Original Article : Characteristics of Hemorrhagic Peptic Ulcers in Patients Receiving Antithrombotic/Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory

( Drug Therapy ),( Kazuhiko Nakamura ),( Kazuya Akahoshi ),( Toshiaki Ochiai ),( Keishi Komori ),( Kazuhiro Haraguchi ),( Munehiro Tanaka ),( Norimoto Nakamura ),( Yoshimasa Tanaka ),( Kana Kakigao ) The Editorial Office of Gut and Liver 2012 Gut and Liver Vol.6 No.4

Background/Aims: Antithrombotic/nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) therapies increase the incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. The features of hemorrhagic peptic ulcer disease in patients receiving antithrombotic/NSAID therapies were investigated. Methods: We investigated the medical records of 485 consecutive patients who underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy and were diagnosed with hemorrhagic gastroduodenal ulcers. The patients treated with antithrombotic agents/NSAIDs were categorized as the antithrombotic therapy (AT) group (n=213). The patients who were not treated with antithrombotics/NSAIDs were categorized as the control (C) group (n=263). The clinical characteristics were compared between the groups. Results: The patients in the AT group were significantly older than those in the C group (p<0.0001). The hemoglobin levels before/without transfusion were significantly lower in the AT group (8.24±2.41 g/dL) than in the C group (9.44±2.95 g/dL) (p<0.0001). After adjusting for age, the difference in the hemoglobin levels between the two groups remained significant (p=0.0334). The transfusion rates were significantly higher in the AT group than in the C group (p=0.0002). However, the outcome of endoscopic hemostasis was similar in the AT and C groups. Conclusions: Patients with hemorrhagic peptic ulcers receiving antithrombotic/NSAID therapies were exposed to a greater risk of severe bleeding that required transfusion but were still treatable by endoscopy. (Gut Liver 2012;6:423-426)

Growth variation in a natural japanese population of Pleurocybella porrigens

Akira Suzuki,Hoang Pham Nguyen Duc,Kosuke Nakamura,Hiroshi Akiyama,Yoshimasa Kasahara 한국버섯학회 2010 한국버섯학회지 Vol.8 No.4

A basidiomycetous wood rotting fungus Pleurocybella porrigens (angel wings) has been well known as an excellent edible mushroom and named as Sugihiratake, in Japanese common name based on its morphological and ecological features. This mushroom has been favorably consuming by Japanese people. In 2004, an outbreak of serious acute encephalopathy exclusively occurred in patients with chronic kidney diseases after the intake of this mushroom. Thereafter, many researchers have conducted to examine the factor of onset of the encephalopathy, but the exact factors that induced the encephalopathy still remain unclear. Matsumoto et al. (2005) reported the mushroom specimens from different geographical areas in Japan were grouped into two distinct clusters based on ITS rDNA sequences. Vegetative growth of P. porrigens is extremely slow even cultivation on natural media surveyed and its physiological characteristic gives a disadvantage for the development of various fields of researches on this mushroom. Thus, we attempted to find a medium accelerating the vegetative growth of P. porrigens for further research to elucidate the possible association between its chemical constituent(s) and the onset of encephalopathy. Fifteen isolates of P. porrigens collected from different geographical areas in Japan were cultivated on PDA. The growth of the isolates was extremely slow as we know and most tested isolates formed mycelia look like those often observed in the cultivation of basidiomycetous ectomycorrhizal fungi. Among them, we chose five isolates based on the ranking of their higher growth rates. The top five isolates were cultured in five kinds of liquid media, PD medium, MY medium, Carrot medium, Ohta’s medium for ectomycorrhizal fungi (Ohta, 1990) and Amazake medium (Ishihara, 2007), and on a solid medium, PDA, at 20℃ in the dark. The dry biomasses of the isolates cultured in the liquid media were determined after 6 weeks of the stationary cultivation whereas the growth rates of the isolates cultured on PDA were compared by the colony diameter after 8 weeks of the cultivation. Among the tested liquid media, PD medium was the most suitable medium for their biomass growth (17 mg dry mycelium/flask - 127 mg dry mycelium/flask) and followed by Ohta’s medium (13 mg dry mycelia/flask - 79 mg dry mycelia/flask), MY medium (10 mg dry mycelium/flask - 72 mg dry mycelium/flask), Amazake medium (8 mg dry mycelium/flask - 47 mg dry mycelium/flask) and Carrot medium (4 mg dry mecelium/flask - 18 mg dry mycelium/flask). The average biomass growths of the isolates cultured in the synthetic medium, Ohta’s medium were 20-92% of those of the isolates cultured in PD medium. No correlation was observed between the cultivation in PD medium (liquid medium) and that on PDA (solid medium). Extremely large biomass variation was observed among the same isolates cultured on the same kind of the liquid medium. Large variation in colony features associated with their growth rates was also observed among the isolates cultured on PDA. These results suggest that PD medium would be a suitable one for most researches and Ohta’s medium for researches requiring clarity of its chemical constituents. The above results also indicate that the Japanese population of P. porrigens has large variation in vegetative growth although we have not yet examined whether the tested isolates comprise cryptic species or not.

Growth variation in a natural japanese population of Pleurocybella porrigens

Akira Suzuki,Hoang Pham Nguyen Duc,Kosuke Nakamura,Hiroshi Akiyama,Yoshimasa Kasahara 한국버섯학회 2010 한국버섯학회 국제학술대회 Vol.6 No.-

Synthesis and characterization of conductive flexible cellulose carbon nanohorn sheets for human tissue applications

Karthik Paneer Selvam,Taichi Nagahata,Kosuke Kato,Mayuko Koreishi,Toshiyuki Nakamura,Yoshimasa Nakamura,Takeshi Nishikawa,Ayano Satoh,Yasuhiko Hayashi 한국생체재료학회 2020 생체재료학회지 Vol.24 No.4

Background: Conductive sheets of cellulose and carbon nanomaterials and its human skin applications are an interesting research aspect as they have potential for applications for skin compatibility. Hence it is needed to explore the effects and shed light on these applications. Method: To fabricate wearable, portable, flexible, lightweight, inexpensive, and biocompatible composite materials, carbon nanohorns (CNHs) and hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC) were used as precursors to prepare CNH-HEC (Cnh-cel) composite sheets. Cnh-cel sheets were prepared with different loading concentrations of CNHs (10, 20 50,100 mg) in 200 mg cellulose. To fabricate the bio-compatible sheets, a pristine composite of CNHs and HEC was prepared without any pretreatment of the materials. Results: The obtained sheets possess a conductivity of 1.83 × 10− 10 S/m and bio-compatible with human skin. Analysis for skin-compatibility was performed for Cnh-cel sheets by h-CLAT in vitro skin sensitization tests to evaluate the activation of THP-1 cells. It was found that THP-1 cells were not activated by Cnh-cel; hence Cnh-cel is a safe biomaterial for human skin. It was also found that the composite allowed only a maximum loading of 100 mg to retain the consistent geometry of free-standing sheets of < 100 μm thickness. Since CNHs have a unique arrangement of aggregates (dahlia structure), the composite is homogeneous, as verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and other functional properties investigated by Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), conductivity measurement, tensile strength measurement, and skin sensitization. Conclusion: It can be concluded that cellulose and CNHs sheets are conductive and compatible to human skin applications.

MPK9 and MPK12 function in SA-induced stomatal closure in <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>

Khokon, Md. Atiqur Rahman,Salam, Mohammad Abdus,Jammes, Fabien,Ye, Wenxiu,Hossain, Mohammad Anowar,Okuma, Eiji,Nakamura, Yoshimasa,Mori, Izumi C.,Kwak, June M.,Murata, Yoshiyuki Informa UK (TaylorFrancis) 2017 Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry Vol.81 No.7

<P>Salicylic acid (SA) induces stomatal closure sharing several components with abscisic acid (ABA) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) signaling. We have previously shown that two guard cell-preferential mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), MPK9 and MPK12, positively regulate ABA signaling and MeJA signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, we examined whether these two MAPKs are involved in SA-induced stomatal closure using genetic mutants and a pharmacological, MAPKK inhibitor. Salicylic acid induced stomatal closure in mpk9 and mpk12 single mutants but not in mpk9 mpk12 double mutants. The MAPKK inhibitor PD98059 inhibited SA-induced stomatal closure in wild-type plants. Salicylic acid induced extracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, intracellular ROS accumulation, and cytosolic alkalization in the mpk9, mpk12, and mpk9 mpk12 mutants. Moreover, SA-activated S-type anion channels in guard cells of wild-type plants but not in guard cells of mpk9 mpk12 double mutants. These results imply that MPK9 and MPK12 are positive regulators of SA signaling in Arabidopsis guard cells.</P>