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Phagocytes such as dendritic cells and macrophages, which are distributed in the small intestinal mucosa, play a crucial role in maintaining mucosal homeostasis by sampling the luminal gut microbiota. However, there is limited information regarding microbial uptake in a steady state. We investigated the composition of murine gut microbiota that is engulfed by phagocytes of specific subsets in the small intestinal lamina propria (SILP) and Peyer's patches (PP). Analysis of bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences revealed that: 1) all the phagocyte subsets in the SILP primarily engulfed Lactobacillus (the most abundant microbe in the small intestine), whereas CD11bhi and CD11bhiCD11chi cell subsets in PP mostly engulfed segmented filamentous bacteria (indigenous bacteria in rodents that are reported to adhere to intestinal epithelial cells); and 2) among the Lactobacillus species engulfed by the SILP cell subsets, L. murinus was engulfed more frequently than L. taiwanensis, although both these Lactobacillus species were abundant in the small intestine under physiological conditions. These results suggest that small intestinal microbiota is selectively engulfed by phagocytes that localize in the adjacent intestinal mucosa in a steady state. These observations may provide insight into the crucial role of phagocytes in immune surveillance of the small intestinal mucosa.

A woman in her fifties showed symptoms of fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, and general fatigue 2 days after she was bitten by a sick cat, which had later died, in Yamaguchi prefecture, western Japan, in June 2016. She subsequently died of multiorgan failure, and an autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death. However, the etiological pathogens were not quickly identified. The pathological features of the patient were retrospectively re-examined, and the pathology of the regional lymph node at the site of the cat bite was found to show necrotizing lymphadenitis with hemophagocytosis. The pathological features were noted to be similar to those of patients reported to have severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS). Therefore, the lymph node section was retrospectively tested immunohistochemically, revealing the presence of the SFTS virus (SFTSV) antigen. The sick cat showed similar symptoms and laboratory findings similar to those shown in human SFTS cases. The patient had no history of tick bites, and did not have skin lesions suggestive of these. She had not undertaken any outdoor activities. It is highly possible that the patient was infected with SFTSV through the sick cat’s bite. If a patient gets sick in an SFTS-endemic region after being bitten by a cat, SFTS should be considered in the differential diagnosis.

In diffuse liver disease, it is extremely important to make an accurate diagnosis of liver fibrosis prior to determining indications for therapy or predicting treatment outcome and malignant potential. Although liver biopsy has long been the gold standard in the diagnosis of liver fibrosis, it is still an invasive method. In addition, the sampling error is an intrinsic problem of liver biopsy. Non-invasive serological methods for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis can be affected by factors unrelated to the liver. Recently, after the introduction of FibroScan, it became possible to measure liver fibrosis directly and non-invasively by elastography, which has attracted attention as a non-invasive imaging diagnostic tool for liver fibrosis. In addition, real-time tissue elastography is currently being used to conduct clinical trials at many institutions. Moreover, virtual touch quantification enables the observation of liver stiffness at any location by simply observing B-mode images. Furthermore, the recently developed ShearWave elastography visualizes liver stiffness on a color map. Elastography is thought to be useful for all types of diffuse liver diseases. Because of its association with portal hypertension and liver carcinogenesis, elastography is expected to function as a novel prognostic tool for liver disease. Although various elastographic devices have been developed by multiple companies, each device has its own measurement principle, method, and outcome, creating confusion in clinical settings. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the characteristics of each device in advance. The objective of this guideline, which describes the characteristics of each device based on the latest knowledge, is for all users to be able to make the correct diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis by ultrasound elastography.

A 41-year-old premenopausal woman presented to our hospital with lower abdominal distention and epigastralgia. An ovarian endometriotic cyst was noted when she was 30 years, and was only followed up until she was 36 years. Suspecting rupture of an ovarian tumor, left adnexectomy was performed. The left ovarian tumor was diagnosed as an ovarian carcinosarcoma of the heterologous type occurring in the endometriotic cyst. The carcinosarcoma was composed of an admixture of high-grade carcinomatous and sarcomatous components, including rhabdomyosarcoma. Thereafter, secondary surgery was concluded, which confirmed the tumor stage to be pT1c3. She postoperatively received 6 cycles of docetaxel/carboplatin as adjuvant chemotherapy and achieved recurrence-free survival for 40 months. Among ovarian carcinosarcomas, cases occurring in endometriotic cysts are particularly rare and may have a relatively good prognosis, because tumor cells, especially sarcoma components, tend to be confined to the ovaries. Pathological estimation of the origin of carcinosarcoma is important, because it appears to correlate with prognosis.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess prospectively the accuracy of measurement of liver fibrosis with real-time tissue elastography (RTE) in patients with chronic viral hepatitis. Methods: Two hundred and forty-five patients were prospectively enrolled. Nine image features were measured from strain images, and Liver Fibrosis Index (LFI) was calculated from these features. Fibrosis stage was diagnosed from pathological specimens obtained by ultrasound-guided biopsy. LFI and serological markers were compared with pathological diagnosis, and the diagnostic performance of RTE was compared. Results: LFI in stages F0-F1, F2, F3 and F4 was 1.58, 2.03, 2.40 and 2.86, respectively, demonstrating a stepwise increase with increasing severity of liver fibrosis (p < 0.001). LFI in F2 did not significantly differ from that in F3, whereas for all other combinations of stages, there were significant differences. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the LFI, platelet count, aspartate/alanine aminotransferase ratio, aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio, and FibroIndex for predicting F3 stage or higher (F0-F2 vs. F3-F4) was 0.865, 0.824, 0.708, 0.789 and 0.828, respectively. Conclusions: RTE is useful for diagnosis of liver fibrosis, regardless of stage, in patients with chronic viral hepatitis.

Next-generation power electronics require efficient heat dissipation management, and molecular design guidelines are needed to develop polymers with high thermal conductivity. Polymer materials have considerably lower thermal conductivity than metals and ceramics due to phonon scattering in the amorphous region. The spontaneous orientation of the molecular chains of liquid crystalline polymers could potentially give rise to high thermal conductivity, but the molecular design of such polymers remains largely empirical. In this study, we developed a machine learning model that predicts with more than 96% accuracy whether liquid crystalline states will form based on the chemical structure of the polymer. By exploring the inverse mapping of this model, we identified a comprehensive set of chemical structures for liquid crystalline polyimides. The polymers were then experimentally synthesized, and the results confirmed that they form liquid crystalline phases, with all polymers exhibiting calculated thermal conductivities within the range of 0.722–1.26 W m −1 K −1 .

The evolutionary success of Staphylococcus aureus as an opportunistic human pathogen is largely attributed to its prominent abilities to cope with a variety of stresses and host bactericidal factors. Reactive oxygen species are important weapons in the host arsenal that inactivate phagocytosed pathogens, but S. aureus can survive in phagosomes and escape from phagocytic cells to establish infections. Molecular genetic analyses combined with atomic force microscopy have revealed that the MrgA protein (part of the Dps family of proteins) is induced specifically in response to oxidative stress and converts the nucleoid from the fibrous to the clogged state. This review collates a series of evidences on the staphylococcal nucleoid dynamics under oxidative stress, which is functionally and physically distinct from compacted Escherichia coli nucleoid under stationary phase. In addition, potential new roles of nucleoid clogging in the staphylococcal life cycle will be proposed.

The brainstem is a posterior region of the brain, composed of three parts, midbrain, pons and medulla oblongata. It is critical in controlling heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration, all of which are life-sustaining functions, and, therefore, damages to or disorders of the brainstem can be lethal. Brain organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) recapitulate the course of human brain development and are expected to be useful for medical research on central nervous system disorders. However, existing organoid models are limited in the extent hPSCs recapitulate human brain development and hence, are not able to fully elucidate the diseases affecting various components of the brain such as brainstem. Here, we developed a method to generate human brainstem organoids (hBSOs), containing midbrain/hindbrain progenitors, noradrenergic and cholinergic neurons, dopaminergic neurons, and neural crest lineage cells. Single-cell RNA sequence analysis, together with evidence from proteomics and electrophysiology, revealed that the cellular population in these organoids were similar to that of the human brainstem, which raises the possibility of making use of hBSOs in investigating central nervous system disorders affecting brainstem and in efficient drug screenings.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) is massively produced in the brain after cerebral ischemia and reperfusion. It reacts strongly with cellular components, which has detrimental effects and leads to neuronal cell death. DJ-1, which was found to be the causative gene of familial Parkinson's disease PARK7, is a multifunction protein, which plays a key role in transcriptional regulation, and a molecular chaperone. In this study, we investigated the neuroprotective effect of DJ-1 against neurodegeneration caused by ischemia/reperfusion injury. Cerebral ischemia was induced in rats by 120 mins of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) using an intraluminal introduction method. The intrastriatal injection of recombinant glutathione S-transferase-tagged human DJ-1 (GST-DJ-1) markedly reduced infarct size in 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining at 3 days after MCAO. In addition, we performed a noninvasive evaluation of ischemic size using magnetic resonance imaging and found a significant reduction of infarct size with the administration of GST-DJ-1. In GST-DJ-1-treated rats, behavioral dysfunction and nitrotyrosine formation were significantly inhibited. Furthermore, GST-DJ-1 markedly inhibited H2O2-mediated ROS production in SH-SY5Y cells. These results indicate that GST-DJ-1 exerts a neuroprotective effect by reducing ROS-mediated neuronal injury, suggesting that DJ-1 may be a useful therapeutic target for ischemic neurodegeneration.

The authors investigated the reasons of how a preignition occurs in a highly boosted gasoline engine. Based on the authors' experimental results, theoretical investigations on the processes of how a particle of oil or solid comes out into the cylinder and how a preignition occurs from the particle. As a result, many factors, such as the in-cylinder temperature, the pressure, the equivalence ratio and the component of additives in the lubricating oil were found to affect the processes. Especially, CaCO₃ included in an oil as an additive may be changed to CaO by heating during the expansion and exhaust strokes. Thereafter, CaO will be converted into CaCO₃ again by absorbing CO₂ during the intake and compression strokes. As this change is an exothermic reaction, the temperature of CaCO₃ particle increases over 1000K of the chemical equilibrium temperature determined by the CO₂ partial pressure. The possibility of a preignition due to particles including CaCO₃ particles is numerically simulated comparing with the experimental results.