OBJECTIVES The relative influences of hypoxia and other environmental stressors on growth at altitude remain unclear. Previous work demonstrated an association between peripheral arterial oxygen saturation (Sp O2 ) and anthropometry (especially tibia length) among Tibetan and Han children at altitude. We investigated whether similar associations exist among Andeans, and the patterning of associ...

Armillaria mellea is a traditional Chinese medicinal and edible mushroom. Many cultured products of A. mellea have been used to develop commercial medicines in recent years. The chemical composition and activities of the major bioactive chemical components-polysaccharides-may be different because of differences in the raw materials used. Four polysaccharides (SP, CMP, CFBP and CFMP) were obtain...

BACKGROUND Although substance P (SP) is an important primary afferent modulator in nociceptive processes, it is unclear whether SP regulates its own release from primary sensory neurons. RESULTS Using a highly sensitive radioimmunoassay for SP, we have demonstrated that the activation of neurokinin-1 receptor by SP or GR73632 (a potent neurokinin-1 receptor agonist) triggered an increase of S...

Hydrolysis of surfactant phospholipids (PL) by secretory phospholipases A(2) (sPLA(2)) contributes to surfactant damage in inflammatory airway diseases such as acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome. We and others have reported that each sPLA(2) exhibits specificity in hydrolyzing different PLs in pulmonary surfactant and that the presence of hydrophilic surfactant protein A (SP-...

Many mutations in the aand b-spectrin genes are known to be associated with hereditary elliptocytosis (HE). Spectrin abnormalities are detected as abnormal peptides after limited trypsin digestion of spectrin (Sp).1 We had an opportunity to study a Filipino family living in Kuwait. The proband first presented with hemolysis at the age of 4 months and he was transfusion dependent until he was 12...

The occurrence and distribution of neuropeptide-containing nerve fibres in the human circumvallate papillae were examined by the peroxidase-antiperoxidase immunolocalisation method using surgical specimens that had not been subjected to radiotherapy, and the abundance of neuropeptide-containing fibres was expressed as the percentage of total nerve fibres demonstrated by protein gene product (PG...

Henrique E. Toma* e Koiti Araki Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 26077, 05513-970 São Paulo SP, Brasil André Luiz Barboza Formiga Instituto de Química, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, CP 6154, 13084-971 Campinas SP, Brasil Anamaria D. P. Alexiou Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, R. da Consolação, 896, 01302-907 São Paulo SP, Brasil Genebaldo S. Nunes Universidade Estad...

Recently, the cancer stem cell hypothesis has gained significant recognition as the descriptor of tumorigenesis. Although previous studies relied on transplanting human or rat tumor cells into immunecompromised mice, our study used the Hoechst 33342 dye-based side population (SP) technique to isolate and transplant stem cell-like cancer cells (SCLCCs) from the 4T1 and NXS2 murine carcinoma cell...

background & aim : pulse oximetry is a frequently used and standard non-invasive method for monitoring oxygen (o2)-saturation in blood. many factors including dark skin and pigmentation may effect on rate of saturation of the blood oxygen absorbed by pulse oximetry. the effect of nail polish and/or henna color on blood oxygen has not been yet identified and the present study has been carried ou...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the accuracy of noncycloplegic refraction compared with cycloplegic refraction in diagnosing refractive error in primary school children in southern Thailand. MATERIAL AND METHOD This is a cross-sectional study. One hundred twenty children aged from 6-13 years who had visual acuity of 20/40 or worse in at least one eye were included. All the children underwent autorefrac...