) and tested its function by an iodide uptake by infecting human thyroid cancer cells. METHODS: RT-PCR was performed to measure an intrinsic hNIS expression in thyroid cancer cell lines, such as NPA, FRO and ARO. To generate the hNIS adenovirus, hNIS cDNA was isolated and ligated into Swa I site of cosmid shuttle vector (pAxCAwt). We have produced recombinant adenovirus by co-transfecting the cosmid with DNA-TPC to 293 cell line. Adenovirus that express (beta-Galactosidase (LacZ) was also prepared by the similar strategy. Adenovirus infection efficiency was measured in three thyroid cancer cell lines. Finally, 24 hours after infection of ad-hNIS into the cells, I125-uptake was measured. RESULTS: Endogenous hNIS expression was detected only in FRO cells but not in NPA, ARO and Hela cells by RT-PCR. X-Gal staining after infection of Ad-LacZ to thyroid cancer cell (NPA, ARO, FRO) showed that an infection rate in ARO cells was 98.5+0.5%, 97.0+0.2% in FRO cells and 75.5+5.0% in NPA cells. We selected ARO cells for the infection of Ad-hNIS due to the highest infection efficiency and the absence of endogenous hNIS expression. When ARO cells were infected with the ad-hNIS, I125 uptake was increased 504+6.4%. CONCLUSION: Overexpression of hNIS gene in thyroid cancer cells elicited over 5 fold increase in I-uptake, suggesting that the Ad-hNIS infection to the thyroid cancer cells may improve the efficiency of radioactive iodine therapy.
Adenoviridae Infections ; Adenoviridae* ; Animals ; Biological Transport, Active ; Cell Line ; Cell Membrane ; Clone Cells ; Cosmids ; DNA, Complementary ; Genetic Therapy ; Genetic Vectors ; Glycoproteins ; HeLa Cells ; Humans* ; Iodine ; Ion Transport* ; Rats ; Sodium Iodide* ; Sodium* ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Neoplasms*

Recently the changes in medical informatics enabled us to use medical information whenever we want and wherever we are. However, there are few information supporting systems on the web in occupational health field. So we have tried to make an occupational health information system (OHIS) based on the Internet and to provide occupational information to occupational health personnel. There were two steps for developing OHIS. First, we analyzed user's needs and existing information systems and then developed contents of our OHIS. Second, we constructed web server under the environment of Windows user, using operating system of windows NT 4.0 and web browsers of Netscape Navigator. Many users in worksites wanted information through the Internet. The contents of OHS which they wanted were information related to health education of workers, health counselling, news, and so on. The contents of OHIS which we forwarded were occupational health service, information about organization of occupational health, book references and journals, link-sites related to occupational health. In the future, this Interned-based OHIS will be an useful site offering a lot of information to occupational health personnel.
Health Education ; Health Information Systems* ; Information Systems ; Internet* ; Medical Informatics ; Occupational Health ; Occupational Health Services ; Occupations* ; Web Browser ; Workplace

BACKGROUND: Lithium is known to increase the retention of iodide in the thyroid gland, or in well differentiated thyroid cancer tissue. The effects of lithium on the function of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) protein, especially when the lithium is increased in the retention of iodide in NIS-producing cells, the effect of lithium, on the kinetics of undifferentiated thyroid cancer cells transduced by a recombinant adenovirus containing the NIS gene, were checked. METHOD: Human NIS cDNA was inserted into pAxCAwt, a recombinant adenoviral cosmid vector, where the E1 & E2 genes have been deleted, making Rad-hNIS, which was propagated in 293 cells. The iodide uptake was evaluated by the 125I uptake assay in the undifferentiated thyroid cancer cells, ARO, FRO and NPA, following the infection with Rad-hNIS (1 or 10 MOI) in the presence, or absence, of LiCl at optimized concentrations. The iodide efflux was evaluated by the 125I efflux assay, for 1 hour, in the same cells expressing the NIS in the presence, or absence, of LiCl. Similar experiments were performed in the normal thyroid cell line, FRTL-5, cultured in 6H5 media. RESULTS: LiCl, at concentrations over 1.0mM, caused a significant decrease in the cell viability, as evaluated by trypan blue dye exclusion, in a dose dependent manner. When infected with Rad-hNIS, the iodide uptake was not affected by the LiCl in the ARO or NPA cells. However, LiCl(0.1and 1.0mM) increased the iodide uptake by 50 to 100%(vs. control) in the Rad-hNIS transduced FRO cells. In the Rad-hNIS transduced FRO cells, the iodide was released rapidly from the cells, with only 20.7+/-4.8% of the iodide uptake remaining at 1 hour, which was no different in the presence of LiCl (24.5+/-7.9%). The iodide efflux was not affected by the LiCl in the FRTL-5 cells cultured in the presence of TSH. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the lithium-induced iodide retention in the thyroid gland, or in well differentiated thyroid cancer tissue, is not caused by the effect of the lithium on the NIS function, or the function of proteins or channels, involved in iodide transport via cell membranes. Although the iodide uptake can be markedly increased by the expression of NIS, with the transduction of Rad-hNIS, in undifferentiated thyroid cancer cells, the iodide taken up is rapidly released from the cells. A method for inducing the iodide retention in the cell should be elucidated in order to render the NIS gene therapy effective.
Adenoviridae* ; Cell Line* ; Cell Membrane ; Cell Survival ; Cosmids ; DNA, Complementary ; Genetic Therapy ; Humans ; Iodine* ; Ion Transport ; Kinetics* ; Lithium ; Sodium Iodide* ; Sodium* ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Neoplasms* ; Trypan Blue