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Notes: A high precision atomic polarimeter system for the use in beam-foil spectroscopy experiments with a few keV/amu heavy-ion beams has been developed. The polarimeter measures the circular polarization of fluorescences from the beam ion in-flight after the beam–foil interaction. The present system has two identical such polarimeters in both sides of the beam axis to reduce the systematic errors such due to the fluctuations of beam current, background and so on. A successful use of an ultrathin carbon foil (1.5 μg/cm2), which was durable for several hours against a few hundred nA beam irradiation, enabled the beam–foil experiments with such low energy heavy-ion beams. A performance test of the polarimeter system was carried out in the tilted foil experiments with a 1.7 keV/amu 14N+ beam. The atomic polarization was observed for the transition 1s22s22p3p 1D→1s22s22p3p 1P, whose fluorescence wavelength is 399.5 nm, in the N+ ion (N II). The polarization was approximately −2% for the tilt angle of −40° and showed monotone increasing with increasing tilt angle up to +2% for +40°. The polarization at 0° was (0.002±0.25)%, which is highly consistent with the expected polarization of 0%. This result indicates the high reliability of the present polarimeter system. This is the first tilted-foil experiment at such low beam energy. The present experimental technique will be very useful for studies of the polarization mechanism of the beam–foil interaction. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Background A recent report provided evidence that a disintegrin and metalloprotease domain 33 (ADAM33), a member of the ADAM family, is a novel susceptibility gene in asthma linked to bronchial hyper-responsiveness. However, there has been no investigation of the genetic role of ADAM33 variants in nasal allergy.Objective The purpose of this study was to test the association between ADAM33 polymorphisms and Japanese cedar pollinosis (JCPsis), a most common seasonal allergic rhinitis in Japan.Methods We conducted a case–control association study among a Japanese population, involving 95 adult individuals with JCPsis and 95 normal healthy controls. A total of 22 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ADAM33 were genotyped using PCR-based molecular methods.Results Six SNPs of ADAM33 gene, three in introns (7575G/A, 9073G/A and 12540C/T) and three in the coding region (10918G/C, 12433T/C and 12462C/T), were strongly associated with JCPsis (P=0.0002−0.022 for absolute allele frequencies) and most of the SNPs were in linkage disequilibrium with each other. A higher frequency of the common alleles of these SNPs was noted for the subjects with JCPsis in comparison with healthy controls. We also identified a haplotype associated with the disease susceptibility. In addition, associations were found between ADAM33 polymorphisms and various cedar pollinosis phenotypes including clinical severity, eosinophil counts in nasal secretion and allergen-specific IgE levels in sera, but not total serum IgE levels.Conclusion These results indicate that polymorphisms in the ADAM33 gene are associated with susceptibility to allergic rhinitis due to Japanese cedar pollen, but the functional relationship still needs clarification.

Notes: We examined the possibility that periodontal ligament (PDL) cells can differentiate into osteoblasts and/or cementoblasts in freshly isolated PDL tissues and in cultured cells derived from PDL. PDL tissues were obtained from the incisor teeth of bovine lower jaws; gingival connective tissues of the same animals were used as controls. Freshly isolated PDL tissues and cultured PDL cells showed an intense alkaline phosphatase (ALPase) activity both histochemically and biochemically. The production of 3′, 5′-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) was greatly increased in response to human parathyroid hormone [PTH(1-34)], in both freshly isolated PDL tissues and cultured PDL cells. In contrast, neither ALPase activity nor PTH-dependent cAMP production was detected in gingival connective tissues and cultured gingival fibroblasts. Furthermore, cultured PDL cells synthesized a protein immunologically cross-reactive with bovine bone gla protein (BGP), a highly reliable marker of osteoblastic cells. When 10−8 M lα, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [lα,25(OH)2D3] was added to the PDL cell cultures, the synthesis of the BGP-like protein was increased 2- to 3-fold. The maximal level of the synthesis was obtained 72 h after the addition of lα,25(OH)2D3 Gingival fibroblasts cultured with or without lα,25(OH)2D3 did not produce any appreciable amounts of the BGP-like protein. These results indicate that the PDL cells have phenotypes typical of osteoblasts, indicating that they may differentiate into osteoblasts and/or cementoblasts.

Notes: IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is known to commonly cause of end-stage renal failure in Japan. The glomerular lesions of IgAN have histological variations. The determination of prognosis and therapeutic strategy should be carefully done by experts because morphological information from renal biopsies using ordinary optical microscopy is usually qualitative and subjective. Moreover, the histological items for the evaluation of glomerular lesions seems to be unsatisfactory for expression of the disease condition of IgAN. The beneficial properties of scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) include not only observation of microstructure but also quantitative measurement of acoustic propagation speed (APS), indicating the tissue elasticity. In the present study we compared the APS of glomeruli with the pathological scores that were determined by ordinary light microscopy. We used stocked human renal biopsy specimens diagnosed as IgAN (n = 12) and normal/minimal changes (n = 5). All samples were taken by renal biopsy in Kagawa Medical University Hospital during 1997–2000 under informed consent of the patients. The obtained renal tissue were immersed in 10% formalin and embedded in paraffin. A fixed specimen was consecutively cut into 4 μm slices. One of the deparaffinized 4 μm-specimens was directly utilized for SAM without any staining, and the others were stained with haematoxylin-eosin and Masson Trichrome for counting cell number and evaluation of collagen accumulation. For the measurement of glomerular APS, the sample line was set on the equator of the glomerulus and then scanning of the X–Z axis was carried out to obtain the interference fringes that were analysed with a computer imaging software in order to calculate the APS. In light microscopic study, pathological scores were evaluated semiquantitatively by two independent investigators who were unaware of the sample number. Glomerular lesions were scored into five grades and glomerular cell number was also counted in individual glomerulus. The computer-assisted imaging analyser Win ROOF (Mitani, Fukui, Japan) was also used for the determination of glomerular collagen content in specimens stained by Masson Trichrome. A two-dimensional image (C-mode scanning) of SAM enabled imaging of glomerulus in renal biopsy specimen compatible with findings of ordinary light microscopy without staining dye. The glomerular APS in IgAN was significantly higher than in normal/minimal changes. This alteration of glomerular APS in IgAN was positively correlated to both semiquantitative pathological scores and glomerular collagen content determined by light microscopy. However, the cell number of glomelurus did not change between IgAN and normal/minimal change. As a result, we conclude that the glomerular lesion, especially matrix expansion in IgAN, was comparable with the absolute value among specimens. Therefore, it is suggested that SAM method is a novel and useful technique for quantitative evaluation of glomerular lesion in IgAN.