The changes in the nasal cavity volume of rats with age and the area exposed to nasal drops administered into the nasal cavity were investigated. Results indicated that the nasal cavity volume lineally increased as rats grew older. In 7-week-old rats, the exposed area in the case of an administration volume of 25 μl, based on practice, was naso-, maxillo-, and ethmoid turbinate and this volume was enough to expose the whole area of the nasal cavity including the ethmoid turbinate. On the other hand, in 27-week-old rats, administration volumes of 10 and 25 μl were not enough to expose the ethmoid turbinate. This indicated that the exposed area tended to become narrower in 27-week-old rats than in 7-week-old rats, but the exposed area in the case of an administration volume of 50 μl was naso-, maxillo-, and ethmoid turbinate in 27-week-old rats. In this case, the volume was enough to spread to the ethmoid turbinate. Differences in the exposed area might be caused by differences in the volume of the nasal cavity. It was also indicated that the main exposed area was the inferior meatus in the 30 min immediately after administration. At all administration volumes, however, notice should be taken of the outflow of nasal drops into the oral cavity through the nasopalatine.

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Cytotoxic activity of blood monocytes from 19 healthy individuals was examined in vitro against the cultured floating cells of human breast cancer origin. Target tumor cells inoculated on monocyte cultures and maintained for 5 days were reduced in number, compared with the control cultures of tumor cells alone. Increased cytotoxicity of the monocytes was noted after in vitro activation by heat-killed Corynebacterium liquefaciens (Propionibacterium acnes). C. liquefaciens of the same dose as used for monocyte activation had no effect on the tumor cell growth. These results may indicate that blood monocytes have an antitumor activity and it can be strengthened by treatment with C. liquefaciens. Antitumor activity of blood monocytes and macrophages was discussed on a concept of the mononuclear phagocyte system. A possible development of a new assay method for macrophage function as a parameter of host defence state against cancer will be expected.

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To validate use of the common cotton-eared marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) in inhalation toxicity studies, its nasal morphology was examined. The nasal turbinates each consisted of one maxilloturbinate and one ethmoturbinate: these were more planar in structure than the comparable structures of rodents or dogs. The nasal cavity epithelia comprised squamous epithelium (SE), nasal transitional epithelium (NTE), respiratory epithelium (RE) and olfactory epithelium (OE), listed in order of occurrence from anterior to posterior positions. NTE was distributed as a narrow band lying between SE and RE. OE was limited to the dorsal part of the cavity, which was structurally similar to that of the macaque or man. Overall, this study revealed structural the similarity of the whole nasal cavity in the marmoset to that of macaques or humans. Prediction of nasal cavity changes in man based on extrapolation from experimentally induced changes in the common marmoset therefore seems likely to be feasible, making it a useful animal model for inhalation studies.

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Background Therapeutic angiogenesis for ischemic diseases has been successfully induced by the implantation of autologous bone marrow cells (BMCs). It is understood that interleukin (IL)-1β increases remarkably in ischemic tissue and has particular effects on angiogenesis. Thus, it is important to clarify how IL-1β would effect BMCs survival and angiogenic potential. Methods and Results The effect of IL-1β on BMCs survival, adhesion, and endothelial differentiation, as well as the production of angiogenic growth factors, was investigated using an in vitro assessment approach. BMCs were harvested from Zucker obese rats and cultured at a density of 3×10⁶ cells/ml with 5 ng/ml IL-1 β (IL-1β group) or without IL-1 β (control group). Survival and adhesion of BMCs were significantly increased in the IL-1β group than in the control group after 1, 3, and 7 days of culture (p<0.01). The release of vascular endothelial growth factor in supernatant was also significantly higher in the IL-1β group than in the control group after 3 and 7 days of culture (p<0.01). Furthermore, the number of differentiated endothelial cells derived from BMCs was significantly higher in the IL-1β group than in the control group after 7 days of culture (p<0.01). These results suggest that IL-1β has a positive effect on the angiogenic potential of BMCs in vitro. (Circ J 2006; 70: 1195 - 1199)

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In this paper, a novel method of high-grade brain tumor segmentation from multi-sequence magnetic resonance images is presented. Firstly, a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is introduced to derive an initial posterior probability by fitting the fluid attenuation inversion recovery histogram. Secondly, some grayscale and region properties are extracted from different sequences. Thirdly, grayscale and region characteristics with different weights are proposed to adjust the posterior probability. Finally, a cost function based on the posterior probability and neighborhood information is formulated and optimized via graph cut. Experiment results on a public dataset with 20 high-grade brain tumor patient images show the proposed method could achieve a dice coefficient of 78%, which is higher than the standard graph cut algorithm without a probability-adjusting step or some other cost function-based methods.

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Corynebacterium liquefaciens can induce a marked resistance to tumor cell (AH-7974) challenge in Donryu rats. This effect was also induced in T-cell-deficient athymic nude mice. The macrophages harvested from the peritoneal cavity of a rat injected with C. liquefaciens showed a marked inhibition of tumor growth in vitro. Therefore, the effector cells were assumed to be peritoneal macrophages. The time needed for activation of macrophages in vivo was within 3 to 5 days after injection of C. liquefaciens. Before or after this period, the peritoneal macrophages did not inhibit tumor cell proliferation. Furthermore, normal peritoneal macrophages were activated in vitro by C. liquefaciens and displayed remarkable antitumor activity. These results suggest that C. liquefaciens rendered the macrophages inhibitory to tumor cells even under T-cell depleted condition. On the other hand, in vitro antitumor activity of the activated macrophages disappeared completely after in vivo treatment of the peritoneal cavity of a rat with Trypan Blue, a lysosomal enzyme blocker. Resistance of the rat induced by C. liquefaciens to tumor cells was also abrogated by Trypan Blue treatment just 1 day before tumor cell inoculation. Trypan Blue blocked the acid-phosphatase (a marker enzyme of lysosomes) activity of the activated macrophages but it seemed not to affect other macrophage activities, at least in the following two points; normal macrophages treated with Trypan Blue had almost normal phagocytic function of India ink particles and, moreover, they could be rendered tumoricidal, same as normal macrophages, in vitro by C. liquefaciens.

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　Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2)-targeting antibodies and anti-hormone therapy are effective for most breast cancer patients. However, such approaches are not viable with resistant cases or in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients, given the lack of Her2 and estrogen and progesterone receptors in these patients. Thus, new drug targets are urgently required. From this perspective, we searched for novel drug targets using proteomic analysis, and identified Eph receptor A10 (EphA10), which is elevated in breast cancer cells as compared to normal breast tissue. Here, we evaluated the potential of EphA10 as a drug target by analyzing its protein expression profile/function in cancer cells, and then by using an anti-EphA10 antibody to treat EphA10-expressing tumor-bearing mice. Protein expression profile analysis showed that EphA10 was expressed in various breast cancer subtypes, including TNBCs, with no expression observed in normal tissues, apart from the testes. Moreover, functional analysis of the cancer cells revealed that ligand-dependent proliferation was observed in EphA10-expressed cancer cells. Thus, we developed our novel anti-EphA10 antibody, which binds to EphA10 with high specificity and affinity at the nanomolar level. Finally, therapeutic analysis indicated that tumor growth was significantly suppressed in the mAb-treated mice in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that the EphA10-targeting therapy may be a novel therapeutic option for the management of breast cancer, including in TNBCs which aren't currently treated with molecular-targeted agents. Consequently, we hope that these findings will contribute to the development of a new targeting therapy for refractory breast cancer patients.

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One of the major causes of mortalities around the globe is lung cancer with the least chance of survival even after the diagnosis. Computer-aided detection can play an important role, especially in initial screening and thus prevent the deaths caused by lung cancer. In this paper, a novel technique for lung nodule detection, which is the primary cause of lung cancer, is proposed using convolutional neural networks. Initially, the lung volume is segmented from a CT image using optimal thresholding which is followed by image enhancement using multi-scale dot enhancement filtering. Next, lung nodule candidates are detected from an enhanced image and certain features are extracted. The extracted features belong to intensity, shape and texture class. Finally, the classification of lung nodule candidates into nodules and non-nodules is done using a convolutional neural network. The Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset has been used to evaluate the proposed system which achieved an accuracy of 94.80% with 6.2 false positives per scan only.

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近年，新たな動物性タンパク質源として昆虫の飼料化が世界的に検討されている．本総説では，飼料用昆虫に関する海外や日本国内の動向を紹介し，ニワトリやブタを対象とした先行研究をまとめて検討した．飼料用昆虫の価格は高価であり，法律も未整備な点が多く，その両方が飼料用昆虫の大量使用を阻害する大きな要因となっていることを示した．一方，ニワトリやブタでは飼料用昆虫は魚粉や大豆粕などの従来のタンパク質源と代替可能であり，家畜の腸内環境の改善や免疫を賦活する可能性が示された．今後は飼料用昆虫の給餌が家畜に及ぼす影響の作用メカニズムの解明と飼料用昆虫が社会に受容されるための法整備，安全性の確立が必要になると考えられた．

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Procynocephalus and Paradolichopithecus are large Eurasian papionins from the Middle Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. The two genera are regarded as being phylogenetically close, but their phyletic position is still disputed, in particular regarding to which subtribe, Papionina or Macacina, they are close to. Many fragile structures of the nasal region are well preserved in the type specimen of Procynocephalus wimani from the Xin’an locality in China. Computed tomography scans showed that the Xin’an specimen has no maxillary sinus, an inferior meatus extending medially from the slightly superior portion of the maxillary body, and a thick maxillary body with no maxillary fossa. Morphological variation in the nasal region was surveyed in extant papionins. Our analysis showed that the maxillary sinus is found even in Papio/Theropithecus and that its formation is confirmed for all Macaca. The inferior conchae are suspended from the superior portion of the nasal cavity in Papio/Theropithecus and Mandrillus, and the maxillary fossa is developed by major absorption of the maxillary cancellous bone in Papionina. These findings indicate that a given fossil specimen having a maxillary sinus does not always belong to the Macacina lineage, and that a given specimen having a thin maxillary body is closer to the Papionina. Despite the paucity of evidence definitive of its phyletic position, these morphological examinations suggest that Procynocephalus is closer to the lineage of Macacina though it lacks the maxillary sinus. Whereas Paradolichopithecus arvernensis and Paradolichopithecus sushkini show some morphological similarities to and differences from each other and Procynocephalus, their nasal architecture is similar to that seen in the Macacina rather than in the Papionina. The morphological evaluations of the nasal region in African forms are expected to contribute to our understanding of the phyletic relationships and adaptive radiation of the large Eurasian papionins in the Plio–Pleistocene.

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