The effects of intravenous injection of purified rabbit apoA-I on the progression of aortic atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits were examined. In experiment 1, 28 rabbits were equally divided into groups A and B and fed a 0.5% cholesterol diet for 90 days. For the last 30 days, group B received 40 mg apoA-I every week. The fatty streak lesions in group B (23.9 +/- 15.6%) were significantly suppressed compared with those in group A (46.0 +/- 24.9%) (P < .05). In experiment 2, 33 rabbits were divided into four groups (8 or 9 rabbits per group) and fed a 0.5% cholesterol diet. Group A was killed on day 105, while groups B, C, and D were maintained for an additional 60 days on a normal diet, during which time groups C and D received 1 mg apoA-I every other day or 40 mg apoA-I every week, respectively. The lesions in group C (70.2 +/- 15.4%) and group D (65.7 +/- 20.0%) were significantly suppressed compared with those in group B (86.2 +/- 13.7%) (P < .05) but were not reduced to the level of group A (50.0 +/- 22.9%). Although apparent regression was not observed under these conditions, the present study provided the first evidence for the antiatherogenic effect of homologous and apoA-I on the progression of atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits.

The posterior inverted L-shaped approach would not involve osteotomy, tendotomy or division of muscles, while allowing satisfied visualization of the entire posterior aspect of tibial plateau and appropriate placement of hardware. This approach is a safe and effective way for the treatment of posterior bicondylar tibial plateau fractures.

Ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae and Platypodinae) rely on a symbiosis with fungi for their nutrition. Symbiotic fungi are preserved and transported in specialized storage structures called mycangia. Although pivotal in the symbiosis, mycangia have been notoriously difficult to study, given their minute size and membranous structure. We compared the application of novel visualization methods for the study of mycangia, namely micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) and laser ablation tomography (LATscan) with traditional paraffin sectioning. Micro-CT scanning has shown the greatest promise in new organ discovery, while sectioning remains the only method with sufficient resolution for cellular visualization. All three common types of mycangia (oral, mesonotal, and pronotal) were successfully visualized and presented for different species of ambrosia beetles: Ambrosiodmus minor (Stebbing) 1909, Euplatypus compositus (Say) 1823, Premnobius cavipennis Eichhoff 1878, Scolytoplatypus raja Blandford 1893, Xylosandrus crassiusculus (Motschulsky) 1866 and X. amputatus (Blandford) 1894. A reconstruction of the mycangium and the surrounding musculature in X. amputatus is also presented. The advantages of micro-CT compared to the previously commonly used microtome sectioning include the easy visualization and recording of three-dimensional structures, their position in reference to other internal structures, the ability to distinguish natural aberrations from technical artifacts, and the unprecedented visualizations of the anatomic context of mycangia enabled by the integrated software.

BackgroundPrevious studies suggested that expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) may promote the migration and invasion of human glioma cells. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the clinical value of CDK5 in different grades of glioma in relation to Ki-67 labeling index (LI).MethodsWe firstly assessed by immunohistochemistry the expression of CDK5 in 152 glioma tissues and 16 normal brain tissues and further explored the relationship between CDK5 expression and other clinical features.ResultsThe positive ratio of CDK5 in gliomas (57.2 %) was higher than that in normal brain tissues (12.5 %, P = 0.001). Difference of CDK5 expression among four World Health Organization (WHO) grades was statistically significant (P = 0.001). The significant differences of CDK5 expression were also observed between WHO I glioma (34.8 %) and WHO III glioma (62.5 %), as well as WHO IV glioma (82.8 %; P = 0.026, P < 0.001, respectively). Furthermore, Spearman’s rank correlation confirmed that CDK5 was positively correlated with the pathological grade of glioma (r = 0.831, P < 0.001). The CDK5 expression was also positively correlated with Ki-67 LI (r = 0.347, P < 0.001).ConclusionsThe current result suggests that CDK5 may play an essential role in the tumorigenesis and aggressiveness of gliomas.