Eight bacterial strains were examined whether they have phoP/phoQ genes which were known to be involved in the intracellular survival of Salmonella typhimurium. The phoP/phoQ operon were known to sense the stimuli of the genes involved in the adaptation of the environment. Using 514-basepairs EcoRV DNA fragment of phoP region of Salmonella typhimurium as a probe, dot blot hybridization were performed. Chromosomal DNAs of Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Serratia marscescens, Enterobacter cloacae, Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, and Listeria monocytogenes were examined by DNA hybridization assay. Against our expectation, intracellular pathogen, L. monocytogenes, did not have similar DNA sequences to phoP/phoQ of S. typhimurium, while E, coli, S. dysenteriae, and E. cloacae showed the positive signal even though they were not intracellular pathogens. This result suggested that the phoP/phoQ operon was absent in intracellular pathogenic bacterias other than S. typhimurium. Rather it was found in phylogenetically closer bacterias to S. typhimurium, which were not able to survive in intracellular environment. Some different mechanism, which is not dependent on phoP/phoQ operon, could be involved in the intracellular survival of L. monocytogenes.
Bacteria* ; Base Sequence ; Cloaca ; DNA ; Enterobacter cloacae ; Escherichia coli ; Klebsiella ; Listeria monocytogenes ; Operon ; Pneumonia ; Pseudomonas aeruginosa ; Salmonella typhimurium ; Serratia ; Shigella dysenteriae

Keratoacanthoma is a benign neoplasm that develops as a protruding mass especially on the central part of face, We experienced a case of keratoacanthoma that developed on the nasal vestibule after the eradication of verruca vulgaris on the same site by surgical intervention 3 months before. We treated it with total excision and skin graft.
Keratoacanthoma* ; Skin ; Transplants ; Warts*

The authors have reviewed 63 resistant clubfeet of 40 patients who were treated by modified Turco's operstion at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital during the eight years period from July, 1979 to June, 1987. The procedure performed by the senior author(D.Y.L.) is essentially similar to Turco's original technique, but with the following modifications :(a) A curvilinear skin incision instead of Turco's straight oblique incision. (b) Aponeurotic tenotomy of the abductor hallucis. (c) Medial capsulotomies of the first metatarso-medial cuneiform joint, medial cuneiformnavicular joint and release of the medial extension of the tibialis anterior insertion. (d) Z-plastic lengtening of the tibialis posterior tendon instead of tenotomy (e) Plantar fasciotomy The average age at the time of operation was 23.4 months, the youngest being 4 months and the oldest being 6 year and 7 months. The follow-up period was minimum 12 months and maximum 6 years, the average being 27.4 months. The cases were analysed radiologically and clinically, and following observations were made. l. AP and lateral talocalcaneal angles were corrected satiafactorily in 60 feet(95%) and 59 feet(94%), respectively. The Talocalcaneal indices were corrected satisfactorily to over 40 in 60 feet(95%). 2. The talo-first metatarsal angles, which reflect adduction of the fore-foot, were corrected satisfactorily to within +10°in 55 feet(87%). 3. Good and fair results were obtained in 54 feet(86%) in the radiological evaluation. 4. Adduction deformity of the forefoot was responsible in most cases of radiologically unsatisfactory results. 5. Among 40 feet of 26 pstients who were evaluated clinically by the Wynne-Davis method, 33 feet were rated good and 7 feet were rated fair. No poor results were found clinically. 6. Senior author's modification of additional forefoot medial release is an important addition to Turco's original technique and effectively reduced unsatisfacotory results.
Clubfoot ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Follow-Up Studies ; Foot ; Humans ; Joints ; Metatarsal Bones ; Methods ; Seoul ; Skin ; Tendons ; Tenotomy

No abstract available.
Rheumatic Diseases* ; Spondylarthropathies

OBJECTIVES: Anticardiolipin antibody (ACA) and lupus anticoagulant (LA) are acquired antiphospholipid antibodies (APAs), which are regarded as important risk factors far vascular thrombosis and recurrent fetal loss. Although the clinical relevance of APAs in dialysis patients is uncertain, recent studies have suggested that APAs are involved in bioincompatibility and thrombogenic complications in hemadialysis (HD) patients. METHOD: We performed a cross sectional study of ACA and LA in 50 stable HD patients and their 68 vascular accesses (52 native arteriovenous fistulae and 16 synthetic arterovenous grafts), with the analysis of factors associated with the presence of APAs and the retrospective evaluation of vascular access occlusion (VAO). LA was assessed by platelet neutralization method whereas IgG-ACA was measured by a solid phase ELISA. Values higher than 23GPLU/ml (IgG phospholipid units) were considered to be positive for IgG-ACA and positive values for LA was more than 8 seconds in prolongation of the clotting time with human platelet lysate. Vascular access survival was assessed by Kaplan- Meier method, RESULTS: The mean age of the subject (M:F 21:29) was 46 years and the mean duration of hemodialysis was 49 months. The frequency of VAO in entire subjects was 0.45+/-0.98 episodes/patient year. The median value of IgG-ACA was 16.0 GPLU/ml with a distribution from 2.7 to 46.1GPLU/ ml. The median titer of I.A was 4.5 (3.1-45.6) seconds. Fourteen patients (28%) were found to have at least one episode of VAO. In spite of comparable clinical and biochemical data according to the presence of VAO, the titers of IgG-ACA (13.6+/-7.7 vs, 20.3+/-8.7GPLIJ/ml, P<0.05) and LA (4.5+/-2.9 vs. 11.7 +/-12.6sec, P<0.05) were significantly higher in VAO group. Six out of 50 patients(12%) had an increased titer of IgG-ACA and LA was found in 11 patients(22%). No patients were positive for ACA and LA simultaneously. There was no significant difference in sex, etiology of ESRD, diabetic status, the dosage of heparin during HD or the amount of erythropoietin administered according to the presence of APAs. We could not find any significant correlation between the titer of APAs and age, duration of dialysis, blood pressure, platelet count and biochemical parameters. In the patients with positive ACA, the frequency of VAO was 1.05+/-0.12 episodes/patient year, which was significantly higher than patients without ACA (0.33+/-0.17 episodes/ patient year, P<0.05). In the patients with the presence of LA(1.06+/-0.43 vs. 0.12+/-0.06 episodes/ patients year, P<0.01). The median vascular access survival time in IgG-ACA positive patients (32.7 months) was significantly decreased compared to 66.8 months in IgG-ACA negative group. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that the presence of APAs (ACA and/or LA) affects the event-free vascular access survival in HD patients. Therefore the evaluation of APAs status have to be included in the diagnostic strategies for the patients with recurrent VAO. Further studies are necessary to explore the pharmacologic intervention method to decrease APAs and prevent VAO in HD patients.
Antibodies, Anticardiolipin* ; Antibodies, Antiphospholipid ; Arteriovenous Fistula ; Blood Platelets ; Blood Pressure ; Dialysis ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Erythropoietin ; Heparin ; Humans ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Lupus Coagulation Inhibitor* ; Platelet Count ; Renal Dialysis* ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Thrombosis

Porencephaly is relatively rare condition defined by an defect or a defect or cavity in the cerebrum owing to a developmental malformation or to a destructive lesion. Fory-five porencephaly patients diagnosed by Brain CT were clinically analyzed and the following results were obtained. 1) By the age group presenting initial symptoms, the peak incidence was from 1 month to below 3 years old. 2) In initial symptoms, seizure, spastic weakness, headache were showed in order of frequency. But 7 cases (15.5%) were asymptomatic. 3) The latency of diagnosis after presenting initial symptoms from the symptom onset time to 10 years. 4) The subsequent symptoms were as follows: spastic weakness, speech disturbance, gait disturbance, mental retardation, sensory loss and seizure showed independently or combined. 5) As etiologic factor, 21 cases (46.7%) were congenital, 16 cases (35.5%) were post-traumatic or post-operative and 8 cases (17.8%) were perinatal. 6) The prognosis was seen various from mild to severe. Out of 45 cases, 29 cases (64.4%) were no complications. But the prognosis in patients with post-traumatic or postoperative etiological factors was poor. With the advent of brain CT and the resultant capability of detecting structural defect and cerebral lesions responsible for epilepsy or focal neurologic signs, porencephaly was seen to be readily recongizable by CT examination. Since porencephaly is a significant contributor to the spectrum of CNS lesion and benign condition, ist recognition is important in determining prognosis and therapy.
Brain ; Cerebrum ; Child, Preschool ; Diagnosis ; Epilepsy ; Gait ; Headache ; Humans ; Incidence ; Intellectual Disability ; Muscle Spasticity ; Neurologic Manifestations ; Prognosis ; Seizures

No abstract available.
Nephrotic Syndrome* ; Venous Thrombosis*

Cystic disease of the spleen is a relatively rare disease. It is classified either as a true primary cyst or as a secondary pseudocyst. Most splenic cysts are pseudocysts, which have non-epithelial lining, and are caused by previous abdominal blunt trauma. Conversely, primary splenic cysts have epithelial lining and are subdivided into parasitic and non-parasitic cyst. Non-parasitic primary splenic cyst is considered congenital and comprises about 10% of all splenic cysts. Total or partial splenectomy is the treatment of choice, but parasitic infection must be excluded prior to an operation. In this present report, we described a symptomatic, large primary non-parasitic splenic cyst, which was surgically treated with partial splenectomy.
Rare Diseases ; Spleen ; Splenectomy

Human assisted reproductive technology programs have been being developed marvelously during this decade. However, implantation rates following embryo replacement remain low, regardless of increased fertilization rates by ICSI. One proposed possibility limiting the successful implantation is an impaired hatching caused by suboptimal culture conditions. As to improve the hatching potential of blastocysts, assisted hatching by an artificial alteration of zona pellucida(ZP) have been done in many laboratories using the various methods. We tried to investigate whether the supplementation of proteases into culture media has any effect on development, zona structure, and/or hatching of mouse embryos. Supplementation of either pronase E(PE) or proteinase K(PK) in culture media did not affect development up to blastocyst but significantly increased hatching rate. And we observed the alteration of ultrastructure and casein binding properties of ZP in mouse embryos. Also we investigated the effects of protease on development of human embryos and pregnancy rates in human ART program. From July 1994 to December 1996, 792 cycles(for study I) and 1095 cycles(for study II) undergoing the IVF-ET program in MizMedi Hospital were randomly selected for BAH. The concentrations of proteases used in this study were 1microgram/ml PE, 0.1microgram/ml PK and 1microgram/mlPE+0.1microgram/ml PK in HTF with 0.5% human serum albumin(HSA), and in vitro fertilized embryos were cultured for 24 hours. We analyzed the efficiency and stability of biochemical assisted hatching(BAH) according to the clinical profiles of patients and fertilization methods. After cultured in HTF with proteases for 24 hours of human embryos, the thinning in zona pellucida of embryos was observed but its development was not disturbed. Also, clinical pregnancy rates were higher in the PE, PK and PE+PK groups than the control group without proteases(36.0%(32/89), 35.3%(36/102), 35.1%(39/111) vs. 25.5%(125/490), p<0.05). The live birth rate in the PE, PK and PE+PK groups were increased than control, and the abortion rate were not different. They were showed a effect and safety of proteases treatment in human embryos. We selected PE as BAH for study II because of slightly better embryonic morphology and pregnancy rate. In patients over 35 years old, clinical pregnancy rates of the BAH group was higher than that of the control group(31.4%(58/185) vs. 22.2%(51/230); p<0.05). And in the cases with few oocytes retrieval, or less than 3 cycles of IVF-ET, clinical pregnancy rates of the BAH group was significantly higher than that of the control group(36.8%(86/234) vs. 27.2%(93/342), p<0.05; 36.8%(148/402) vs. 29.9%(168/562), p<0.05). In BAH groups, the clinical pregnancy rate was similar between conventional IVF and ICSI group. From above results, it is suggested that improved hatching by protease treatment is due to physiological alteration of ZP structure, giving rise to the similar hatching process to that in vivo. We suggest that BAH using protease is a simple, safe and economic technique compared to the other known assisted hatching techniques in human ART program.
Abortion, Induced ; Adult ; Animals ; Blastocyst ; Caseins ; Culture Media ; Embryonic Structures* ; Female ; Fertilization ; Herpes Zoster ; Humans* ; Live Birth ; Mice ; Oocytes ; Peptide Hydrolases ; Pregnancy Rate ; Pronase ; Reproductive Techniques, Assisted ; Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic ; Zona Pellucida

: In order to observe the antigenic fractions in saline extract of adult Paragonimus westermani, proteins in the crude extract were separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) in reducing conditions. The separated protein fractions were transferred to nitrocellulose paper on which 20 sera from human paragonimiasis were reacted and immunoblotted. Out of 15 stained protein bands in SDS-PAGE, 7 reacted with the sera. Of 14 reacted bands, 30 kilodalton(kDa) band was the most frequently reacted (95%) and was a strong antigen. Protein bands of 23 and 46 kDa were also strong antigens. Bands of over 150 kDa, 120 kDa, 92 kDa, 86 kDa, 74 kDa, 62 kDa, 51 kDa, 32 kDa, 28 kDa, 16.5 kDa and 15.5 kDa were also reactive but their frequencies of the reaction were variable.
parasitology-helminth-trematoda ; Paragonimus westermani ; immunology ; antigen ; electrophoresis